So what do we REALLY think about ghosts?

salamacum · Feb 4, 2009

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/7861216.stm

http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/UK-News/Ghost-Stalks-Derby-Hospital-Workers-Call-In-Chaplain-But-No-Exorcism/Article/200901415213782?f=rss

These items got into national media in the UK.

I can't enter into the fun-poking jollities of all this, as the media seem to need to.

It's not about caricatures of silly entities with white sheets and slots for eyes with arms akimbo.

I think it's something awfully real and awfully sad.

What's your view? What's your denomination's view? What's the biblical view?

Departed dead, restless, confused, unhappy, rootless?
Or demons?
Or psychology?

SoldierOfTheKing · Feb 4, 2009

If it were supernatural it would have to be demonic. The dead are dead until the resurrection.

StreetPreacher82 · Feb 4, 2009

SoldierOfTheKing said:
If it were supernatural it would have to be demonic. The dead are dead until the resurrection.

Agreed. But there is most definitely a presence out there and in most cases, I feel it is usually evil.

CyberPaladin · Feb 4, 2009

I think some of these instances are demonic others are delusions.

StreetPreacher82 · Feb 4, 2009

CyberPaladin said:
I think some of these instances are demonic others are delusions.

I have to agree. Not all claims are real.

MrJim · Feb 4, 2009

CyberPaladin said:
I think some of these instances are demonic others are delusions.

agree..

Auntie · Feb 4, 2009

SoldierOfTheKing said:
If it were supernatural it would have to be demonic. The dead are dead until the resurrection.

Actually, the Bible says to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord, so I believe that means the spirits of the saved are with Jesus.

Rhamiel · Feb 4, 2009

some are the spirits of the dead
some are demons
some delusions

Secundulus · Feb 4, 2009

I believe in them primarily because I have a picture of myself with a group of people and one ghost. Since I am in this picture, I know that it is not fake.

Here is the full picture:

And here is a zoom of our unexpected guest in the upper right of the picture. The ghost is directly in the center of this pic:

MrJim · Feb 4, 2009

Secundulus said:
I believe in them primarily because I have a picture of myself with a group of people and one ghost. Since I am in this picture, I know that it is not fake.

Here is the full picture:

And here is a zoom of our unexpected guest in the upper right of the picture. The ghost is directly in the center of this pic:

:o

GraceLikeRainFallsDown · Feb 5, 2009

I voted demons. But I do think a lot are delusions.

CruciFixed · Feb 5, 2009

I voted not sure until I realized it was boxes which generally means to me I can choose more than one in which case I'd choose demons and delusions.

Aibrean · Feb 5, 2009

I believe they exist but as demons (who can also take the shape of people of familiarity). I've had 2 experiences I can't explain which would lead me to believe they are demons.

CyberPaladin · Feb 5, 2009

Well saw enough to in my one encounter to believe there demons. Chilling effect from that thing was wierd to both the intensety it was I have never felt like it since and also felt it started from inside me.

4hurting · Feb 5, 2009

Sorry I'm not allowed to say

edie19 · Feb 5, 2009

didn't vote

I really don't believe in ghosts but like Secundulus have an interesting (at least to me) experience I don't know how to explain.

My granddad and I were very close - when he became ill with cancer he and my grandmother moved in with my folks for his last few months. My parents live about 2 hours away and I tried to get over to visit my granddad as often as possible - but a husband, active toddler, home life and work made it difficult at times.

Anyhow - I had plans to go over on a Saturday morning. The Thursday prior all day long I kept getting a mental push to go to my folks house when I got off work that evening. I was juggling all my schedules in my mind - trying to rationalize going that evening instead of waiting 36 hours. Anyhow - I talked myself out of traveling that night, but the feeling that I should just wouldn't go away. That is, until ~8:30 that night.

Between 8:45 & 9:00 my mom called me and I knew before she said anything that my granddad had passed away - at ~8:30. I knew almost to the minute what time he passed.

I don't think it was ghosts or anything - but even now, 26 years later I can't explain my knowledge that day.

JennyKatz · Feb 6, 2009

I voted for the top three.
The first is easy: some people are crazy. Also, some otherwise rational people can take a very mundane event and interpret it as a paranormal event, especially if they're in a space that they've been told is "haunted".
As for the second, why couldn't they be the dead? We don't understand everything about the afterlife and it's entirely possible that remaining on this earth in some form is possible, at least until the final judgement. Also, what about the idea of residual hauntings? Why couldn't someone's attachment to, or frequent presence in, a place create a sort of energy imprint that remains after they have physically gone.
The third is simple, as well: demonic energy could find a very easy mark in people who believe in hauntings and investigate them. This would be the most logical explanation in hauntings that involve malicious behavior on the part of the haunting entity.
However, there's a reason the supernatural is so fascinating. It involves the unknown and the unexplainable. We don't understand all the mechanisms that create what we call hauntings. It's entirely possible that one day we'll discover a perfect natural and mundane explanation for what is currently termed "paranormal".

salamacum · Feb 6, 2009

Very interesting JennyKatz.

C S Lewis talked chillingly of the souls of the unresurrected and the unsaved as like 'ashes', with the un-bodied personality 'decaying'.

In the meantime, those with obessive compulsions will be tormented by their inability to find any means of physically slaking their lusts.

Which makes us think how Jesus deals with our obsessions, carnalities when we die. Maybe he sends us to sleep until we are reclothed wondrously.

SoldierOfTheKing · Feb 7, 2009

JennyKatz said:
As for the second, why couldn't they be the dead? We don't understand everything about the afterlife and it's entirely possible that remaining on this earth in some form is possible, at least until the final judgement.

salamacum said:
C S Lewis talked chillingly of the souls of the unresurrected and the unsaved as like 'ashes', with the un-bodied personality 'decaying'.

In the meantime, those with obessive compulsions will be tormented by their inability to find any means of physically slaking their lusts.

Inevitably, this would spark curiosity in some people, who might want to investigate...

JennyKatz said:
The third is simple, as well: demonic energy could find a very easy mark in people who believe in hauntings and investigate them.

This a good example of how belief in immortality of the soul and consciousness during death can potentially foster interest in the demonic.

Annabel Lee · Feb 7, 2009

Spirits can be the departed deceased or something else, which for lack of a better word, I would have to call demons.

So what do we REALLY think about ghosts?

So what are ghosts?

Imaginary - delusions

the dead

demons

don't know - haven't made up my mind

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