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Odd question for you non-religious folks. :)

Mercy_Me
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Xuzi

Xuzi

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I'm not non-religious, but my mother's bestfriend was a ghost-believing athiest, and I remember her telling me that she believed "ghosts" and other paranormal activity were deffinitely real and "a part of the natural world", but that science hadn't yet found a way to explain what they were, or how they happen. She said that when science *did* figure out what "ghosts" were, it was sure to be something natural, but non-the-less amazing.

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sagira

sagira

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I do, and I'm Roman Catholic. I wouldn't believe in them if I didn't see a few myself - including my Grandma and father after they passed away. My grandfather used to see ghosts too, but my mom doesn't have that ability. I guess it skips a generation. I'm serious, BTW.

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thescrappyhomeschooler

thescrappyhomeschooler

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Yes, because we had one in our house growing up. I could tell you the whole long story, but it would take a while. I never saw it until I was in college. My mom had turned my room into an office, and I was home on break and sleeping in her room. I heard someone open the door and walk across the floor and sit in an armchair. I thought it was one of my sisters, so I opened my eyes to ask what she wanted. Only, it was a kind of opaque-looking guy sitting there staring at me. I shut my eyes and silently freaked. I didn't know what to do, so I counted to 3 and ran like a bat out of h*ll down the stairs. My mother then told me all the stories about the ghost in her room. Suddenly, all the times that various babysitters called the police because they heard noises upstairs started making sense. She also reminded me about how my younger brother (who was the only kid with a bedroom upstairs) would also come racing down the stairs and say that someone was watching him sleep. My mom would always let him sleep on the couch, and the rest of us thought it was "no fair"! lol! I remember one time, my mom's room was freezing cold like an ice locker, and the dog was standing at the door with his hackles up and wouldn't go in. My mom said she would talk to the ghost and ask him to go away and he would stay away for a while, but he always came back.

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ZeldaRules

ZeldaRules

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Yes, I believe there are spirits out there. I definitely believe in guardian angels. I was once coming home on a major highway in downtown Dayton, OH (meaning it was a very busy area). Some may call it luck, but I think something was watching over me...I had to step on my breaks quick, and my car did about 2 1/2 360's and I came about 3 inches from hitting a semi. My car was turned sideways when it was done and no vehicles or people got hurt.

 

I grew up Baptist, but consider myself agnostic now. I saw my grandma once shortly after she died. She told me she was okay. It could have been my mind playing tricks on me, but who knows. She did die in my mom's house.

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thescrappyhomeschooler

thescrappyhomeschooler

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Just wanted to add that my husband thinks it's hilarious that my family says we had a ghost in our house. He certainly does not believe in ghosts or anything paranormal at all. I keep telling him it's just because he hasn't met one, yet.

 

I would probably never have told anyone IRL outside my family about my experience with the ghost, but when I used to work at the law firm, we had a lunchtime book club that one of the bosses started. We read Beloved by Toni Morrison as one of the books. Several people, including my boss, had similar weird stories as mine, so I shared it there. I would never have guessed that those people who talked about ghosts in that book club would ever have believed in any such thing. There were religious and non-religious, Jews and Christians in the group.

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freethinkermama

freethinkermama

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:iagree:My answer is no.

 

Yeah, I have to go with "no". Now, I want to acknowledge the fact that I'd _like_ to believe. "I want to believe!" I'm sort of an Mulder, I guess. But I think that most weird paranormal things are created in our own brains. Doesn't take more than a tetchy synapse to make us think/feel all sorts of fascinating things.

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Mercy_Me

Mercy_Me

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Well....and this will answer Daisy's question too.....Every.single. religious person that I know IRL believes in them and to a degree I find disturbing. I'm an atheist and I don't believe in them. I have had odd things happen, but nothing that would make me believe "a ghost did it." Also, almost every person has a "story" to tell. I have had people tell me "I'm not looking hard enough". I'm okay with that. :D

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JeneralMom

JeneralMom

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I do not want to but I know too many rational people (religious and non-religious) who have had "experiences". I personally believe the brain is a strange and powerful organ and it sometimes does mysterious things. I frequently had nightmares as a child, and when I would cry out in my sleep it wasn't my mother who rushed to comfort me, but a young man who was always at the bottom of my bed, protecting me. He would disappear when my mom would finally show up. Do I think it was a ghost? Can't prove it either way, but I think it was more a coping mechanism my brain created. The last nightmare I had in that house was the night before I moved out, and he showed up as always. It was kind of nice. I've only had a few since moving out and he doesn't show up now, so who knows (creepy music playing).

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keptwoman

keptwoman

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Yes, which kind of annoys me.

 

 

Rosie

Same here! I'd like to be all logical and say pish posh to the idea. Unfortunately, I've had a couple of far too real experiences to be able to dismiss it that easily.

 

Most memorable, DH woke me up by talking in the middle of the night, and informed me that his grandmother had just visited, he saw her at the end of our bed. My DH (who was most definitely not sleep talking, that's my department) is not prone to such things and thought ghosts were nonsense. Well I told him it was rot because his grandmother was perfectly well and healthy, however guess what call we got the next morning! He woke me and told me that within minutes of her dying. :001_huh:

 

I've also experienced a few very odd goings on in a very old hospital I used to work in. Footsteps down an empty corridor etc.

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eternalknot

eternalknot

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Ghosts, no; spirits, yes.

 

I guess I believe in the energy and presence, just not the visible part. And I guess it's not disbelief in ghosts so much as it is I've never really given it much thought or attention (nor have I experienced or known anyone who has experienced one). I'm not sure what the true distinction is between the two (or if there is even one) but that's the distinction I have in my head.

 

My family - especially the older ones - routinely speak and consult spirits (departed family) but I don't think I've ever heard it mentioned that these spirits have been seen with the living's eyes. Dunno; now I'm curious, and will have to ask :)

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justamouse

justamouse

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I believe (and I'm Christian) and we have one at the building-it's the old owner of the building though, and he was a cool guy (he was a very rich, very eccentric, very troubled man). We feel very sorry for him. He just likes to remind us he's around. The freaky thing is that my dh will stay there all hours and doesn't care about it. And, my dearest friends have one in their house. Like, no joke stuff that happens. Kitchen tables being drug across the floor in the middle of the night when everyone was sleeping.

 

I have not bought houses because the feel in the house was bad. In that case I believe it was energy deep in the walls of the house as I hadn't seen anything, but I do believe that things like houses, furniture and earth have the capability of acting as energy recorders.

Edited by justamouse
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Nestof3

Nestof3

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I do, and I'm Roman Catholic. I wouldn't believe in them if I didn't see a few myself - including my Grandma and father after they passed away. My grandfather used to see ghosts too, but my mom doesn't have that ability. I guess it skips a generation. I'm serious, BTW.

 

Oh my, you just completely reminded me of an experience I had growing up. It's so vague now, but when it happened, it was so real. In my mind, ghosts make no sense. I don't see them as Biblical (I know, forgive me for intruding when this thread was supposed to be for nonreligious). But, I remember seeing my grandfather after he died.

 

Another time, I was in the kitchen, and I suddenly felt this strange temperature difference and felt odd all of the sudden. I had walked through the temp. change.

 

But, no, I really don't believe in them. I'm assuming I had dreamed about my grandfather.

 

Once, when I was walking on campus, a man approached me and asked if I loved Jesus. I said yes, and he told me to make sure to tell others. He walked past me, and the moment he passed me, I turned around, and he was gone. That was very eerie too.

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radiobrain

radiobrain

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I believe that many things we can't explain yet, can be possible. Many things that should be scientifically studied are not, due to the feling in the scientific community that if you did you must be a kook.

 

So, I am on the fence.

 

Lots of things that would have been considered "spiritual" in the past have been proven to be other things altogether. Who is to say that our "ghosts" or "insert paranormal idea of choice" won't be explained at some point.

 

I have seen something weird in my life... I do not know if it was in my brain, in between planes of reality or something else.

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Flux

Flux

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Most memorable, DH woke me up by talking in the middle of the night, and informed me that his grandmother had just visited, he saw her at the end of our bed. My DH (who was most definitely not sleep talking, that's my department) is not prone to such things and thought ghosts were nonsense. Well I told him it was rot because his grandmother was perfectly well and healthy, however guess what call we got the next morning! He woke me and told me that within minutes of her dying.

 

Me too. I was asleep and woke up having heard my Grandpa say my name. Oddly, I awoke with an adrenaline rush. I later found out he had died at that precise time as well.

 

I can only believe my own experience, I guess. I don't have a concrete opinion on the subject of "ghosts". I still pooh-pooh most of it.

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stephanier.1765

stephanier.1765

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I can only believe my own experience, I guess. I don't have a concrete opinion on the subject of "ghosts". I still pooh-pooh most of it.

 

:iagree:My immediate answer is no except I too had an experience. My great grandmother had lived with us for years before she died (when I was 19). After she died, I moved into her room. One night I woke up to see my great grandfather standing next to her vanity table, the only furniture left in the room that had been hers. He looked at me, then at the table, and then back at me and I understood that he wanted to know if she had died. I nodded my head "yes" and he disappeared. I was never scared. Quite the opposite, I felt I had been given a gift because I was left with a strong feeling of love and caring.

 

I didn't tell anybody for years because (1) I felt no one would believe me and (2) I felt that it was mine and that sharing it would somehow diminish it. It still does feel that way because anyone I tell laughs but I still am left with that strong feeling of love and caring and the laughing seems to violate that. Weird, huh? One of those things that is hard to explain.

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Ester Maria

Ester Maria

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Absolutely not.

 

One, I don't believe there are minds not generated by bodies, i.e. I completely eliminate the option of a consciousness of any kind that's not produced by something physical. In essence, I find that all phenomena are material phenomena - even things such as sounds waves are, ultimately, material, and "behave" with some logic. While I do accept that there are many material phenomena that we don't fully understand, I don't accept that there are inherently non-material phenomena.

 

Two, I know from the experience how unreliable human mind often is when it comes to reality. One can mistake MANY things for reality when, in fact, in altered states of mind (sleep, drug effects, etc.), which is another reason why I have a problem with taking an account of a personal experience for a necessary objective truth. Especially suspicious are all these stories which happen when one "wakes up in the middle of the night". I had a few weird experiences that way too, when I woke up or thought I woke up or dreamed I woke up in the middle of the night, but ultimatrely, I know that those experiences don't represent the actual reality, but rather a sort of mix of sleep and conjecture of my brain.

 

I never had an experience with anything of the kind to believe it's actually real, and let's hope I don't.

Neither did anyone in my family, anyone in DH's family, not a one from my friends.

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annandatje

annandatje

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Just curious.....and I warned you about the oddness, do you guys believe in ghosts? Why or why not?

 

I'll give my answer.....just not quite yet :)

 

I have not read any of the responses.

 

The word "ghost" probably means different things to different people, so I will answer it this way: I do not believe that a person's conscience is a separate entity from his physical body. Conscience does not survive death.

 

If I experienced what others call ghostly phenomena, I would look for natural explanations first since a natural occurrence would be more likely than a supernatural one. For example, if I were in a national military park and "saw" a solider in uniform, I would assume (1) that a re-enactor must have wandered away for a stroll by himself or (2) that I was concentrating so intently on the past history that my eyes and mind played trick on me. Now if I saw the apparition of this same solider on an ongoing basis, I would assume that I was experiencing visual hallucinations and seek psychiatric help.

 

We once lived in a house that was plagued with electrical issues. Lights would flicker, and we were constantly replacing bulbs. After having spent a pretty hefty sum on rewiring, the problem continued although not quite as intensely.

 

In another house, we heard scratching and sometimes clanging sounds in den. As soon as I would turn on light, the sound immediately stopped. This went on for quite some time before our toddler one day announced, "I see a nose in the fireplace." A mama raccoon had a nest in our unused chimney.

 

A few odd coincidences have happened in past that I cannot explain, but again that does not necessarily mean that they were supernatural.

 

However, ghost stories are appealing because of the fright of being seen by something you cannot see. We rented Discovery Channel's "A Haunting" series, but we do not consider these to be true but more like campfire ghost tales.

 

It seems that those who are predisposed to a belief in superatural events and beings or specifcally in ghosts are the ones who witness or experience ghostly activity. However, as with gods, I am always open to changing position should evidence arise that can be objectively verified

Edited by annandatje
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