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Well, I personally will unlikely ever get the opportunity to say "I experienced a ghost" - simply because I don´t know what a ghost is supposed to be, what it´s supposed to look like, talk like, walk like, smells like...
No doubt, many people (including myself) sometimes experience "strange things" (or, as I´d say, things they have no explanation for) - but I don´t know what´s required for identifying a strange thing or event as "ghost".
I agree with you generally, but I can think of a couple of exceptions. A person might believe that some higher power besides a deity imbues humans with souls that can exist after the body has died. Another person might engage in some sort of pseudoscience that says an organism naturally leaves behind an energy imprint that can manifest as an orb or specter.
When I was 13, me and my friends had a remote control motorcycle that would move around by itself. Still happened after we removed all the batteries. Was weird.
We had fun with it though. We would pass it around to each other. Mostly we kept it around us while playing PS2 games. And everytime it moved we all darted upstairs.
Wow, that is very creepy. How many times did you see it move around?
This is what happened to me and the group of friends I discussed in my story. We went back to investigate the scene and figure out what happened (glass breaking) but as a group we didn't discuss it again that night or ever, and definitely never used a ouija board again. My bf and I talked a little about it and looked up some advice on the Internet (this was 97 so the resources weren't as good) but we let it drop because it just didn't make sense. In fact, for a long time it remained a weird memory and I was embarrassed to even admit to having experienced it. I just happened to go into a humanistic psych program in college that entertained all sorts of interesting ideas on consciousness and the paranormal, and that brought me back..
I share the suspicion that certain psychological states can attract the supernatural. Because of that, these experiences are hard to manufacture.
Theoretically an atheist can believe in ghosts as long as he/she disbelieves in gods, but as a practical matter it seems that believing in ghosts opens the door to believing in gods.
So how do they get from having a certain experience to identifying the cause as being a "supernatural being 'ghost'"?When I say "ghost", I mean a supernatural being that causes the haunting experiences that many report.
So how do they get from having a certain experience to identifying the cause as being a "supernatural being 'ghost'"?
" If I am going to assume that God exists and as a supernatural entity interferes with His created world, then how can I just casually dismiss other such claimed phenomena, which also seems to contradict basic naturalistic materialism?
As a side note: I am sure there are atheists who believe in the supernatural, but I doubt their worldviews would be very consistent and likely very much prone to holding contradictory beliefs. For again to believe in the supernatural, your underlying philosophical metaphysics have to allow for it to occur.
It does seem kind of superfluous in the modern world, doesn't it?Yes, but who needs consistency when your chakras have been properly aligned, when that patchouli incense comes wafting towards you from Madam Zora's palm-reading shop, or when you are steering your Volvo towards your Reiki class.
I don't really follow how you came to this conclusion based on what you said before this.So my complaint against religion is two-fold: the beliefs themselves are both false and deleterious, but the way of thinking itself does more harm still.
Mr. B.
I don´t think "seems to" is a sufficient reason. Personally, I don´t see the logic in the assumption that something that reacts to you is supernatural.It's the nature of the experience. When the experience seems to react to you, then it seems more likely to be created by a "being" as opposed to a unthinking cause like nature.
Maybe it´s harder to explain it as a hallucination - but I don´t see how the fact that an unusual and/or seemingly unexplainable event is witnessed by more than one person suggest that there is a supernatural agent behind it.If the experience is witnessed by more than one person, then it is harder to explain as a hallucination (although there are examples of shared psychosis too).
I don´t think "seems to" is a sufficient reason. Personally, I don´t see the logic in the assumption that something that reacts to you is supernatural.
Maybe it´s harder to explain it as a hallucination - but I don´t see how the fact that an unusual and/or seemingly unexplainable event is witnessed by more than one person suggest that there is a supernatural agent behind it.
Maybe an example would help. I had some Eastern Orthodox books that had belonged to my father. There was one about life after death. I picked up the book and the reading lamp turned off. I set down the book, and the reading lamp turned on. That happened three times, before I decided I didn't want to read that book after all. That is what I mean by the phenomena reacting as though some intelligent being is interacting with you. Of course, I might have hallucinated this experience, because I was the only witness, but it was totally real to me.
Memories like that make it hard for me to be an atheist, because if I allow myself to believe that supernatural beings exists (even human spirits), then it is easy to believe in gods too.
I´m still not seeing how all this suggests that there was a conscious entity behind it, even less a "supernatural" one.Maybe an example would help. I had some Eastern Orthodox books that had belonged to my father. There was one about life after death. I picked up the book and the reading lamp turned off. I set down the book, and the reading lamp turned on. That happened three times, before I decided I didn't want to read that book after all. That is what I mean by the phenomena reacting as though some intelligent being is interacting with you. Of course, I might have hallucinated this experience, because I was the only witness, but it was totally real to me. I had quite a few spooky experiences.
I still can´t see the logic in "I had an encounter that suggest the existence of supernatural entity A, therefore it´s easy to believe in supernatural entity B."Memories like that make it hard for me to be an atheist, because if I allow myself to believe that supernatural beings exists (even human spirits), then it is easy to believe in gods too.
I´m still not seeing how all this suggests that there was a conscious entity behind it, even less a "supernatural" one.
Of course, there is a human tendency to assume an agent behind a signficant event - but the question remains: Is there any compelling logic supporting this habit?
I still can´t see the logic in "I had an encounter that suggest the existence of supernatural entity A, therefore it´s easy to believe in supernatural entity B."
But whatever floats your boat...
Atheists aren't opposed to the supernatural power as long as the word God or gods is excluded.
Look at the series Star Trek the New Generation. You have the entity Q who is practically almighty. Yet atheists who watch never take umbrage with it because Q isn't called God.
Had the Q been referred to as the creator God then atheists would have severely criticized it as religious propaganda unfitting a sci fi program.
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