HDC Weekly Debate #8: Do you believe in ghosts?
 

Well, since _V_ is still enjoying his hibernation, I figured I'd pick up where he left off and submit another HDC Weekly Debate.

Since the UFO debate illicited the most responses and some really good arguments, so I decided to pose a question in the same vein.

So, members of HDC, do you believe in ghosts or not?

If so, have you had an experience of your own?
If not, are there any particular reasons?

In the words of Linda Richman,
"Discuss."

I don't really think so, I'm a 'show me' kinda person...If I SEE one, however, I will believe :)

I love the idea of it

I'm like that two for the most part, however I do believe they exist; I haven't physically seen one, but I've sensed their presence. Whenever I do, I acknowledge them that I do believe they are among me, tell them that I mean no harm and they usually go by their way.

I remember visiting the Eastern State Pennitentiary in Philadelphia, where lots of big time criminals in the states where held. One of the cells I visited was Al "Scarface"Capone's cell. It was mindblowing a bit. We were allowed to enter in it, explore it, a couple of us took pics. Weeks later, Maury Poulvich sent producers there with special tracking communicating devices to track audio and visual images--to see if it was really haunted. They spent the night, waited til it was late, used their devices and asked any of the spirits to reveal themselves. Many did and in very distorted yet feasible voices, they respnded with emphatic "I'm Real." Then they went to Scarface's cell asked him how long was in for, his name, and the crimes he committed, and he did.

Many of there reactions, just like mine were surreal. :eek:

Nope .

Yes, why yes I do.

Though not to sound rude, there little to zero chance of me ever explaining the circumstances surrounding it (chiefly because I never share such things except to people whom know me well enough to realise that I am more likely to stick a pen in my eye then to make something up)

Well to be fair I am not sure I beleive in ghosts specifically i.e. dead spirits haunting the living. I sure as shit believe in something though.

I'd love to believe in ghosts. I'd also like to believe in UFO's, Bigfoot, The Loch Ness Monster, and that Gene Simmons didn't really suck on his solo albums. Without proof, I just can't.

I stayed at a friends house for about a week a few years ago and whenever I would be about to nod off I could hear men arguing and the sound of digging right outside my window. I'd jump out of bed and look out the window, the sound stopped and there was nobody out there. It happened every night I was there.

Do I believe in ghosts? it depends on what you think a ghost is. I think if ghosts exist they are just faint images of the past, maybe if a nurse walks down the same hospital hall for 50 years and you get a faint replay now and then. I don't believe ghosts are around us or in haunted houses haunting people, I think they are about the same as dead actors on film, except with a different medium. Also I think only certain people can see "ghosts", being inbred helps a lot I think.

I've always really wanted to stay at the lizzie borden bread and breakfast.

250$ to spend a night in Andrew Borden's room totally recreated as it looked when he was murdered? I don't know why I've been putting it off really... I don't know if my boyfriend would go for it though.

no - not a chance.

just another byproduct of man wanting there to be more than there is.
(and in some cases to conveniently explain some unexplainable events)



if nothing else - look at it this way :

how many people have died since the beginning of time ?
even if the tiniest percent died in whatever special circumstances that would produce a ghost - can you imagine how many there would be ?

it wouldnt just be the crackpot down the road seeing them ... they'd be absolutely everywhere. you wouldnt be able to sleep at night - the fuckers would be packed in like sardines.

show me a ghost - i'll believe - but until then, file them under magic, fairies, ogres, leprechauns, vampires, and peter fucking pan.

you have to be inbred to see ghosts.

I thought it was a right solely exercised by paganists and wiccans.

wicca is just an excuse to have wild orgies and dance naked.

I am glad I am not the only one who thinks that.

i think all of these things are experienced by either people who are crazy - or those who want something to cling to to make themselves appear more interesting than they are.

I think you need a third option in your poll:

"I WANT to believe, but need proof."

The idea is fascinating to me and I'm a sucker for "true ghost stories," but since I haven't seen anything in person, I an an unbeliever.

I'm basically in the same boat, I love ghost stories. Like those "Haunting in Alabama" shows even. :(

my favorite movies are the ones that have for forces of good battling the forces of evil (ex The Omen) but i dont believe in god or the devil.

i just enjoy fiction. and i'm happy to leave it as that - fiction.

I'm not sure if I believe in ghosts per say, I certainly won't rule them out....but I think there are definitely some unexplained forces and energies lingering around.


As for Wicca, if people bothered to learn anything about the religion, they would know it can be a really beautiful faith.

Al Capone would have made you into a ghost, if you’d have used that “Scarface” nickname around him. He was not particularly fond of it. He kicked the bucket a good 7 years after leaving prison in 1939(died from a coronary, not syphilis, like everyone believes) in Palm Island Florida, his home away from business.

So my question is, why would Capone haunt a cell that he may have spent a miniscule amount of time in, en route to Alcatraz? One that held no personal significance. And wouldn’t his ghost be more likely to be hanging around his old estate in Florida? Or one of his old hangouts in Brooklyn? The Lexington in Chicago? Alcatraz? I mean, surely, a newsman of Maury Povich’s caliber and integrity wouldn’t attempt to bamboozle the public with say……tricked out sound equipment?

most of them are in theory ...

Right. My biggest pet peeve is when people criticize religions or ideas that they have no knowledge about.

I'm kind of a ghost agnostic. I believe they may be around because there are some things that seem to point strongly towards it, though my mind tells me that there's probably a more logical explanation. Nobody really knows until they have no body.

Puns are fun

Thats what i was thinking.

Well isn't it believed that because these ghosts are ever so endowed with spiritual supremacy, they can also appear in more places than one. Is it not possible that though his estates were in Florida he wouldn't travel back to Eastern State? Yeah I know he didn't spent a long time there, but there's still a great deal of history/legacy behind--whether good,bad, etc. Is it not possible Capone would or does visit all the places you mentioned; but because the spirits can interpret our thoughts and actions before we do them, predicted when people were going to visit the cell he had in Philly, so returned to confirm his spiritual identity was amongst everyone; and once he confirmed it vanished to the other locations?

And many thought it was "tricked out sound equipment," including his behind the stage crew that he sent on the study. Accompanied with them though was some sort of guy whom was a licensed spiritual detector; a couple of times he was brought on the show to deliver messages and deliver omens to families whom had lost loved ones. This one woman had a child killed in a car reck, and another woman's daughter was murdered due to past gang violence & promiscuous activity (although the teen recently turned her life around) and both women told Maury and the gentlemen times when they had intricate moments and sensed and even heard the voice of their children; saw an image even alerting them that they were ok and comforting them. They thought they were going nuts, but the man came to their home, set up his equipment and detected them, and they responded.

Now you're getting the hang of this comedy thing!

No no no .....I don't know the official name of the profession. But I assume that's similar to what they call it.

And I wasn't trying to be funny

http://www.ladyofthecake.com/mel/fra...es/aintgot.jpg

I AIN'T GOT NO BODY...


Puns ARE fun. :D

I don't.
But I do believe people can leave behind an imprint of a highly charged emotion , especially terror.

Really, see tat's a a belief system I could get behind, we need as many flimsy excuses for such things as possible.

Personally I wish I still had the ability to agree with most posters here "I won't believe it until I see it", it's far more comforting to be able to wave off such things.

I am not a superstitous person, and like to keep the fantastic and supernatural in fiction, it just becomes harder to critiscsize such things when you hear your own voice re-telling something you'd critiscsize as nuts.

Many years ago I may have said "I'd like to beleive" now quite frankly I do, and I'd prefer if whatever they are just stay the hell away from me. You know?

I aint go no body is also a double negative

Sounds like demons.

But he does have a body.

I resent that statement. I grew up in a haunted house. Saw my first manifestation when I was three years old. I had no Wiccan beliefs and I am skeptical about most forms of Neopaganism, as many of them have popped up far too recently to have any real ideological clout and seem like a means of making money instead of a means of understanding the world. My family being both Irish and gypsy did have an undercurrent of superstition in their outlook, but my grandfather, who lived with us and worked as a jet engineer had none. He too didn't go in the basement after dark and stayed clear of the apple tree outside where slaves used to hang. It is not a matter of some people being more special than others or being inbred or sorcerous, I think it's a matter of attuning yourself to certain feelings in certain places. In some these faculties are greater than others, but it's not claiming magical powers. Some people are doublejointed. Some have no arms. Some have good hearing, some are deaf. It's a sense that anybody could experience faintly in the right place that gets interpreted differently. Going down a lonely road late at night, you feel like you know somebody died there. Somebody who is more attuned or looking harder feels more or catches a glimpse of a car careening off the road or hears a momentary snippet of crying. Who here can't say they haven't felt like they've been to a place where it feels like something's crying out, like the ground itself is suffering? Who here hasn't felt like they're not alone somewhere late at night? It's not just paranoia, it's sensitivity, impressions we can't always pick up, but that are there. Next time you feel something like that, try following the sensations, thinking about how close we are all to death and how mysterious the process is. See if the feelings don't come in even a bit clearer. Tune the radio instead of just tuning out. Do I seem like a stupid person, a hillbilly or a religious fanatic? Do I come across as somebody who would believe something they have no reason to believe? I certainly hope not. Fanatics and skeptics have one thing in common in this world and that's a closed mind.

Yes, I believe in ghosts.

Welcome back.

Doc that was an awesome post.

http://www.angelwebdesign.com/nella/giggle.gif

I voted no, but I can't say for sure. I've heard all the stories about families having a ghost in their homes, etc. When those stories were reported, I always thought, "He/she must be on something!" but later, more and more stories were reported. Either a lot of folks want attention and/or money for their "experiences" or, perhaps it is possible. I wasn't raised to believe in ghosts, but I do have an open mind about things now that I didn't have when I was younger. I started the thread about God. He can't be seen, but I still believe in Him. It's called having faith. However, I don't want to give anyone the impression that I think God and ghosts are one and the same. Maybe I used a bad analogy here. ;) I would have to see for myself to be able to say that I do believe. I don't remember ever being afraid of ghosts because my parents told me there weren't any. If I ever encounter one, I hope it's friendly. :)

you have to realize that there is a flip side to having the open mind (to this particular thing .... i do believe i have an extremely open mind - but that doesnt mean i wont eventually come to conclusions i believe to be my truths)

people who want to believe - will see things .. you can convince yourself that things are real if you really want to believe they are.

there are things like mass hysteria, self fufilling prophecies ..etc ..
when i was a kid i was afraid of the dark and convinced myself i could see things.

the people who want to believe claim this to be what the uncluttered, unbiased mind of a child is able to see. I dont believe that in a second.. it is a mild form of hysteria - the brain manufacturing things.

push that too far and it becomes delusion.. There are all kinds of people who can, or claim to see things that arent there - because they have a sick brain.


I pretty much stand on this the same way i do for any possible belief of a higher being or life after death ...

in my heart of hearts i believe these things to be completely false - but i also believe other folks have the right to believe what they want ...

dont agree with them ... i can't for a second understand how they can believe in these things ... but thats their right..


interested to know if you think anyone has been abducted by aliens ever ... they may seem to be unrelated - but people have the same conviction of belief in these things too.

As I haven't witnessed alien abduction, I'm unsure of its validity. Life after death seems to me like a natural function of the system, life on other planets may or may not be. The experience of seeing ghosts is based on emotional and spiritual connections to events past and people's sensations. Aliens would be a tangible phenomenon with roots outside the Earth. I don't think I could know it without seeing it. As I have seen ghosts, I believe in them. Ghosts sightings do not frequently appear as artifacts of hypnosis either and several reputable figures have had ghostly encounters or believed in ghosts. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle did. Who's more rational than the guy who created Sherlock Holmes? Victor Hugo did as well, as did Goethe and William Blake. I haven't seen people whose genius indicates they must possess clear enough minds to write some of literature's greatest works standing up for ufology. This doesn't mean I couldn't believe in it or if an accquaintance of mine who I trusted told me they had seen an alien, seemed serious about it and did not discover it along with mysterious ritual satanic abuse under hypnosis, I wouldn't believe them. I would ask to recount their story, look into folklore, accounts of all kinds of phenomena and local legends to see if something else could account for it. I do believe in cryptids and various freaks of nature because of the general oddness of some of the animal kingdom and of the animals we have discovered over time. But one thing to rationally think about regarding paranormal phenomena could be mass hysteria since it's experienced similarly in various places under various conditions. Psychological disorders tend to manifest usually under the same occasions for the same types of mind, which for some witnessing ghosts is not always the open mind that wishes there were ghosts. I've been around people who did not believe or want to believe and came to believe through observation and feeling. That's all I'll say on the subject. Skeptics have a right to their beliefs as do I, but I think skeptics should stop telling people that they're clearly schizophrenic or regressive.

Grammar is fun!

that sucks for me, because there's a little boy on my stairwell.

now I have a few questions for my mother:mad: