Has anyone seen or heard a ghost?

by AwfulTruth Fri Mar 30, 2012 10:00 pm

First topic message reminder :

I have - seen and heard several. Am I crazy? monkey

There is a theory that most people believe they have had some kind of encounter with the dead - or whatever these things are.

It is also postulated that the dark matter in the universe may hold the key to a further dimension which may explain the spirit world. Quantum physics certainly opens the door to this strange idea, if we explore what Einstein expounded.

If you have had an experience please tell us what it was, where and when, etc. Then I will mention my own brush with the supernatural.

:affraid:

by Dan Fante Tue Nov 26, 2013 4:10 pm

Some barbecue, eh, Stu?

by stuart torr Tue Nov 26, 2013 6:18 pm

Wouldn't like being behind one of those when it dumped its load though, wow what a heap. afraid

by Bellatori Tue Nov 26, 2013 8:04 pm

Dan Fante wrote:Some barbecue, eh, Stu?

The decision to have a wing or a leg when the Maoris barbecued a Moa would have been a big decision.

by stuart torr Tue Nov 26, 2013 8:08 pm

Would have took an awful lot of stuffing eh!!. Laughing

by Heretic Tue Nov 26, 2013 10:52 pm

Have I ever seen a ghost?

I think the answer must be yes. I have seen the ghost of a man that had been full of self confidence, knew his own mind, was strong, had a position in his neighbourhood that reflected the help that he gave those that needed it (he was a time-served-joiner by trade), he was cheerful and full of life.

A few weeks later he was studying his bible every waking moment that he wasn't working, he attended prayer group four times a week, he no longer had time or energy left for his family, friends or neighbours. Every penny that did not get spent on his subsistence went on church activities. He signed over a sizeable inheritance to the church. He was in all real respects a zombie or a ghost.

It would not surprise you that the church was an ultra strict Baptist church and they had a very small but loyal congregation that seemed to go out of their way to separate themselves not only from the world but from other churches and Christians too. They always had a reason why he shouldn't talk to someone without a member of the church being present. The 'pastor' was a refuge collector (nothing wrong with that) but seemed to have an income that far exceeded what you might expect for someone in his position (this was evidenced by him home, car, apparent disposable income etc.

That ghost/zombie/whatever has since left that small church and is slowly rebuilding his life. His friends have forgiven him for the way he treated them and for the most part his family and neighbours too. He is still a Christian but he is following a far less extreme model.

Do ghosts exist? Yes.

Can they be brought back to life ? Yes, but it takes a lot of love, patience and goodwill.

Heretic

by Dan Fante Wed Nov 27, 2013 9:57 am

stuart torr wrote:Would have took an awful lot of stuffing eh!!.

Just reminded me of my Dad there, who thinks it's hilarious when he asks (every single Xmas day without fail): "Who wants stuffing?"

by Dan Fante Wed Nov 27, 2013 10:02 am

Bellatori wrote:
Dan Fante wrote:Some barbecue, eh, Stu?
The decision to have a wing or a leg when the Maoris barbecued a Moa would have been a big decision.

What I find incredible is that there was an eagle that was their predator.

by stuart torr Wed Nov 27, 2013 12:14 pm

I'm only 53 dan how old is your dad if we have the same sense of humour. Laughing

by Dan Fante Wed Nov 27, 2013 1:36 pm

stuart torr wrote:I'm only 53 dan how old is your dad if we have the same sense of humour.

68 last birthday. A young 68 though, if you know what I mean. I say that partly because I have a similar sense of humour too Wink

by stuart torr Wed Nov 27, 2013 1:52 pm

We would get on then if we all met up Dan. thumbsup

by Dan Fante Wed Nov 27, 2013 3:03 pm

Up to a point, then we'd get sick of the jokes Wink

by stuart torr Wed Nov 27, 2013 4:38 pm

Probably Dan, then people would be saying, don't they ever talk serious. clown

by Dr Sheldon Cooper PhD Thu Nov 28, 2013 9:49 pm

polyglide wrote:I may seem a little unkind at times but that is because I realy want to enable all to consider alternatives rather than be a pussy cat in attempting to bring faith into your lives.

Faith can move mountains and so can natural causes, however, the former does so in a nice way and gives help and peace of mind to thousands of people.

You will find it is usually those with very little who find faith is a healing agent and also it gives a meaning to life.
Dr Sheldon Cooper PhD wrote:Naturally, a superhuman deity who watches over everything and puts right all wrongs in an afterlife, giving eternal bliss to those who lead lives of poverty want and deprivation must be an appealing idea, that doesn't make it true of course. There is for a start no credible evidence, and no empirical evidence of any kind for the existence of a deity; and the cynic and socialist in me can't fail to notice what a powerful tool this "delusion" is to control people whose lives are so hard and miserable that they might otherwise put up a lot more resistance to the "natural" order.
If you believe in evolution then there is no meaning to life whatsoever.
Dr Sheldon Cooper PhD wrote:I've heard this many times, and it's utter nonsense, my life has meaning to me and to those that know and love me, family and friends, and that is reciprocated. The statement, though it may not be intended to be of course, is extremely arrogant and a little offensive. I guarantee my life has as much meaning to me as any theists, and I don't have to live my life in servile subjugation and grovelling as thanks for being born.

by Dr Sheldon Cooper PhD Thu Nov 28, 2013 9:51 pm

Bellatori wrote:
polyglide wrote:...Faith can move mountains...
No it can't. That takes, at the very least, men with pick axes and shovels. It always amuses me when this old saw is trotted out. Whenever a project succeeds it is because the people had faith - I often wonder whether the money, the organisation and the time and effort did not have more to do with it myself. Then again when a project fails this becomes a lack of faith. God was not on their side. Strange how it is never because the project was simply badly thought through, unnecessary or simply wrong headed.

It's an easily tested hypothesis as well, but it remains another unevidenced claim.

by stuart torr Thu Nov 28, 2013 10:05 pm

Sheldon, Faith can move mountains you know, but it would take her one hell of a long time on her own. Laughing

by Bellatori Sun Dec 01, 2013 5:34 pm

Tosh wrote:American sports stars love to thank God for their victories, who do the losers blame for their losses?

Clearly they did not pray hard enough Very Happy

As Robert Heinlein said Wink

If you pray hard enough, you can make water run uphill. How hard? Why, hard enough to make water run uphill, of course!

by polyglide Mon Dec 02, 2013 10:14 am

One may enjoy all that the world has to offer, however, unless there is a meaning towards a given end there is no point whatsoever in life.

Just explain what the point in all aspects of history there has been other than that people and animals have lived the life they have.

If life went on forever in a like manner there would be no actual point.

by Bellatori Mon Dec 02, 2013 12:51 pm

polyglide wrote:...unless there is a meaning towards a given end there is no point whatsoever in life...

Why should there be a point? Does a snowflake concern itself with the need for a point in its life? Does it look for a purpose? I have pointed out before that self cognition may not, of itself be a survival trait. In many respects being self aware is a handicap. This maundering over purpose and the depression that it engenders is a good example. Religion was 'invented' to ameliorate that problem. The truth is, there is no purpose in life other than life itself. You make of it what you will. Of course one can choose to squander it in purposeless seeking for higher meaning and divinity but, frankly, I chose friends and family as more important. Life is short enough without wasting it.

Of course the respons that is often offered is that 'MAN' is different. I often wonder if those who promulgate such a notion realise the hubris implicit in it.

by Shirina Mon Dec 02, 2013 1:23 pm

polyglide wrote:One may enjoy all that the world has to offer, however, unless there is a meaning towards a given end there is no point whatsoever in life.

Religious belief, in many ways, separates the lions from the lambs. Religion is a wonderful mechanism for those who wish to be led, for those who abhor the complicated choices required in a truly free society and would like nothing more than for someone to tell them what to do, what to believe in, and how to live their lives. I'm sure this has something to do with why gods are always portrated as dictatorial and absolutist, with humans never having a voice in anything that gods decide to do.

Polyglide, and millions like him, seem incapable of formulating his own point to life. Instead, he wants some outside force or entity, some third party, to TELL him what the point of his life should be. The concept that says, "put your life in God's hands" is the same thing as getting rid of the ball in some sporting event because you don't want the responsibility of scoring.

polyglide wrote:Just explain what the point in all aspects of history there has been other than that people and animals have lived the life they have.

What is wrong with simply "living the life they have"?

If you believe in and worship a celestial dictator like all gods are, you essentially waste your life constantly trying to please this ever-angry, never-satisfied, thoroughly loathesome creature called god - and all gods are pretty much the same: jealous, egotistical, reckless, narcissistc, megalomaniacal, and sociopathic. Sure, we try to stick good traits to gods, as well, to make them more palatable, but how many people did the God of the Bible heal? How many people did God rescue from some grizzly fate? What gifts or blessings has God ever really bestowed upon anyone?

Now count up the number of people that God killed.

I rest my case.

by polyglide Wed Dec 04, 2013 11:45 am

Shirina, I can appreciate your ideas, if they were based on matters we at this time can understand.

Throughout life there are many things that appear impossible to understand, why should a worm be the food for a bird, however, when you consider the worm is a neccessery part of the cycle of both animal and plant life, intelligence and aforethought must be involved, this is just one of thousands of other similar situations in life.

Cut out mans part and you would have a system that continued to survive with no need for any evolution.

Now consider how man could fit into this situation if he was not an entirely differant being.

He is less physical that many animals, [in some instances less intelligent] has a multitude of abilities that no other being has and if not would have been wiped out long ago.

Now just explain how man could have evolved under those circumstances.

by Tosh Wed Dec 04, 2013 12:15 pm

Can you not read?

Evolution by natural selection is the explanation.

Human Evolution Made Easy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCayG4IIOEQ

by stuart torr Wed Dec 04, 2013 4:26 pm

Good answer Tosh.

by Heretic Wed Dec 04, 2013 9:08 pm

I'm sure I'm not the first to say it but perhaps PolyGlide and those of his ilk are living proof of The Theory Of Devolution - possibly the title of a new book by Richard Dawkins.

Heretic

by stuart torr Wed Dec 04, 2013 10:30 pm

You do come out with some corkers Heretic.

by Heretic Wed Dec 04, 2013 11:33 pm

stuart torr wrote:You do come out with some corkers Heretic.

Liverpool (The Pool of Life). Liverpool was called The Pool of Life by Carl Jung and part of the reason for that was because Liverpool was a mixing pot, partly racial, partly religious and this mix created a unique style of humour and I have been here a long while and some of it may of rubbed off on me.

Heretic

by stuart torr Thu Dec 05, 2013 11:00 am

I think it has Heretic, keep em coming. Laughing

by Dr Sheldon Cooper PhD Thu Dec 05, 2013 8:58 pm

polyglide wrote:Shirina, I can appreciate your ideas, if they were based on matters we at this time can understand.

Throughout life there are many things that appear impossible to understand, why should a worm be the food for a bird, however, when you consider the worm is a neccessery part of the cycle of both animal and plant life, intelligence and aforethought must be involved, this is just one of thousands of other similar situations in life.

Cut out mans part and you would have a system that continued to survive with no need for any evolution.

Now consider how man could fit into this situation if he was not an entirely differant being.

He is less physical that many animals, [in some instances less intelligent] has a multitude of abilities that no other being has and if not would have been wiped out long ago.

Now just explain how man could have evolved under those circumstances.

Wow! You really really need to educate yourself about the scientific facts of evolution, as these rather puerile attempts to explain them away just make you look very silly.

by polyglide Fri Dec 06, 2013 11:54 am

What is silly is your continued replies that would make a child laiugh.

I understand the THEORY of evolution, little green men might just as well cover it.

I could give just as good a theory about anything.

If you read the scientific findings you will see that there are too many gaps that cannot be explained, there are too many interdependancies that could not have come about other than all being created at the same time etc.

Evolution is a theory in as much as there is no actual proof that mutations etc. could survive and become an entirely different species if left to there own devices.

What is puerile is not considering the facts and decending to the pits of stupidity.

by Tosh Fri Dec 06, 2013 12:28 pm

Evolution is a theory in as much as there is no actual proof that mutations etc. could survive and become an entirely different species if left to there own devices.

mmm, what you and your fellow cretins consider as actual proof differs from the scientific community, in fact your opinion is worthless.

by stuart torr Fri Dec 06, 2013 12:44 pm

Well said Tosh. Wink

by Shirina Fri Dec 06, 2013 4:24 pm

polyglide wrote:What is silly is your continued replies that would make a child laiugh.

I understand the THEORY of evolution, little green men might just as well cover it.

Children will laugh at just about anything. They'll laugh at a brick.

However, your continued misunderstanding of what a theory is would make those same children cry. Not to mention the wails of lamentation from the greatest minds on the planet. The number of people simultaneously face-palming would show up on the Richter Scale.

polyglide wrote:I could give just as good a theory about anything.

Not an actual scientific theory, no. However, you're not completely wrong. After all, religion proves that you really can have any old "theory" and people will believe it.

polyglide wrote:If you read the scientific findings you will see that there are too many gaps that cannot be explained

Now we're back to the Argument from Ignorance fallacy. You even used the word "gaps" (haha!) which is why they also call this the "God of the Gaps" fallacy.

polyglide wrote:there are too many interdependancies that could not have come about other than all being created at the same time etc.

Religion requires too many assumptions, essentially bare assertions that you're just supposed to accept without question. What's even worse that religion requires us to engage in a whole 'lotta special pleading regarding those assumptions. Things like assuming God didn't need a creator (everything ELSE did, however), and assuming magic is real (but ONLY when talking about the origin of life). Religion asks us to believe in things that stand for the truth, but aren't necessarily true.

In fact, quite a large number of things Christians believe aren't even Biblical and they certaintly didn't come from God. Nowhere does God forbid the use of contraception, for example. Oh, and did you know suicide isn't really a sin? Nope. In the 1st and 2nd Centuries A.D., Christianity sprung a bunch of suicide cults who would harass travelers in an effort to try and get them to murder the Christians. When that didn't work, these cults would simply throw themselves over cliffs. This became so widespread that the Church ruled suicide a sin in 364 A.D. Today, people really think suicide is a sin, but it isn't - unless you think that priests can invent sins that God somehow failed to mention in a 3,000 page book.

My point is that even within your religion there are cherished beliefs that are demonstrably false and yet you folks continue believing in them regardless of facts. You want to talk about gaps and holes and theories, well, religion is full of them. More times than not, the crap you believe in is nothing more than after-the-fact rationalizations made by priests and pastors. In fact, the Bible that you love so much isn't even complete given how a group of medieval priests decided to remove a bunch of Biblical books and arbitrarily declare them non-canon. Oh, and if you ask a Christian why God would allow fake books mixed in with legitimate books, they'll say something about God testing us. Yeah, right. Just think how different your religion would be if, say, the Book of Enoch was left in the Bible but the Book of Psalms was removed.

polyglide wrote:Evolution is a theory in as much as there is no actual proof that mutations etc. could survive and become an entirely different species if left to there own devices.

It's statements like this one that proves you're not getting your information from actual science books; what little you know about evolution obviously comes from creationist websites or light creationist reading material. Otherwise you would know the basics of evolution and scientific theories and we could advance this debate into deeper waters. I may as well make up books of the Bible and then use them as arguments for evolution - that would be about as honest as your biased sources.

polyglide wrote:What is puerile is not considering the facts and decending to the pits of stupidity.

The irony here is that only science has facts to even consider. Religion and creationism only has faith, speculation, guesses, bare assertions, and confirmation biases. Not to mention lorry-loads of fallacies.

by stuart torr Fri Dec 06, 2013 4:40 pm

Shirina, you have literally murdered PG with your brilliant post there, and the worst thing about it is, he will not take one blind bit of notice of it, and carry on trying to debate ( as he calls it). With all the nonsence he has in his head, the only thing is someone must have taught him that puerile nonsence.

by polyglide Sat Dec 07, 2013 11:07 am

I would suggest that you stop behaving in a magniloquent manner and deal in facts rather than fiction.

Behaving in a inimical manner does not further your cause other than to those of a similar nature.

I would respectfully suggest you take a Quantum Leap from childish replies to addult reasoning, I think this is like a paper plane becoming a jumbo jet over night when considering evolution, you may do this in parallel with your friends of a like nature.

If you understand evolution you will appreciate the above implications but I doiubt it.

by Tosh Sat Dec 07, 2013 12:46 pm

If you understand evolution you will appreciate the above implications but I doiubt it.

This is funny, a drain cleaner who doesn't understand evolution lecturing science about not understanding evolution, it is just certifiable.

by Shirina Sat Dec 07, 2013 1:59 pm

polyglide wrote:magniloquent manner

If only you read science books as diligently as you do the thesaurus.

At any rate, I addressed this issue of "magniloquence" before. I'm certainly not going to hide either my vocabulary or my intelligence regardless of how smart or stupid someone else might think I am.

I know that American culture has turned its back on intellectualism and frowns at anyone who is above average in intelligence. If you display anything more than cognitive mediocrity, you are chastized as being arrogant, a show-off, a know-it-all, as someone trying to make the rest of them look dumb. I think the Republican education platform in Texas says it all whereby they wish to cease the teaching of critical thinking and higher order learning skills. Conservatives and religious wackjobs want to keep us all stupid so that we will succumb more easily to both religious fundamentalism and right-wing propaganda - because one needs to be especially ignorant to champion either of those "causes."

Therefore, if my manner happens to be somewhat magniloquent (which it isn't, truth be told) then good. If people have to ask me what a word means, then perhaps they'll learn something. But I don't go out of my way to speak articulately; it's not as though I consult a thesaurus every couple of words just to fool and confuse you. I won't be "dumbed down" by you or anyone else.

polyglide wrote:I think this is like a paper plane becoming a jumbo jet over night when considering evolution

Or perhaps it is like a tornado ripping through a junkyard and randomly producing an intelligent creationist. Idea

polyglide wrote:If you understand evolution you will appreciate the above implications but I doiubt it.

I certainly understand the implications of intellectual laziness - the kind of laziness that criticizes me for being magniloquent and wants me to write as though I were addressing a 5th grader when, instead, you could rise to my level by looking up words or asking me to clarify points you find confusing. As a non-native English speaker, I worked my tail off to achieve at least partial mastery of the English language so I'm not about to hide it.

by polyglide Mon Dec 09, 2013 2:30 pm

Shirina, I think you are at heart a very thoughtful and genuine person, just a little confused regarding life in general.

We all have problems of one kind or another along with our interpretation of life as we find it, there is no doubt what we personally experience dictates in part what conclusions we come to.

But surely you know in your heart that life with all it's complexities has not come about by chance.

And evolution is not the answer.

by Dan Fante Mon Dec 09, 2013 2:35 pm

by stuart torr Mon Dec 09, 2013 3:10 pm

by Norm Deplume Mon Dec 09, 2013 4:37 pm

polyglide wrote:
But surely you know in your heart that life with all it's complexities has not come about by chance.

And evolution is not the answer.

Natural selection is not the same as chance..

Life, with all of its complexity, variety, faults, dead-ends and limitations has promulgated by completely natural and understandable processes.

Magic is not the answer.

by stuart torr Mon Dec 09, 2013 4:47 pm

"Magic is not the answer" maybe not to normal minded people Norm, but to polyglide it could be. Laughing

by Norm Deplume Mon Dec 09, 2013 4:56 pm

That's why we have to keep pointing it out to him, Stu, in the hope that it might sink in someday.

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