Ghostly experiences (ooohh scarrrryyyy)

[Mouth for war]

HAHA I hope you guys don't declare me total idiot now (well not more than usual ) ! I've always been interested in paranormal stuff and I've experienced quite a lot of things I can't explain. I know there are skeptics out there telling people "It's only your mind playing tricks on you" etc. But I have been really freaked out by stuff that's happened to me over the years! Hearing laughter in closets even though being alone in the room....being hit over the back while being alone in my apartment etc. Anyone here who believes in stuff like this and have any experiences to share?

[Oliwerko]

It was a few years ago and we were at our cottage when a neighbor there died. Two days after his funeral, all of the clocks in the cottage stopped at the same time (3-5 of them, certainly at least 3). I changed the batteries, no effect. After a certain amount of time (not long really, tens of minutes at most), they all got going again.

That's pretty much the only first-hand experience I have.

[Mouth for war]

That's pretty weird :S Glad someone else posted so i don't feel alone hehe

[NickyNyce]

When my father passed away in 2001, I was pretty bummed out when his birthday came around that year. I left my house on his birthday and low and behold....a small tree in front of my house had a birthday balloon stuck in it. (I cried like a baby for ten minutes) ... What are the odds....I don't know....But if you can hear me or read this pop....I love ya!!!

I'm not sure what happens when you pass on or where you go....but where ever he is...that's where I'm heading

[Stupot]

One of the creepiest things that ever happened to me was on a school trip to Prague years ago.  I'm a skeptic now but in those days I was well into anything remotely paranormal.  We went into this Church next to the George bridge to watch this concert, and as we were sitting in the pews, I swore someone touched me on the shoulder.  I looked around, and nobody was there, and nobody could possibly have touched me and hid without me noticing.  My only explanation is that it was a weird twitch or something that fellt like i was being tapped... but at the time I thought it was a ghost or I was going insane.

[Khris]

If all other natural explanations fail, the one that's left is schizophrenia. It covers pretty much everything. That and coincidence. (As an example: the balloon became significant because it was your father's birthday. At any other day, you most likely wouldn't have noticed it at all. It only gets weird if two unrelated, extremely unlikely events happen at the same time. Say a shut-in leaves their home to collect lottery winnings and while they are outside, a meteor demolishes their house. Still, it's a coincidence until proven otherwise.)

There are also mini-strokes were a small clot blocks a blood vessel in the brain, then dissolves. Those can cause all kinds of weird effects and hallucinations. Also, epilepsy. Afaik it doesn't have to cause seizures, but you see or experience all kinds of things that aren't there.

There's also the fact that we tend to jump to conclusions ("I'm not aware of any natural explanation so it has to be supernatural") or become victim of "after this, therefore because of this".

Also, as you might know, there isn't a single case in the history of the world were somebody was able to conclusively prove the existence of anything supernatural. All evidence is exclusively anecdotal (i.e. meaningless to science).

If you assume (which I do) that the cause for every event reported as supernatural is either an overlooked banality or the result of hallucinations, there isn't much left of the "other realm".

There's also no soul, btw. And spirituality is a completely meaningless, ill-defined concept.

(If you don't want to discuss skepticism here but merely exchange ghost stories, I'll happily leave the thread. Just give me a hint )

[NickyNyce]

You are exactly right Khris. It's just us as humans, always need to make some kind of sense to what ever happens around us, even if that takes us to the supernatural realm. I do agree that these things are just coincidence, especially because coincidence is everywhere. But it does feel good to link something that you probably know is coincidence,  just to give reason to think , and cry like a baby for the next ten minutes, that it just might be true  .

[Darth Mandarb]

I too am not so sure I believe in the supernatural but I have had some strange experiences.  I don't really lump them into the supernatural category I just call them "unexplained".  I have had several of them...

one of my experiences...
A few years back I was sleeping.  It was around 5:30 am and I sat up, wide-awake.  I didn't have any grogginess or any of the normal "shaking off sleep" stuff.  I was wide-awake like I'd been up for hours.  About an hour later my phone rings and I knew what had happened.  It was my dad informing me that my grandmother had died (about an hour prior to his call).  Right about the time I snapped awake.  We had known she was going to die so that's why I knew what the call would be about (because people aren't in the habit of calling my phone at 6am) it wasn't some sense of dread upon waking up or anything.  In fact it wasn't until a few days later that I connected the two events.  In the grief of getting the phone call I had forgotten the reason I was awake.

So why do I lump this into "unexplained"?  Because while I don't really believe in the super natural I do believe there are aspects of life, the world, the universe, that we measly humans aren't in on (yet) or haven't discovered.  Sure there could be a scientific explanation for why I snapped awake so suddenly, in a way I'd never before or have ever since, almost to the minute my grandmother passed away... but I don't know.  It's unexplained.

I do tend to take the rational explanation for things though.  I was horribly sick the week before Christmas and was running a very high fever.  I thought there were bugs all over the ceiling and that my legs were on fire ... I commented on it, but didn't flip out because even in my fever-reduced capacity for logic I still knew that I was hallucinating because 1) I knew I was sick and 2) I highly doubted Tarah would be ignoring either of those things

I take the same attitude Khris has on most of this... Human beings have a tremendous ability to "fill in the blanks" as it were.  See a light in the sky you don't know what it is and immediately it's a viral video of aliens.  It is a UFO but only in the sense that is flying and you can't identify it.  Not little green men from Alpha Centauri!!

So yeah... I'm a skeptic on most of this stuff.  But I also really firmly believe that there are just some aspects of the universe we aren't privy to.  The unexplained...

[NickyNyce]

See a light in the sky you don't know what it is and immediately it's a viral video of aliens.  It is a UFO but only in the sense that is flying and you can't identify it.  Not little green men from Alpha Centauri!!

You obviously have not played my game the Visitor

[Mouth for war]

I can't explain when I sat home one evening by myself and suddenly someone hit me hard over the back (Like I mentioned in my first post) There was nothing imaginary about that...no drugs involved...it felt like someone hit me with a whip (I was sitting in my dead girlfriend's old chair btw) hehe......Or when I visited my brother in his house in the countryside...in the middle of the night in my room, someone laughed from the closet...we were the only in that house and my brother was several rooms away from me...that freaked me out MAJOR!!! hehe

I have much more to tell....hehe

[WHAM]

Readin a good horror story on the internet (creepypasta), really creeped out.
Alone in an apartment on the third floor of an apartment block, girlfriend is out with her friends, it is 2 AM.

I hear footsteps in the stairwell and rattling of keys at my apartment door. The door does not open. I dismiss the sound as "figment of imagination".

Minutes later, the noises repeat and this time I stand up to go take a look through the peep hole in the door. There are no lights in the stairwell, no sign of anyone outside the door. Nobody in their right mind would be running around in the stairwell without light on in there...

Put on the safety lock on the door, and turned on all the lights in the apartment before going to bed.

It was simple, subtle and perfectly explainable with logic, but still creeped the ever living shit out of me!

[Mouth for war]

I can't wait for the movie "I am ZOZO"

[Darth Mandarb]

Many years back I dreamed of a medium-sized white airplane, with a dark blue rear stabilizer, nose diving and crashing into water killing all aboard (at the first part of the dream I was on the plane but when it crashed I was watching it happen from outside).

Two days later Alaska Airlines Flight 261 crashed into the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California killing all aboard.  It really creeped me out!  Now people dream of plane crashes all the time (usually in the days/weeks before they get on board) but I wasn't flying anytime soon and the dream was very vivid (I remembered the look of the plane even days after when I heard the story of the crash).  Sure it was probably just wild coincidence... but who knows?

--

A few years later, while sleeping, I awoke from a terrible dream that my father had been admitted to the hospital for a heart attack.

The very next day I got a phone call from my mom that my dad was in the hospital (had some chest pains).  He turned out to be fine (not a heart attack but similar symptoms) but it was just like in the dream.  Coincidence?  Maybe...

[Mouth for war]

Darth...Were you the inspiration for Final destination? haha

[LUniqueDan]

I was dating that girl for 2 weeks. Then she started taking weird and cryptic stuff 'bout moving to my place and having babies.

Then *poof!* she magically vanished. No clue, nothing. Her phone number get erased from my cellphone. Her mail disapereared from MSN messenger. Dunno what happened.

I guess she was a spirit of some sort.

[Stupot]

Hahaha.  That is creepy.

[monkey0506]

I don't tend much to think of things as "supernatural" as I feel that my religious beliefs and the scientific community could get along much better if it weren't for the latter feeling so threatened by the former...of course that's a tale for another thread. 8)

However, there once was a time when me and my two younger sisters were the only ones at home. The doors were locked, windows shut and the like. It was the middle of the day (sorry, no, it wasn't a dark and stormy night). We were all in the living room, together on the couch, watching TV. Our couch was against a wall, so no, no one snuck up behind us.

To our left, there was a sort of tapestry hanging on the wall. It was a heavy rug with a deer and a forest scene on it.

As we were watching TV, the bottom left corner of the rug moved away from the wall. It then appeared as though there were a figure standing behind the rug, between it and the wall. The impression extended about a couple of feet up from the bottom of the rug, and it was clearly visible that the rug was no longer touching the wall behind it. This impression then appeared as if a person were walking along the length of the rug, from left to right. The rug uniformly pulled away from the wall, and then fell back, exactly as though there was a physical presence holding it out from the wall. When this impression reached the end of the rug, it was simply as though the apparent figure walked out from behind it, and the rug fell back flat against the wall.

None of the three of us ever saw a physical presence in the room with us, or any type of spectral apparition. My youngest sister at the time was about 11 or 12 at the time. I was about 16 or 17 I believe. All three of us independently saw this take place. After it happened, we all confirmed it with each other. I personally walked over, and touched and felt the rug and confirmed that there was no strings, no mysterious gusting, nothing that could apparently have caused what we had just seen. All three of us witnessed it, and vividly remember it. None of us can explain it, and still we are very unsure what exactly it was that took place that day. We all agree that the rug, without any apparent outside force acting on it, moved away from the wall, in a fashion mimicking someone walking along behind it.

At the time, we were all watching Unsolved Mysteries.

This is a serious story, and none of us were under the influence of any type of drug, medication, alcohol, or otherwise, that any of us are consciously aware of.

[NickyNyce]

none of us were under the influence of any type of drug, medication, alcohol, or otherwise, that any of us are consciously aware of.

Is anyone noticing a pattern here?

From all the storys we have heard, not one person has said anything about being ON any type of drug, alcohol or medication when these things happened!

It's pretty clear to me kids...If you wanna stay away from demons, ghosts, coincidences and hallucinations, you should probably drink , do drugs and take medication.

Just take it from me...I've been ghost free for 11 years!!

[Spummy]

As a skeptic, I will say that talking about personal stories of stuff that you can't seem to explain is interesting and can produce some great stories.

My only personal issue is "Heard/felt/saw something I can't explain? Must be the remnant of a person who once lived but now their mind/soul/spirit is still around manifesting itself as sound, vision, etc etc. Despite the fact the only other 'evidence' for soul/spirit/mind-separate-of-body even existing is other stories exactly like this." Just because you can't find a "normal" explanation doesn't mean you get to pick the unjustifiably precise one of your choice. And why always ghosts? I mean, come on.

For an interesting twist, I encourage future posters of their paranormal stories to explain them in terms of leprechauns instead of ghosts.

I was dating that girl for 2 weeks. Then she started taking weird and cryptic stuff 'bout moving to my place and having babies.

Then *poof!* she magically vanished. No clue, nothing. Her phone number get erased from my cellphone. Her mail disapereared from MSN messenger. Dunno what happened.

Obviously she was a leprechaun in disguise and is forbidden to have relationships outside of their society, so her family took her away and used their leprechaun magic to wipe the number and mail.

I swore someone touched me on the shoulder.  I looked around, and nobody was there, and nobody could possibly have touched me and hid without me noticing.

Leprechaun. They're short and you didn't look down far enough.

As we were watching TV, the bottom left corner of the rug moved away from the wall. It then appeared as though there were a figure standing behind the rug, between it and the wall. The impression extended about a couple of feet up from the bottom of the rug, and it was clearly visible that the rug was no longer touching the wall behind it. This impression then appeared as if a person were walking along the length of the rug, from left to right. The rug uniformly pulled away from the wall, and then fell back, exactly as though there was a physical presence holding it out from the wall. When this impression reached the end of the rug, it was simply as though the apparent figure walked out from behind it, and the rug fell back flat against the wall.

None of the three of us ever saw a physical presence in the room with us, or any type of spectral apparition. My youngest sister at the time was about 11 or 12 at the time. I was about 16 or 17 I believe. All three of us independently saw this take place. After it happened, we all confirmed it with each other. I personally walked over, and touched and felt the rug and confirmed that there was no strings, no mysterious gusting, nothing that could apparently have caused what we had just seen. All three of us witnessed it, and vividly remember it. None of us can explain it, and still we are very unsure what exactly it was that took place that day. We all agree that the rug, without any apparent outside force acting on it, moved away from the wall, in a fashion mimicking someone walking along behind it.

Invisible leprechaun decided the room need reorganizing to perfect the feng shui.

Many years back I dreamed of a medium-sized white airplane, with a dark blue rear stabilizer, nose diving and crashing into water killing all aboard (at the first part of the dream I was on the plane but when it crashed I was watching it happen from outside).

Two days later Alaska Airlines Flight 261 crashed into the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California killing all aboard.  It really creeped me out!  Now people dream of plane crashes all the time (usually in the days/weeks before they get on board) but I wasn't flying anytime soon and the dream was very vivid (I remembered the look of the plane even days after when I heard the story of the crash).  Sure it was probably just wild coincidence... but who knows?

--

A few years later, while sleeping, I awoke from a terrible dream that my father had been admitted to the hospital for a heart attack.

The very next day I got a phone call from my mom that my dad was in the hospital (had some chest pains).  He turned out to be fine (not a heart attack but similar symptoms) but it was just like in the dream.  Coincidence?  Maybe...

Leprechauns were spying on your dreams and decided they seemed like pretty cool ideas and enlisted the help of the leprechaun mob to make it happen.

Readin a good horror story on the internet (creepypasta), really creeped out.
Alone in an apartment on the third floor of an apartment block, girlfriend is out with her friends, it is 2 AM.

I hear footsteps in the stairwell and rattling of keys at my apartment door. The door does not open. I dismiss the sound as "figment of imagination".

Minutes later, the noises repeat and this time I stand up to go take a look through the peep hole in the door. There are no lights in the stairwell, no sign of anyone outside the door. Nobody in their right mind would be running around in the stairwell without light on in there...

Put on the safety lock on the door, and turned on all the lights in the apartment before going to bed.

It was simple, subtle and perfectly explainable with logic, but still creeped the ever living shit out of me!

Leprechauns arriving home late, they have good sight in the dark so didn't need the lights on.

I can't explain when I sat home one evening by myself and suddenly someone hit me hard over the back (Like I mentioned in my first post) There was nothing imaginary about that...no drugs involved...it felt like someone hit me with a whip (I was sitting in my dead girlfriend's old chair btw) hehe......Or when I visited my brother in his house in the countryside...in the middle of the night in my room, someone laughed from the closet...we were the only in that house and my brother was several rooms away from me...that freaked me out MAJOR!!! hehe

I have much more to tell....hehe

You said something to offend an invisible leprechaun. Really you should try to be more culturally sensitive. Leprechauns like to read joke books in closets. Everyone knows that.

Well, I've had my fun. But I do seriously encourage it. It'd make the thread quite amusing.

[Anian]

Coincidences and patterns, it's part of our biological evolution and senses. Humans have highly emotional and evolved minds, I mean, just look at all the art, stories and media we developed over time. There is such a thing as forgetting you know, like you don't remember if you locked the door on your way out, but you probably did because it's a habit, why wouldn't the other way around work as well, you'd selectivly remember things that fit patterns, you certainly don't remeber every dream you ever had, yet people do remember some dreams rather clearly.

You meet a person with dark hair and you meet another one with dark hair, that does not mean the incidents are conected nor that you changed somebody's hair color. You guess a few numbers on a lottery, that doesn't mean they're connected to you in any way, just imagine how many numbers you see every day of your life and yet not all of them get picked.

That's not counting in all the complex processes in our body and milllions of thoughts and impulses you ever experience and all the chemical and physical reactions that happen in billions upon billions of cells in your body (and some of them might not be your own cells, like from parasites, bacterries etc.). Just think of all the times you had an itch, were you ever aware that you were about to have an itch before it started to itch? Did that stop an itch from happening? So much things are happening so many variations that have so much more importance and are not based on supernatural that you should consider before thinking of supernatural occurences and yet our imagination gets the better of us, it cannot be helped.
How about deja vu, something happens that you swear you thought of, now think of again infinitve number of thought you had before and after that, just based on that many variations and events, some are bound to happen, and some memories do get distorted which is a whole other layer as well.

Okay, you take into account every single process in your cells and you molecules, that still leaves everything that surrounds you, every process in every thing and lifefrom around you - do you really think some of them would not appear to be or actually occur at the same moment or at the right interval that they form an interesting pattern that your mind at a certain moment along with your personality and memories and your current senses?

There is so much things that we DO know now and yet people more than often choose to label as something that cannot be explained at all...it's what makes humanity interesting and progressive and holds us back at the same time.

That is not to say that ghost stories aren't creppy or entertaining.

[Stupot]

Me, my sister and friends used to scare ourselves shitless as youngsters... Mum would let us camp in the back garden and we'd tell ghost stories, and a couple of times even made our own makeshift Ouija boards and try to 'communicate' with ghosts.

Also we'd play these creepy role playing games where you all hold hands and close your eyes and take turns to narrate a particular situation such as walking into a haunted house and walking up the creepy stairs counting as you go and skipping out step number 13, otherwise you'd get trapped in the house and won't be able to open your eyes again.  It was nearly always the same story, and it would invariably involve an old lady called Granny Nettle, who would turn out to be evil and when you got too scared you had to run away from her, run down the stairs, counting backwards, skipping 13, and shut the door behind you.  If you failed to do this before she caught you, you would never be able to open your eyes again.  And you weren't allowed to open your eyes before leaving the imaginary house, otherwise you would go insane.

Needless to say, that led to some pretty fucking scary sleepovers... and they were the best days of my life.  Now I'm boring

[Noctambulo]

My story is pretty simple: I was alone at my house, like 7 - 8 pm, watching TV -a comedy, by the way- when I heard someone (a leprechaun, Spummy?) knocking at the door of my room. I turned off the tv, open the door, searched the house, but nothing. I returned to my room, closed the door, and about 10 mins later, it happened again. And the TV was off this time.

I didn't get scared at all, but it intrigued me. In fact, still does, as I can't see any "normal" explanation to it.

[Eggie]

I've always been sceptical of "I know what I saw" stories because, well frankly "No you fucking don't" but it doesn't stop me from being incredibly fascinated with all this stuff.
I can't believe in ghosts, at all. For one, it reeks of wishful thinking about our own mortality and two, ghosts are scary but compared to the idea that our own brains can fail us and put bullshit ideas in our heads it's obviously a preferable idea. I've never had a supernatural experience,and on one level it makes me feel like some big superior champion of science and reason and on another it just makes me sad. On some level I think I almost want my beliefs to be wrong; I want to be scared shitless by something that isn't my own frail, hormone-soaked, cancer-susceptible, one wrong thought away from crazy life-vessel malfunctioning in some way... And I'm always looking. And I love hearing other people's ghost stories and the further away I am from figuring out a rational explanation the better.

But I still can't believe in it. It sucks.

[Calin Leafshade]

I'm with the hardcore skeptics. It's all just about suggestable minds.

Humans are prone to attribute agency to anything. It's just part of our flight or fight mechanism. You see a weird shadow on a wall, you assume its a monster(predator), you run away, you live another day. There's no evolutionary pressure to breed out that behaviour. An overactive imagination that saves you from a panther 1 time out of 1000 is doing it's job.

It's exactly the same reason we are prone to believe in deities. Human's just can't cope very well with the idea of coincidence.

[ddq]

I farted and it turned into a demon but it was actually my ex-wife.

True story.

[Dualnames]

This is not a ghost story.

This is one of the fucking amazing coincidences. Sometimes I happen to think of something really random, and then it occurs. I know, but yeah. So here's the very best one.

4 years ago, we were with my folks on the car listening to some obscene cassette, then a song that I've only heard once and liked none, played on the cassette. Air supply - even the nights are better. Anyhow a song amazingly unheard of, in Greece.

So 2 years later, I am working with my dad in the middle of the summer, and i remember my vacation from 2 years ago, and that song plays in my head all day. From 8 to 12. At 12 I go to the car, and open up the radio. That song plays. The odds are amazingly impossible.

[miguel]

I farted and it turned into a demon but it was actually my ex-wife.

True story.

Do you believe farts are related to demons? Can you prove that? That would explain the windy trace ghosts leave when hoovering around the house...

[m0ds]

That would explain the windy trace ghosts leave when hoovering around the house...

I'd be quite happy for ghosts to exist and come and hoover my house... Saves a bit of effort. Plus they can't demand pay it would fall right through their hands 

[Darth Mandarb]

Sometimes I happen to think of something really random, and then it occurs.

I do this quite regularly.

Last week I randomly had this thought about this actress I had a major crush on back in the 90s named Shevonne Durkin.  I looked her up on IMDB to see if she'd done much since (she hasn't).  My friend Kevin and I used to drool over her back in the day.  Then, yesterday, he sends me an email out the blue in remembrance of her.

A few years back my brother and I were reminiscing about the past and girls we'd ... well ... known.  We mentioned this one woman and were trying to remember her name.  We finally came up with it.  It had been over 15 years since we'd even thought of her.  Two days later she friend requested me on facebook.

My dad and I were working on my bathroom renovation a few months ago.  We started talking about this boat show we'd gone to in Orlando about 12 years ago and mentioned a guy we'd ran into that we knew and how he was the father of this girl I'd gone to highshool with.  The next day she friend requested me on facebook.

Just a few examples.  Again, all could be wild coincidence in a rapidly shrinking world but with defying odds like this I really should start thinking of the lottery numbers...

[Noctambulo]

I'm with the hardcore skeptics. It's all just about suggestable minds.

Ok. Pretty fair. But...how would you explain my experience?

[Darth Mandarb]

One of my favorite aspects of the human brain is its ability to "fill in the blanks".  This is extremely helpful (evolutionary wise) as it is mechanism that can help with creativity, logic, reasoning and deduction.  Ungar has big hole in head shaped like mammoth horn ... fill in the blanks, he was killed by a mammoth; don't stand too close to mammoths.  And throughout history this ability has led to countless innovations in science and technology (and even just survival) where filling the blanks leads to intuitive leaps that wouldn't be made if this ability wasn't there.

But, like most things, it does have a dark side!  It can lead to misinterpretations (ghost stories) and even false memories.  I am 100% fully willing to admit that my remembered dream of the plane crash might have been slightly different than I expressed but when I saw the news story about Alaska Air's crash my mind "filled in the blanks" and my memory of the dream was "updated" to match the details of the real event.  The worst part about it is that I will never know because, now, the memory of the dream is as I expressed it; matching the details of the real event almost perfectly.

Again... I'm naturally skeptical and tend to agree with the hard-line skeptics out there (I'm lookin' at you Leafshade!!)  But I still accept that there are things that cannot be attributed to scientific or rational explanation!

[Ponch]

One of my favorite aspects of the human brain is its ability to "fill in the blanks".  This is extremely helpful (evolutionary wise)... But, like most things, it does have a dark side!

So you're telling me that Elvis isn't really trying to send me messages through the mildew on my shower curtain? Ha! How else can you explain why it looks exactly like him! (Or possibly Fred Flintstone). You can't, Darth! Mildew is real. It exists! And it looks (sort of) exactly like Elvis. Therefore, SCIENCE!

brb. The King wants another peanut butter and banana sandwich.  8)

[Ali]

I'm with the hardcore skeptics. It's all just about suggestable minds.

Ok. Pretty fair. But...how would you explain my experience?

You can't beat a good ghost story, but I'm firmly with the rationalists.

We don't need to come up with a conclusive explanation for the knocks you heard to demonstrate that it's unlikely to be a ghost. The supernatural explanation presupposes the existence of a soul and afterlife of sorts for which we have no other evidence. That makes it very unlikely.

It's much more likely someone was knocking as a joke, wood was creaking because of contraction, pipes were rattling, or you were just wrong.

Some creepy stories though guys!

[Calin Leafshade]

The problem with the supernatural is that it is, by definition, always the least likely explination. That is the nature of the *super*natural.

If I were sat on my sofa drinking a jack and coke and the {Lord Almighty,Slimer from Ghostbusters,The Grey Lady} themself walked through the door and said hi I *still* wouldnt believe because schizeophrenia or an anyeruism or being punk'd is infinitely more likely.

In terms of the evidence record, the supernatural has a pretty piss poor record.

[Noctambulo]

You can't beat a good ghost story, but I'm firmly with the rationalists.

We don't need to come up with a conclusive explanation for the knocks you heard to demonstrate that it's unlikely to be a ghost. The supernatural explanation presupposes the existence of a soul and afterlife of sorts for which we have no other evidence. That makes it very unlikely.

It's much more likely someone was knocking as a joke, wood was creaking because of contraction, pipes were rattling, or you were just wrong.

Again: I was ALONE in the house, And I'm pretty sure to be capable to notice the difference between wood cracking, pipes rattling and knocking a door -twice-.

By the way, I consider myself a rationalist. In fact, to me the religious fanatics and the "hardcore skeptics" are the same: People who assume their beliefs about the "supernatural" are facts.

The problem with the supernatural is that it is, by definition, always the least likely explination. That is the nature of the *super*natural.

If I were sat on my sofa drinking a jack and coke and the {Lord Almighty,Slimer from Ghostbusters,The Grey Lady} themself walked through the door and said hi I *still* wouldnt believe because schizeophrenia or an anyeruism or being punk'd is infinitely more likely.

In terms of the evidence record, the supernatural has a pretty piss poor record.

In other words: People who don't think like you -about an experience you HAVE NOT lived-, are either a mental case or sick... Right?

[Calin Leafshade]

The only belief i have about the supernatural is that it doesnt exist. This is not because I know either way but simply because there is no credible evidence to the contrary.

[Anian]

Just a few examples.  Again, all could be wild coincidence in a rapidly shrinking world but with defying odds like this I really should start thinking of the lottery numbers...

I wouldn't hold my breath for number One to try adding me on facebook, we all know that One is the loneliest number. Nine has been missing in aciton for a while now as well.

[Noctambulo]

The only belief i have about the supernatural is that it doesnt exist. This is not because I know either way but simply because there is no credible evidence to the contrary.

THAT is YOUR belief. You don't have evidence that proves YOUR point

Remember: "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence"

[Calin Leafshade]

From a socratic perspective my belief is the more rational. If you'd like to abandon socratic reasoning then feel free to do so but you'll end up in a funny place with unicorns and magic tricks.

I am of the opinion (and theists especially dislike this) that the null position is one of disbelief. When considering any proposition I start out with the belief that it is not true. This protects me from wishful thinking and personal bias. If someone tells me they saw a ghost I say fine, show me some credible evidence. If they cannot do so then I dismiss their claim. This is of variable effect of course. The more extraordinary the claim the more extraordinary the evidence would have to be. I would not require evidence if someone told me they had eaten a nice sandwich.

If someone cannot present evidence it does not mean their claim false (absence of evidence) but I will work on the assumption that it is. Otherwise I'm just guessing.

If you take the alternative approach and decide that you believe everything by default until shown otherwise then you automatically live in a world with astrology, tarot cards, witches, elves (which are totally real) and goblins which is, of course, absurd.

Finally, just because I can't explain your experience doesnt mean i ascribe it to the supernatural. I can't explain any number of Penn & Teller or Derren Brown tricks but I dont assume them to be supernatural just because I personally cannot explain them.

[Khris]

In fact, to me the religious fanatics and the "hardcore skeptics" are the same: People who assume their beliefs about the "supernatural" are facts.

There's a major difference though. Believing in a specific set of supernatural "facts" without evidence is a completely different thing from dismissing a proposition due to absence of evidence.
You're basically saying that it is wrong to dismiss the existence of Santa Claus as long as there is a teeny-tiny bit of unexplained circumstance anywhere regarding the delivery of all the worlds presents.

Edit:

Remember: "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence"

I'm sorry, that's textbook religious apologetics.
Absence of evidence IS INDEED evidence of absence, IF existence is expected to produce evidence.
If person A claims they own a cat and person B, standing in their house, can't see the cat anywhere, there's really not much that can be said or done. Unless of course there's also no cat food, no cat toys, no cat hair, no scratching post, no litter box and not any other sign of there ever living a cat in the house.
In that case, person B is entirely justified to dismiss person A's claim about owning a cat, UNTIL proven otherwise.

If you don't accept that, well, then there's really no way to move forward.

Just be clear that calling "hardcore" skeptics as irrational as fundamentalists will draw their ire simply because they didn't arrive at their position by not thinking.

[Ponch]

You're basically saying that it is wrong to dismiss the existence of Santa Claus as long as there is a teeny-tiny bit of unexplained circumstance anywhere regarding the delivery of all the worlds presents.

Yes! This is exactly what I believe! You guys can argue religion all you want, but leave Santa out of this. 

[Ali]

You can't beat a good ghost story, but I'm firmly with the rationalists.

We don't need to come up with a conclusive explanation for the knocks you heard to demonstrate that it's unlikely to be a ghost. The supernatural explanation presupposes the existence of a soul and afterlife of sorts for which we have no other evidence. That makes it very unlikely.

It's much more likely someone was knocking as a joke, wood was creaking because of contraction, pipes were rattling, or you were just wrong.

Again: I was ALONE in the house, And I'm pretty sure to be capable to notice the difference between wood cracking, pipes rattling and knocking a door -twice-.

By the way, I consider myself a rationalist. In fact, to me the religious fanatics and the "hardcore skeptics" are the same: People who assume their beliefs about the "supernatural" are facts.

But if you consider the event dispassionately, you must see it's more likely that you were wrong in thinking you were alone. Or wrong about your ability to distinguish those sounds.

I'm don't mean to be patronising. I'm sure I could make the same mistake.

[Noctambulo]

From a socratic perspective my belief is the more rational. If you'd like to abandon socratic reasoning then feel free to do so but you'll end up in a funny place with unicorns and magic tricks.

Again, the dogmatic view... YOU are the only one who know the facts, right? 

PS: Is "Socrates" your real name? Because Socrates (the greek philosopher) DID NOT assume what he ignored was non existent. But keep trying

I am of the opinion (and theists especially dislike this) that the null position is one of disbelief. When considering any proposition I start out with the belief that it is not true. This protects me from wishful thinking and personal bias. If someone tells me they saw a ghost I say fine, show me some credible evidence. If they cannot do so then I dismiss their claim. This is of variable effect of course. The more extraordinary the claim the more extraordinary the evidence would have to be. I would not require evidence if someone told me they had eaten a nice sandwich.

I don't care if the atheists or the theists dislike this or not. And there is nothing that can "protect you from wishful thinking and personal bias", as you're already showing your own.

By the way: You must know that you're not in the "null position" because you believe that the "others" are wrong. That's a very strong belief.

If someone cannot present evidence it does not mean their claim false (absence of evidence) but I will work on the assumption that it is. Otherwise I'm just guessing.

I'm curious: What "credible evidence" could YOU show if what happened to me happens to you?

If you take the alternative approach and decide that you believe everything by default until shown otherwise then you automatically live in a world with astrology, tarot cards, witches, elves (which are totally real) and goblins which is, of course, absurd.

"of course, absurd"... Why?

The thing is that I am really in what you call "null position": I don't assume as a fact your belief. Maybe you're right, but I know that it would be intelectually dishonest (to me) to discard right away other explanations.

Finally, just because I can't explain your experience doesnt mean i ascribe it to the supernatural. I can't explain any number of Penn & Teller or Derren Brown tricks but I dont assume them to be supernatural just because I personally cannot explain them.

I'm just asking for a possible explanation. I'm not telling you to be theist or atheist.

[Stupot]

Yeah, I agree that you can't attribute something to a ghost just because you can't explain it.  My sister swears that she's been alone in the house and the kettle has turned itself on.  She also swears she has a ghost.  But there are so many possibilities.  Maybe she actually turned it on herself and forgot. Or maybe the cat knocked it. Or maybe the switch had been teetering between 'off' and 'on' all day, and finally clicked itself into the on position.

As for the the Knocking on the door, I doubt you did that yourself but there are still any number of possible rational explanations.  You just haven't thought of them yet.  Maybe it wasn't even the door, but a branch or something hitting the window - sound has a funny habit of appearing to come from the wrong direction.  Maybe it was something falling on the floor from another room.  It's a lot of maybes, I know.

Or maybe there actually is a person hiding in your house... in fact... he could be standing behind you right now..... RUN!!!!

[Bror_Jon]

The only belief i have about the supernatural is that it doesnt exist. This is not because I know either way but simply because there is no credible evidence to the contrary.

Remember: "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence"

Quite.
But also remember that: Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

[Calin Leafshade]

From a socratic perspective my belief is the more rational. If you'd like to abandon socratic reasoning then feel free to do so but you'll end up in a funny place with unicorns and magic tricks.

Again, the dogmatic view... YOU are the only one who know the facts, right?  

PS: Is "Socrates" your real name? Because Socrates (the greek philosopher) DID NOT assume what he ignored was non existent. But keep trying

It's not that I am ignoring anything. I just dont believe that for which I have no evidence. Thats pretty much as simply as I can put it. There's nothing dogmatic about it.

I am of the opinion (and theists especially dislike this) that the null position is one of disbelief. When considering any proposition I start out with the belief that it is not true. This protects me from wishful thinking and personal bias. If someone tells me they saw a ghost I say fine, show me some credible evidence. If they cannot do so then I dismiss their claim. This is of variable effect of course. The more extraordinary the claim the more extraordinary the evidence would have to be. I would not require evidence if someone told me they had eaten a nice sandwich.

I don't care if the atheists or the theists dislike this or not. And there is nothing that can "protect you from wishful thinking and personal bias", as you're already showing your own.

I can't really see how my position is biased unless you're saying its biased against things without evidence.. which is fine by me.

By the way: You must know that you're not in the "null position" because you believe that the "others" are wrong. That's a very strong belief.

I don't necessarily believe others are wrong. You may very well be correct that you experienced a ghost. I have no evidence for or against that but I will assume that you didn't because if I assumed that ghosts are real without evidence then I would also have to assume that everything else i dismissed without evidence is real and I would rather not be a crazy person.

If someone cannot present evidence it does not mean their claim false (absence of evidence) but I will work on the assumption that it is. Otherwise I'm just guessing.

I'm curious: What "credible evidence" could YOU show if what happened to me happens to you?

I'm not saying you *have* to produce evidence, I'm simply saying that I wont believe you without it. That's also not to say that you are lying. I have no doubt that you experienced what you say you did but as discussed earlier, the human mind is weird and adrenaline is one hell of a drug.

If you take the alternative approach and decide that you believe everything by default until shown otherwise then you automatically live in a world with astrology, tarot cards, witches, elves (which are totally real) and goblins which is, of course, absurd.

"of course, absurd"... Why?

...because they're witches and goblins and shit..

[Noctambulo]

There's a major difference though. Believing in a specific set of supernatural "facts" without evidence is a completely different thing from dismissing a proposition due to absence of evidence.
You're basically saying that it is wrong to dismiss the existence of Santa Claus as long as there is a teeny-tiny bit of unexplained circumstance anywhere regarding the delivery of all the worlds presents.

That's not the same, and you know it (or should know it).

What I can say is there is a rational explanation about the presents under the tree: The parents are who buy the gifts. As a parent, I do that.

I'm sorry, that's textbook religious apologetics.

I'm sorry, that was a ATHEIST who said that

Absence of evidence IS INDEED evidence of absence, IF existence is expected to produce evidence.
If person A claims they own a cat and person B, standing in their house, can't see the cat anywhere, there's really not much that can be said or done. Unless of course there's also no cat food, no cat toys, no cat hair, no scratching post, no litter box and not any other sign of there ever living a cat in the house.
In that case, person B is entirely justified to dismiss person A's claim about owning a cat, UNTIL proven otherwise.

"Absence of evidence" is NOT "evidence of absence".

I don't have evidence that you're human. Maybe you're an IA, so, it's entirely justified to dissmis your existence UNTIL proven otherwise?

There is no evidence of a life outside of Earth, so, it's entirely justified to dissmis that UNTIL proven otherwise?

Etc, etc...

If you don't accept that, well, then there's really no way to move forward.

Exactly what I'm thinking about you

Just be clear that calling "hardcore" skeptics as irrational as fundamentalists will draw their ire simply because they didn't arrive at their position by not thinking.

Are you sure? I don't really see the diference.

By the way, a fundamentalist would be claiming that the people who don't share his belief are "not thinking."

Fundamentalists are the same, no matter if they are theists or atheists

[m0ds]

Well we know there are a number of other 'dimensions' out there, we have very little understanding of how they or ours interact with each other, I wouldn't totally discount the theory of ghosts or spooky phenomena. As far as I'm aware no-one knows what happens after death, either. Nor would I put everything at the hands of scientists either.

But, take countless reports of strange things and it certainly holds more weight than "none". A lot of them can be disproved, and I'm sure a lot of them came from times when it was hard to even have a working gas lamp - so I'm sure peoples minds played tricks on them. Nowadays "ghosts" don't really get any spotlight, whether they've just upped and left or if they never even happened originally I don't know. Nowadays ghost tales are "Micheal Jackson's shadow walks across teh room!" and Most Haunted UK "Did you feel that? It felt like someone breathed on my shoulder!". Shows like that have kind of killed my interest and beleif in ghosts, but not the paranormal on the whole.

I'm more into aliens myself, it's a much more interactive phenomena, whatever it is - aliens, ufo's, organic material - you can go out there find it and see it without having to be in someones house or spooky castle. But I can imagine that would be quite a thrill too. I went on a ghost walk and talk some photos and its funny because some of the things they mentioned did actually appear on the photos, and some other strange things too. And whenever I have dabbled in ghosts/paranormal in the past things do get a little spooky.

The deeper you choose to go down the rabbit hole, the more you will be presented with, whether you beleive in it or not. In years to come some of those who are skeptical now will experience something that will change their opinion, seeing is beleiving. Presuming your peers are lying or were just "tripping out" is also a very immature way to approach it IMO. Since I properly started researching I've found lots of answers and a whole new level of questions arose - if you get involved yourself you will make this progression from just being skeptical to actually being informed. You can't be a brain surgeon without practice, patience and research (and training etc) - the same applies to paranormal/alien phenomena.

A few weeks ago I actually tried to recall some spooky places I had been too, and Googled them, and couldn't beleive it when I read one of the basements I had been in that felt the most scary, was actually a well known haunted basement (I was never told this prior or knew this and it was years ago I visited). So whether the atmosphere just creates that on people or if it's true I've no idea, but it's never worth discounting completely

I also get confused by evidence and people's desire to have it. Get yourself some personal evidence, don't expect it to be found on the internet, etc. Go and immerse yourself in the world of paranormal etc and you might just be surprised at some of the things you find (and experience) - but no don't ever presume there will just be an "evidence" video on YouTube. I usually ignore skeptics who don't really look into it but feel they have something to say about it. It's like me presuming I can just go and talk about the Higgs Boson on the CERN website because "I've heard of it and have an opinion on it".

That said I don't care if people beleive in ghosts or not. I'm just saying there are answers/experiences out there that will over-rule any kind of "thought" you have on the subject. Some nice spooky stories here definitely

[Noctambulo]

Maybe it wasn't even the door, but a branch or something hitting the window - sound has a funny habit of appearing to come from the wrong direction.

There's no branch that could hit the window.  

Maybe it was something falling on the floor from another room.  It's a lot of maybes, I know.

Nope. That was the first thing I looked out for, both times.

Or maybe there actually is a person hiding in your house... in fact... he could be standing behind you right now..... RUN!!!!

Damn!! Now I'm afraid to turn back... And I'm too lazy to run xDD

[Anian]

Quite.
But also remember that: Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

...I really don't think that is connected and even if it was, that'll only make it harder to prove supernatural occurences.

[Noctambulo]

It's not that I am ignoring anything. I just dont believe that for which I have no evidence. Thats pretty much as simply as I can put it. There's nothing dogmatic about it.

Your dogma is: If I have no evidence (or it's something I don't already believe in), it's false.

I don't know why, but 1492 and Christopher Columbus are coming to my mind right now...

I can't really see how my position is biased unless you're saying its biased against things without evidence.. which is fine by me.

I don't necessarily believe others are wrong. You may very well be correct that you experienced a ghost.

Can you please tell me where I said that a ghost was implied in my experience? No?

You simply assumed that me asking for an explanation was like I was calling the Ghostbusters

No wonder you "can't really see how your position is biased".

I have no evidence for or against that but I will assume that you didn't because if I assumed that ghosts are real without evidence then I would also have to assume that everything else i dismissed without evidence is real and I would rather not be a crazy person.

That's a sophism.

I'm not saying you *have* to produce evidence, I'm simply saying that I wont believe you without it. That's also not to say that you are lying. I have no doubt that you experienced what you say you did but as discussed earlier, the human mind is weird and adrenaline is one hell of a drug.

You're implying that if I don't produce evidence, is because I'm lying or delusional.

No, you're not biased at alla nor a fundamentalist 

...because they're witches and goblins and shit..

Cool 

[Calin Leafshade]

It's not that I am ignoring anything. I just dont believe that for which I have no evidence. Thats pretty much as simply as I can put it. There's nothing dogmatic about it.

Your dogma is: If I have no evidence (or it's something I don't already believe in), it's false.

Thats not strictly what I said. I merely said that I won't believe it without evidence. I didn't say it must be false if there is no evidence. That would indeed be absurd. I merely said that I wont entertain the idea without evidence. Same goes for pixies, goblins, witches and anything else with no evidence.

I can't really see how my position is biased unless you're saying its biased against things without evidence.. which is fine by me.

I don't necessarily believe others are wrong. You may very well be correct that you experienced a ghost.

Can you please tell me where I said that a ghost was implied in my experience? No?

You simply assumed that me asking for an explanation was like I was calling the Ghostbusters

No wonder you "can't really see how your position is biased".

If all youre saying is that "Something happened and I can't explain it" then fine.. in fact that is exactly my position.

I have no evidence for or against that but I will assume that you didn't because if I assumed that ghosts are real without evidence then I would also have to assume that everything else i dismissed without evidence is real and I would rather not be a crazy person.

That's a sophism.

Which fallacy exactly? Seems perfectly logical to me. I believe that factual statements are to be accepted based upon their evidence. If I accept one thing as true without evidence then all other things without evidence become fair game.

I'm not saying you *have* to produce evidence, I'm simply saying that I wont believe you without it. That's also not to say that you are lying. I have no doubt that you experienced what you say you did but as discussed earlier, the human mind is weird and adrenaline is one hell of a drug.

You're implying that if I don't produce evidence, is because I'm lying or delusional.

No, you're not biased at alla nor a fundamentalist 

All I really said was that I dont believe it should be attributed to the supernatural. Maybe you did hear a noise, maybe you didnt. It doesnt really matter.

[Bror_Jon]

Quite.
But also remember that: Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

...I really don't think that is connected and even if it was, that'll only make it harder to prove supernatural occurences.

Was my point. Sorry if I wasn't clear enough.

[Noctambulo]

But if you consider the event dispassionately, you must see it's more likely that you were wrong in thinking you were alone. Or wrong about your ability to distinguish those sounds.

I'm don't mean to be patronising. I'm sure I could make the same mistake.

I consider the event dispassionately (as I said, I never felt afraid, but curious). I'm 100% sure I was alone. My house is not made by wood, but concrete. The pipes are PVC...

[ddq]

You arguey motherfuckers...

[Khris]

@Noctambulo:
You didn't get my Santa point and it doesn't matter who says something as long as it's sound.
My Santa point was that you're saying that if a phenomenon can't be explained 100% naturally, it's fine to accept supernatural explanations. I say that's obviously wrong.

"Absence of evidence" is NOT "evidence of absence".
I don't have evidence that you're human. Maybe you're an IA, so, it's entirely justified to dissmis your existence UNTIL proven otherwise?

You are confusing things (in every argument you make, btw).
Whether I exist or not is unrelated to me being an AI and not human.
That I a) am human and b) exist are ordinary claims. There's no need to provide evidence for them.
As soon as I claim that I am an AI or you claim that I don't exist, that's an extraordinary claim and thus requires evidence.
And you do have evidence that I am human because there's no other way I could post on an internet forum. The fact that we are "talking" is evidence of me being a human being. At some point in the future it probably isn't any longer, but right now, in reality, there's plenty of evidence that I am a human being reading your post and typing at my keyboard with my human fingers in order to reply to it.

The other thing is, if somebody you're arguing with claimed that a person you interacted with online isn't human, you'd immediately dismiss that claim. It's sad that you're pretending you didn't just to make a weak argument.

And just to be clear (since I have a feeling our discussion will soon turn out to be about semantics and definitions): I didn't say that "absence of evidence is definite proof of absence", I said it is EVIDENCE of absence. The cat might still be there and actually live there, but until that is demonstrated, Person B is justified in assuming that Person A is lying about owning a cat. It might still be true, and Person B might still be wrong, but Person B is justified. That's the point. However, person B also shouldn't insist that there's no cat (that would be dogmatic).

There is no evidence of a life outside of Earth, so, it's entirely justified to dissmis that UNTIL proven otherwise?

The funny thing is, until the time when people first suggested that the earth is actually a sphere, they were entirely justified in assuming that it is flat. That's the whole point of skepticism, it is fine to doubt a radical notion UNTIL it is demonstrated to be true, even if it eventually turns out to be true. But, as opposed to dogmatism and fundamentalism, at this point, a "true" skeptic will change their mind basically in an instant.

By the way, a fundamentalist would be claiming that the people who don't share his belief are "not thinking."
Fundamentalists are the same, no matter if they are theists or atheists

Absolutely not. The main difference, like I explained, is the willingness to change one's mind. If I saw credible evidence of the existence of ghosts, I'd start "believing" in them over night.
Fundamentalism means not to change one's belief even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary (e.g. young earth creationism, flat earthism).

Due to that skepticism couldn't be further from fundamentalism even if it tried.
It's a tired old argument and you really aren't doing yourself any good by using it.

The skeptical position is intellectually superior by definition.

See, when it comes to unknowable claims ("there's a teapot orbiting jupiter", "there once was an intervening god but he left us"), you can only address them in either of two ways: either dismiss them all or believe them all. You can't differentiate between them because they are unknowable, at least at this time, and there's no criteria by which to sort them.
As is plainly obvious, believing them all is stupid because there's an infinite number of unknowable claims. So the only rational position is to dismiss each and every one of them (for the time being!).
This isn't a dogmatic belief system like fundamentalism, it's a simple logical conclusion about the state of reality.

And I'll say it again: dismissing a claim is not remotely the same as claiming the opposite. This is an important distinction and the inability to make it is exclusively found in believers.

[Stupot]

You arguey motherfuckers...

Yeah, I missed it when we were exchanging ghostly experiences

[LRH]

You arguey motherfuckers...

Yeah, I missed it when we were exchanging ghostly experiences

Allow me to fix that.

You see, I have this sort of erm..."condition" in which I sometimes wake up in a sort of half-asleep state. I'll often times hallucinate when this happens. Sometimes I have an entire conversation with someone that isn't there. However, here are some of the more creepy instances of the pseudo-awake-dreams:

I was probably about 7. There was a thunderstorm raging outside. The storm had this amazing foreboding aura, and yet I couldn't help but look out the window. Suddenly, after a flash of lightning, a hideous corpse was pressed up against the window, shrieking at me.

Another time, more recently, actually, I was sleeping and woke up to the sound of someone yelling angrily. I desperately tried to remember what they had said. I knew it was a short yell, like "HEY!" or "YOU!" Normally if I were to hear something like this in the middle of the night, I would leap out of bed and search the place. However, I felt like for some reason, I couldn't move. In the hallway, a carbon monoxide meter constantly casts out a green "everything's okay" light unless there is too much carbon monoxide. I looked carefully into the light, then suddenly saw a human shadow pass through it, although I saw nobody in the hall. I actually screamed. :x

I "woke up" in both of these situations to see nothing, but they're certainly scary when they feel real and I don't realize they're merely hallucinations.

These dreams have definitely not affected my AGS experience whatsoever.

[Noctambulo]

You arguey motherfuckers...

Yeah, I missed it when we were exchanging ghostly experiences

Sorry about that...

[Stupot]

You arguey motherfuckers...

Yeah, I missed it when we were exchanging ghostly experiences

Sorry about that...

No need to apologize.  I was just being facetious.  Carry on

[monkey0506]

This is an important distinction and the inability to make it is exclusively found in believers.

False. You're not just suggesting, but explicitly stating, that a specific mental distinction is impossible to reach only if the person in question holds specific opinions. That's completely ludicrous to say the least. The human mind is one of the least rational things one could possibly hope to find. It doesn't matter if two thoughts/ideas/feelings/opinions/etc. are directly and absolutely contradictory, someone, somewhere will believe it, and not only believe in it, but find absolute and irrefutable evidence about its truth that they will be completely incapable of producing on demand.

For that reason it's completely absurd that any person should take for granted anything that any other person says, or even proves. Unless I've tested and seen the evidence myself, then it's completely irrational for me to believe that anything is true, or false. Regardless of how many other people may have tested it, no matter how many times it may have been "proven", even under laboratory conditions, it's irrational for me to believe what you're telling me...at least until I've tested it myself.

[Igor Hardy]

For that reason it's completely absurd that any person should take for granted anything that any other person says, or even proves. Unless I've tested and seen the evidence myself, then it's completely irrational for me to believe that anything is true, or false. Regardless of how many other people may have tested it, no matter how many times it may have been "proven", even under laboratory conditions, it's irrational for me to believe what you're telling me...at least until I've tested it myself.

Come on, don't we deserve at least a little amount of trust? It's also pretty irrational of you to believe any mind exists outside of your own. Yet I do hope you believe that, and don't think of us as some kind of mindless robots programmed to do things.

[Calin Leafshade]

Unless I've tested and seen the evidence myself, then it's completely irrational for me to believe that anything is true, or false.

The fact that a Mormon just said this amuses me greatly.

"Hey, I saw God and Jesus, and an angel gave me a bunch of golden plates that you will never see. Do you believe me?"

[miguel]

I had a two minute long farting sequence tonight. My wife kicked me out of bed and it didn't help me when I told her that it could be a ghost...Or several ghosts.

I decline the theory that farts and ghosts are related.

[Stupot]

I had a two minute long farting sequence tonight. My wife kicked me out of bed and it didn't help me when I told her that it could be a ghost...Or several ghosts.

I decline the theory that farts and ghosts are related.

It's as good a theory as I've ever come across...

[Khris]

For that reason it's completely absurd that any person should take for granted anything that any other person says, or even proves. Unless I've tested and seen the evidence myself, then it's completely irrational for me to believe that anything is true, or false.

If that were true, there's no way you could live anything resembling a normal life. You are accepting things to be true without personally testing them all the time. (Example? You don't jump off a bridge to get to the bottom instead of taking the stairs, even though you haven't tested the claim that you're going to get hurt/die if you jump.)
Also, if you mean to tell me that you don't believe any "historical truth" like "there were WWI and WWII" or that you have to test whether things are edible for yourself, you're simply insane. There's no other way to put it.

Regarding what prompted your post: it sounds like you completely misunderstood me. I read your post twice and don't see how it touches in any way what I said (but maybe I phrased things badly):

And I'll say it again: dismissing a claim is not remotely the same as claiming the opposite. This is an important distinction and the inability to make it is exclusively found in believers.

I'll rephrase:
If somebody doesn't get why "I don't believe that X exists" is very different from "I believe that X doesn't exist", there's a 99% chance they aren't a skeptic but a theist/believe in something supernatural.
The worst of them can't even grasp the concept of "not believing in something". If you told them you didn't believe in god, what they'd hear is, you hate god.

[Noctambulo]

False. You're not just suggesting, but explicitly stating, that a specific mental distinction is impossible to reach only if the person in question holds specific opinions. That's completely ludicrous to say the least. The human mind is one of the least rational things one could possibly hope to find. It doesn't matter if two thoughts/ideas/feelings/opinions/etc. are directly and absolutely contradictory, someone, somewhere will believe it, and not only believe in it, but find absolute and irrefutable evidence about its truth that they will be completely incapable of producing on demand.

For that reason it's completely absurd that any person should take for granted anything that any other person says, or even proves. Unless I've tested and seen the evidence myself, then it's completely irrational for me to believe that anything is true, or false. Regardless of how many other people may have tested it, no matter how many times it may have been "proven", even under laboratory conditions, it's irrational for me to believe what you're telling me...at least until I've tested it myself.

Well, that means that you're a real -very real- skeptic

Yes, we have to test all we can by ourselves, but, we are very limited on time and resources to do it.

The vast majority of our knowledge comes from people we assume are telling us the truth (parents, teachers, books, tv, movies, etc, etc), and we "choose" what to believe or not, and that become our personal dogmas.

[monkey0506]

Unless I've tested and seen the evidence myself, then it's completely irrational for me to believe that anything is true, or false.

The fact that a Mormon just said this amuses me greatly.

"Hey, I saw God and Jesus, and an angel gave me a bunch of golden plates that you will never see. Do you believe me?"

Clearly you don't understand one of the core principles of our belief system. Doctrinally, we, Latter-Day Saints/Mormons are not supposed to blindly follow. This brings up the difference between a belief and knowledge. Believing in everything is fine so long as you're willing to test that belief and see if it holds true. If you're not sure about gravity's existence you would be justified in believing that it's not there so long as you take the opportunity to jump up or drop a plate and see if gravity takes no hold. You must also be willing to accept the result even if it wasn't the one you believed would manifest.

Science has extreme difficulty trying to test what is labeled as "supernatural", "paranormal", "spiritual", etc. So for someone closely aligned to the practices of science it makes absolute sense for them to not believe in these things. When they take the stand that these things must not exist, that's when they deviate from the skeptical and move toward scientific fundamentalism.

In the course if our lives there are an infinite number of possibilities and only a finite amount of time, energy, resources, etc. with which to follow through with testing these possibilities. So surely we must take some things "for granted" or else we would spend our entire lives vindicating our very existence.

Science, as modern theory presently stands, does not make a distinction between the proposed spiritual realm and the physical realm. Interactions between the two are considered untestable because we ourselves exist as physical beings, so by what method could we expect to interact with such a realm in which we ourselves do not exist? There is no scientific theory which would describe such a process. When individuals and groups claim such interactions, it is therefore explained using the existing theorem, as best as we are presently able. Hallucinations, blood clots in the brain, tumors, irrational delusion, blatant lying, and the like, all of these we can use our current understanding to explain, so it is the accepted explanation.

From the standpoint of a skeptical theist, I believe that it is possible for an individual or a group to interact with the spiritual realm. Based on what I have experienced as a result of my personal tests in this regard, I differentiate between "a feeling" and things of the spiritual realm. I can only speak for my own experience. If I went in search of a spiritual reponse to the effect that there was no God, yet the results I witnessed were to the contrary, would I not be amiss to hold to that belief that there was no God?

I cannot expect anyone to apply my experience as irrefutable proof in their lives. Indeed I would invite any who were willing to experiment, and see if they too found more than just "a feeling". As for the state of the human mind, why shouldn't you be able to experiment several times? If it's true shouldn't you find the same result?

If a person said to me that they experimented as I describe and felt nothing they could not attribute to their own mind, would it not be equally wrong of me to say, "You're going to burn in Hell if you don't believe as I believe,"?

The doctrine in which I believe, which by my own experience I hold to be true is such that God will hold man accountable for their own knowledge. There is much about this doctrine which I  will not say that I "know" to be true, because there is still so much that I have to learn about it. Experimenting on it must only come when I have learned enough about it to create a well-formed stand on the particular issue.

I understand skepticism toward religion, and indeed I advocate it. However, I do not believe that something must be quantifiable and testable under laboratory conditions in order for it to exist, nor for such existence to be experimented upon. Perhaps my experience is delusion, maybe I am insane, but is it more absurd to follow your experience with religion than to follow my own? Regardless of opposition or support to my point of view, I am obligated, as a skeptic, to state what I have seen; what I have seen time and again, even when I felt so sure that it must be wrong. How could a loving God ask me to face some of the things I have encountered in my life? The pain, the suffering, and the dark places I have been in my life, how could God exist and let this go on? And then knowing there are so many that have faced so much, so very much worse than myself...I have not simply been a blind follower. I have questioned, many times.

Even when I didn't understand, I found an answer than I cannot deny. You may or may not have my experience, and I may or may not be wrong. But I can only state what I have seen.

[ddq]

[Noctambulo]

Monkey, the thing is that there is a lot of people who lack the capacity of dealing with the unknown, and they have to fill in the blanks with what they believe, even when they contradict themselves.

That's why the fundamentalists (theists and atheists alike) are so desperate  to show how "superior" they are, because they KNOW "the truth", and if you don't think as them, you're either a "servant of Satan" or a "useless no brainer". And that makes them very dangerous...

[Khris]

Noctambulo, your ignorant, cheap attacks won't get you anywhere.
You also seem to be unaware of the fact that your statement implies that you think your own position is superior to what you see as extremists on both ends of the spectrum.

Skepticism, as I understand it, is the position that untestable claims must be dismissed.
Atheism as I understand it, is applying skepticism to the god hypothesis, nothing more. There are atheists who claim that there are no gods, but they are a subset. The rest is usually fine with stating that it's improbable, with the degree of improbability depending on the specific god claims made by the believer.

A core property of skepticism is the willingness to go where the evidence leads you and to acknowledge that we in fact don't know everything. We do try to fill in the blanks, but by doing scientific research, not by making stuff up, believing old books to the letter or saying goddidit.

You are attacking a badly disfigured straw man.

Science has extreme difficulty trying to test what is labeled as "supernatural", "paranormal", "spiritual", etc. So for someone closely aligned to the practices of science it makes absolute sense for them to not believe in these things. When they take the stand that these things must not exist, that's when they deviate from the skeptical and move toward scientific fundamentalism.

Unfortunately, you are making the same mistake as a lot people who have this skewed perception of science.
Scientists didn't start out by assuming that the supernatural doesn't exist. One of the purposes of the scientific method is to remove personal bias, so disregarding an entire possible dimension of reality certainly isn't very scientific.
But, over time, scientists noted that whenever they test supernatural claims using high standards and lab conditions, they turn out to be false. So by now, a lot of scientists are simply unwilling to waste their time with testing supernatural claims.

It's very similar to the distinction between medicine and alternative medicine. It's not like a proposed method of treatment starts out as being labeled alternative medicine. It's after it failed the testing of its effectiveness that it gets labeled alternative medicine. Because if the treatment were indeed effective, it would become part of "regular" medicine.

Same goes for natural and supernatural. The label is applied after we test the claim. As soon as a claim about reality can be confirmed, it becomes part of nature. If the testing fails, it doesn't.

And regarding

Science has extreme difficulty trying to test what is labeled as "supernatural", "paranormal", "spiritual", etc.

that's simply not true at all.
There are lots of people who claim to be able to communicate with the dead, read minds or auras, have an out-of-body experience and do other similar stuff. Claims like that can easily be tested. It has been done for decades. And without fail, as soon as some sort of control is used, the supernatural powers suddenly fail.

I didn't wake up one day and decided that from now on, supernatural doesn't exist. I simply followed the evidence.

[Stupot]

Seeing as this thread is already off topic, and I'm buggered if I start another (a)theism thread, I might as well just post this here:

Man faces five years for 'God does not exist' Facebook post.
Yeaaah, I probably won't be going to Indonesia any time soon...

[Noctambulo]

Noctambulo, your ignorant, cheap attacks won't get you anywhere.

And you are a superior kind of moron.

How do you like that?

But don't worry: I'll assume that you are not really mean, only an ignorant (as all fanatics)

From now on, I'll just ignore you (as I had to do when you started claiming your "superiority")

[Khris]

I'm not surprised to see you resort to personal attacks.
You have also insulted all skeptics and atheists.

I on the other hand haven't attacked you, just your arguments.

How about you address my arguments?
It should be easy to show my ignorance that way, right?

Also, being condescending doesn't help if you're already in the middle of losing an argument, it only makes you lose it faster.

[NickyNyce]

This post is not to start or continue an argument, I just could'nt help telling my way of thinking about SOME of this.

What if more people believed that the world was gonna end soon, then there was people that believed it wasn't. The world would be out of whack and near total chaos. Thank goodness that that's not the case. Good thing that more people in the world want to make sure of things before they believe it. This could get extremely radical if we all thought this way. The only time you shouldn't take the time to see if something is false is when you need to decide in an instant.

Innocent until 'proven' guilty, makes sense to me.

We are told a nuclear weapon is headed our way, OH my god, bomb everyone before it gets here. Ummm...NO...check and make sure first.

Iraq has nuclear weapons, let's go bomb the shit out of their country. Ooops, guess we were wrong

Does anyone believe that the world is going to end this year? If we can't prove 100% that it isn't going to end, should we panic and go nuts because we read somewhere that it will?

Years and years ago....People thought that the sun was a god, animals, deformed children, the stars, planets, the alignment of constellations, earthquakes, bad weather, the northern lights, giant mountains... why?

Because nobody could say they weren't. Of course that's changed now

I personally believe the world is a better place by not thinking this way, this is just my opinion.

[ddq]

William Shakespeare once said "Brevity is the soul of not sounding like a rambling, incoherent moron."

[LUniqueDan]

First of all, and perhaps most important, is that there's a separation between my daily life and working on Skeptoid. I don't walk around demanding peer-reviewed scientific evidence for everything that I see. I don't have a crazed, obsessive drive to know the validity of every new product for sale at the mall. I'd never get through my day without a certain amount of tolerance for pseudoscience. Fad products, marketing campaigns, greenwashing, and even straight-up fraudulent claims surround us, all day, every day. I accept that. Trying to be a full-time challenger of pseudoscience would not only be hopelessly quixotic, it would also annoy everyone around me, and rob me of the freedom to enjoy my day.

- Brian Dunning, Skeptoid.org

[Noctambulo]

Innocent until 'proven' guilty, makes sense to me.

It also makes sense to me, but is not necesarily the best approach every time. There are a lot of criminals who are free...

We are told a nuclear weapon is headed our way, OH my god, bomb everyone before it gets here. Ummm...NO...check and make sure first.

Iraq has nuclear weapons, let's go bomb the shit out of their country. Ooops, guess we were wrong

Well, that's not exactly the same: According to some people from the CIA, The US gobernment was pretty sure that Iraq didn't own any WMD (but everybody is 100% sure that Iraq owns a lot of oil.   )

Does anyone believe that the world is going to end this year? If we can't prove 100% that it isn't going to end, should we panic and go nuts because we read somewhere that it will?

I'm curious: How can someone prove 100% that something is going to happen or not?

Years and years ago....People thought that the sun was a god, animals, deformed children, the stars, planets, the alignment of constellations, earthquakes, bad weather, the northern lights, giant mountains... why?

Because nobody could say they weren't. Of course that's changed now

I personally believe the world is a better place by not thinking this way, this is just my opinion.

Well, I personally believe the world would be a better place if we all accept that the truth value of certain claims is unknowable.

[Mouth for war]

Wow! My intention for this thread was for entertaining purposes only....Seems things have gone out of line hehe

[Ghost]

Wow! My intention for this thread was for entertaining purposes only....Seems things have gone out of line hehe

Allow me: BY READING THIS you have a ghostly experience.

[Renodox]

Well...  There were a few nights when I woke up in the middle of the night and saw things that weren't there:

One night, I saw an arm sticking out of the floor holding a golden, bejeweled chalice.  I watched it for a while and it sank into the ground.

The next night, I saw a gun pointed at me.  I waved my hand at it and when my hand went through the gun, it faded away.

The third night, I saw a person wearing blue jeans and a white t-shirt standing in my room.  When I noticed him, he started to advance on me.  I sat up and he backed away and disappeared when he touched a chair.

But I'd say the strangest thing that ever happened to me was several years ago:

I was asleep in my bed and I was awoken by a loud sound of electricity.  Suddenly, a jolt started to run up through my toes into my feet.  The jolt rose up through my body only effecting one section of my body at a time (my legs were electrocuted but not my arms, then my arms were electrocuted but not my legs) until it passed through my head.  The sound went on for a little while and then faded away.  No one else in the house felt or heard it.  Needless to say, no one believed me either.

[Stupot]

That sounds similar to a phenomenon that happens to me sometimes.
Everyone gets those 'jolt awake' moments once in a while, but sometimes for me it's accompanied by what feels/seems like a kind of electric shock in my ears/brain.  Not in a painful way, but it's like a weird buzzing that kind of zaps me awake.  And I don't feel it in my toes or anywhere apart from in my head.
Not really ghostly, but wierd, hehe.

[Mouth for war]

Allow me: BY READING THIS you have a ghostly experience.

HAHAHA yeah

[Wyz]

Not in a painful way, but it's like a weird buzzing that kind of zaps me awake.

Yeah, I get that almost  every morning, but then I hit the snooze button. 

[Noctambulo]

Well...  There were a few nights when I woke up in the middle of the night and saw things that weren't there:

One night, I saw an arm sticking out of the floor holding a golden, bejeweled chalice.  I watched it for a while and it sank into the ground.

The next night, I saw a gun pointed at me.  I waved my hand at it and when my hand went through the gun, it faded away.

The third night, I saw a person wearing blue jeans and a white t-shirt standing in my room.  When I noticed him, he started to advance on me.  I sat up and he backed away and disappeared when he touched a chair.

But I'd say the strangest thing that ever happened to me was several years ago:

I was asleep in my bed and I was awoken by a loud sound of electricity.  Suddenly, a jolt started to run up through my toes into my feet.  The jolt rose up through my body only effecting one section of my body at a time (my legs were electrocuted but not my arms, then my arms were electrocuted but not my legs) until it passed through my head.  The sound went on for a little while and then faded away.  No one else in the house felt or heard it.  Needless to say, no one believed me either.

What do you think about that? I notice that you say "saw things that weren't there".

[MMMorshew]

Something super creepy I experienced:
Half a year ago, I had one of these weird moments when you wake up, but can`t move and your brain is still creating hallucinations. It is some kind of weird stage between dreaming and being awake.
In my case, I saw the door to my door slowly open and heard footsteps from the living room, even though nobody was in the house at that time. I noticed that the footsteps were getting faster and faster, to the point where it sounded like some super insane step dance. The footsteps were getting louder as they progressed to my room. Trough the door that had slightly opened, I saw a black being jiggle towards my room trough the hallway. It didn`t even look like it was walking or running, it jiggled left and right incredibly fast and moved forward that way for some reason. As it entered my room it started to jump left and right in front of the bed and made noises that sounded like a whirlwind. It moved faster and faster and soon I could only barely see it any more because of its speed. I remember that I felt the wind it made in my face.
It stayed like that for maybe 15 seconds, and after that it suddenly disappeared and I could finally move again.
But it still freaked me out pretty bad.

The funny thing is - I knew about experiences like this because I read it on the Internet at some point. I even thought something along the lines of "Oh no, this must be that weird thing I read about!" while it was happening.

Well...  There were a few nights when I woke up in the middle of the night and saw things that weren't there:

One night, I saw an arm sticking out of the floor holding a golden, bejeweled chalice.  I watched it for a while and it sank into the ground.

The next night, I saw a gun pointed at me.  I waved my hand at it and when my hand went through the gun, it faded away.

The third night, I saw a person wearing blue jeans and a white t-shirt standing in my room.  When I noticed him, he started to advance on me.  I sat up and he backed away and disappeared when he touched a chair.

I remember having these all the time at night when I was little, so I don`t think that this is something you should worry about.   Sometimes I also heard and saw something that sounded like a thundering rain of thrashcans falling from to sky and landing next to my bed.  

[arj0n]

Allow me: BY READING THIS you have a ghostly experience.

Like deamons in the attick, whoooooohh!!!

[Calin Leafshade]

once right, I went to McDonalds and there were no Chicken McNuggets left.

I felt a cold chill down my spine.

[Ghost]

once right, I went to McDonalds and there were no Chicken McNuggets left.

Poultryghost, right? 

[Mouth for war]

Nah! more likely a poultrygeist...evil things!!!

[Ghost]

Nah! more likely a poultrygeist...evil things!!!

Poltergeist in the Pantry!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ops_tXYjF2g

[Wyz]

How about Skeletons in the Closet?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDsoN48HI54

[Ghost]

How about Skeletons in the Closet?

Sweet! And the scariest, merriest of them all!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MXYC_jX2Wc

[Igor Hardy]

How philosophy deals with the whole ghost thing (even before finishing its breakfast):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRnGkAiNhyQ

[Darth Mandarb]

>> Long post alert <<

When I was a teenager (many moons ago) I used to get regular instances of sleep paralysis.  Now this was back in the stone age (before the internet) so I didn't have the resources to investigate what this might be that was happening to me.  I was very stressed out trying to come to grips with what was happening.  It was an odd time.  Anyway...

The three most horrifying examples were (that were repetitive examples and happened on several occasions):

1) I awake, but can't move, and am facing the window (which is open, though I am certain I had closed it before going to bed).  All of a sudden three HUGE dragonflies come into through the open window into my room.  The are bigger than eagles, have massive eyes and even bigger teeth.  They are quite terrifying to behold.  They hover over my bed and I can feel the wind from their wings tussling the sheets and my hair.  They drool on me and I can feel the hot snot like stuff land on my face but there's nothing I can do... I'm totally frozen and cannot move a muscle.  They hover there for a bit while my heart muscle gets a work-out and they they leave the same way they came in (sometimes they would just vanish).  Then I can move again and I wipe at my face but, of course, there's no snot-like dragonfly drool to be found!

2) I awake, but can't move, and am facing the door of my bedroom (which is open, though I am certain I had closed it before going to bed).  This three-legged cat comes in (well it has four legs but the front/left is gimpy and she doesn't use it to walk).  She (I say she because this is a cat we had had at one point (with the gimpy leg - we called her Garbage kitty 'cause my brother had found her in a dumpster)) comes over to the bed and stares up at me and then starts hissing and growling ... then she leaps up on the edge of the bad and just starts biting and slashing at my face.  I can feel the huge gouges being torn into my flesh.  I can't do anything ... I can't even scream I have NO control of my body at all and am powerless!  After a bit of mauling my face she jumps down and leaves or, as with the dragonflies, she simply vanishes as I regain control of my faculties.  Again I feel my face (even go to the bathroom mirror to make sure) to see how bad the scratches are but there's nothing there and the 'perceived' pain ebbs.

And this last one I had, at least, once a week for a long time and was, by far, the one that creeped me out the most!

3) I awake, but can't move, and am on my back.  I suddenly become aware that I'm not alone in the room.  I feel a small pressure on my chest.  I am able to move my eyes slightly and as far "down" as I can look I can see this little man standing on my chest.  He's only about 6-7 inches tall and is wearing a white garb of some kind (I can get only the vaguest hint of what he's wearing).  The only part of him I can see with any kind of clarity is his head ... he has no hair and his skin is very slightly tinted red.  He's got his chin down slightly and is just staring at me with this horrifyingly evil expression like "I'm about to kill you ... and there's nothing you can do about it".  He never says anything, never moves, just stands there staring at me.  Unlike the cat/dragonflies he never leaves on his own... he simply vanishes as I regain control of my body.

In all these cases (after the first time), while they were happening, on some level I knew I had experienced this before but it was almost like I couldn't hold on to that... it was real, it was happening now for the first time (especially #3) and I would react the same startled way (checking for injuries) afterwards.  I have never been one to subscribe to "possession" or anything of that sort but I just couldn't find a logical explanation for why this was happening to me.  It stopped around the time I turned 17 (well I have had a few cases in the years since then, but nothing regular).  It wasn't until years later when I learned of phenomenon called sleep paralysis and sort of put all the pieces of that old puzzle together!

I still don't know why I was having these episodes of sleep paralysis, but I'm satisfied now that that is what it was and not some demon possession or anything supernatural.

[Mouth for war]

Paralysis indeed but that sounds pretty damn creepy to me nonetheless

[Eggie]

Lots and lots of reports of that sort of thing...

The explanation is demons, naturally.

[Mouth for war]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_E_e9Tlz0M&feature=related hehe I just had to share this video here