Atheism and Ghosts

[cloudyday2]

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".

When I say "ghost", I mean a supernatural being that causes the haunting experiences that many report. A "ghost" by my definition, is not necessarily the spirit of a dead person.

 

[Jack of Spades]

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.

Or an atheist can just believe that people turn into ghosts when they die without further depth into the theory. Atheism really isn't a world view at all, outside of the question of existence of deities, it doesn't limit anything.

 

[cloudyday2]

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?

 

[MehGuy]

Wow, that is very creepy. How many times did you see it move around?

I'm not sure. It was over the course of an afternoon. Maybe 20-30 times.

It would just quickly jerk back and forth real fast then stay still for 5 to 10 minutes. We took the batteries out of the remote and the motorcycle itself. I don't know much about electronics to explain it, maybe someone was playing with some telsa coil nearby? lol.

As for what happened to it. My friend said he sold it to some other kid. But didn't tell him about what it did. I guess he didn't like it around his house. I was angry when he told me that. Lol.

His grandmother recently died too (she also lived in the same house). So we kinda thought it was her.

 

[cloudyday2]

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.

That Ouija board experience is interesting. It is weird how people react.

 

[cloudyday2]

My ghost experiences make me believe in supernatural beings, and that leads naturally to belief in a more universal supernatural being (God). The Christian connections I have observed in these experiences are hard to reconcile with the historical evidence that argues against Christianity. That is where I am at FWIW. (BTW, I was diagnosed with psychosis several years ago. I think that diagnosis does not explain everything I have experienced though. I think the diagnosis was the only naturalistic explanation available to my atheist therapist.)

 

[Eudaimonist]

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.

It does? I don't see that. People can very easily believe in ghosts without believing in gods. Many New Ager types are like that.


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[MehGuy]

As for ghosts, I lack a belief in them as well. For the same reason I lack a belief in a God, because of a lack of convincing evidence.

Still, the spooky empathy can still fill me with dread and fear even if the more logical part of me doesn't believe in it. Although the emotional intensity has lessened throughout my atheist years.

 

[Arthra]

I've never really had any "ghost" experiences... and I've visited a lot of homes over the years. One time I was visiting a home as a Social Worker and the person asked me to stand near the door way of a closet... I did so and they asked if I felt a draft? I said no..not really. I attended a Seance once and the Medium went through quite a performance. I believe that the people where the Seance was given asked me personal questions and I just gave general answers.. I believe they would then tell the Medium about my personal life so I refused to give much detail... Sure enough she couldn't really tell me anything about myself I didn't know.

While Baha'is believe in life after death and that the soul/spirit survives we don't really believe in ghostly spiritualist phenomena or Mediums.

 

[quatona]

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'"?

 

[cloudyday2]

So how do they get from having a certain experience to identifying the cause as being a "supernatural being 'ghost'"?

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. 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 know if I have any experiences with multiple witnesses, but the hallucinatory explanation is hard for me to accept. Some of these experiences were so elaborate, that I would have to be psychotic. However, the experiences were out-of-the-blue and infrequent. Also, the experiences match the patterns of others who have experienced ghosts - even though I wasn't aware of these patterns until reading some books on the subject this year.

 

[Mister Bubbles]

" 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?

How indeed !? (There really ought to be an interrobang on my keyboard.)

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.

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.

Yes, Quid est Veritas, people are bad at thinking, we just do it well enough to have dragged ourselves to the top of the food chain.
Not buying into the Jesus story doesn't exempt one from a tendency towards mental sloth and a preference for letting others do your thinking for you.
Some people are very good at thinking. They tend to be disliked, especially by the american electorate. Haven't you noticed ? What values have brought out the "value-voters" crowd this time ? Humility ? Honesty ? (that one is actually a commandment.) But hey, at least he's white and doesn't do any of that fancy book-reading. But I digress.

Some years ago, when I was still living in the Bayou, I told this woman that I kept forgetting where I'd placed my coffee cup.
She replied, sotto voce, that she had read a book which mentioned the existence of "imps", invisible creatures who move objects from one place to another when you're not looking. She must have read some signs of incredulity on my face because she added hastily that the book she read was a "Christian" book. I never quite understood what she meant by that. I suspect she doesn't either.
But then I thought, she at least has an excuse for believing in preposterous nonsense. She's been trained from birth to accept certain things without question. If you're not familiar with rural Louisiana, let me just say that Christian kindness there is reserved for Christians only, and often only for a specific kind of Christian. Skepticism isn't much appreciated down here. Go ask former pastor Jerry DeWitt if you doubt 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.

 

[Quid est Veritas?]

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.

It does seem kind of superfluous in the modern world, doesn't it?

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 really follow how you came to this conclusion based on what you said before this.

Regardless, this is the same way I feel about Naturalistic Materialism (but that is probably for another thread).

 

[quatona]

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.

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.

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).

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.

 

[cloudyday2]

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. I had quite a few spooky experiences.

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.

 

[Robban]

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.

There are plenty of people who believe things even when there was no witness,
When the angel came to Mary,
there were no witnesses yet millions believe it.

 

[quatona]

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´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?

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 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...

 

[cloudyday2]

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...

The logic is is that most atheists do not believe in anything supernatural - they are metaphysical naturalists. An analogy might be belief in intelligent extra terrestrial life visiting Earth. As soon as a person believes in Vulcans, it is not such a big step to also believe in Klingons.

EDIT: You've heard the saying "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence"? Certain claims require a person to completely alter his/her world view. A person's world view determines what is ordinary and what is extraordinary, and that determines the quality of evidence required for belief in all claims of that class.

 

[Radrook]

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.

 

[Eudaimonist]

Atheists aren't opposed to the supernatural power as long as the word God or gods is excluded.

In fiction, anything goes. I love Middle-earth, and it is Catholicism warmed over.

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.

Q isn't God. He's a superalien that had presumably evolved within the natural universe. Star Trek is filled with such natural super-beings. Q may be powerful, but he isn't divine.

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.

Nah, I liked Stargate: Universe, and the show was hinting strongly that not only was there a Creator God, but that they had discovered evidence of that God potentially strong enough to convince a skeptical atheist.

I have no problem with gods in science fiction.


eudaimonia,

Mark