Are Ghosts Real? (a poll)

[Autumnal]

I would pick an “I don’t know” option. My evaluation of others’ experiences is conflicted enough that I don’t feel comfortable picking either Yes or No.

 

[Older Beholder]

I went to a lot of seances growing up as a goth in a small town.

One time, my friend was giving the spirit we were talking to a lot of crap, saying they couldn't make a painting fall off the wall, etc...
The glass we were using on the ouija board went nuts. Just kept going to the number six, three times in a row... 6,6,6... 6,6,6... over and over, faster and faster and then finally flew across the room.

I never did it again after that.

Another related question is: Do you believe in souls?

 

[jdrakeh]

Using that definition, no.

 

[Sacrosanct]

I don't know if they are real, but as a kid we lived in a supposed haunted house. Weird things all the time. One day, my brother and his friends were over and we were watching MTV on the TV. Then the TV started changing channels on it's own. This was the early 80s. Our TV had a physical dial you had to turn to turn the channel. It was moving. Weirdest thing ever.

 

[Hex08]

So do we think the American government has secret files or not on ufos and aliens ?

I am sure the government has looked into both, our government has investigated all kinds of things. However, I have no reason to believe they have evidence that either exist (if by UFOs you mean space ships, not just flying stuff we can't identify). Check out https://mickwest.com/ for some good debunking of such claims.

 

[CleverNickName]

Sounds like when faith enters the discussions.

Faith is a type of belief, according to my professor. "Faith is just belief with extra steps," or something like that.

 

[dragoner]

Faith is a type of belief, according to my professor. "Faith is just belief with extra steps," or something like that.

Faith is trust, such as trusting something.

 

[Parmandur]

Yes, sort of. I believe in Purgatory, and that the souls of the departed can and do interact with us on their journey. But that isn't really necessarily "ghosts" as conceived of and depicted in pop culture.

 

[Parmandur]

Faith is trust, such as trusting something.

Exactly, it is an epistemological method based on sifting rhe experiences of other people. Question is, who do we trust?

 

[haakon1]

Also a logical fallacy known as “god of the gaps”. I don’t understand it, therefore it is magic/god/ghosts/aliens etc. it’s actually quite an arrogant mistake—the assumption that if you can’t explain it, that can’t be your ignorance, it can only be magic.

Hmm, I can’t explain it, exactly, but once my wife and I checked into a hotel, got to our room, in an empty wing, and after a minute, she said, “Nope, nope, nope, this feels wrong.”

I said, “Like someone is watching us.”

She said, “Exactly!”

We checked out - no questions on why - and I drove us home in the night across a mountain range, getting home about 2 AM. I couldn’t sleep, so I looked up ghost stories, and there were reports about that hotel being haunted, that a worker had killed himself there.

Sure, could be multiple people over years having the same sense of the same place for a non-supernatural reason.

But I checked “yes” on the poll.