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  1. #41
    Quote Originally Posted by Chaozu View Post
    Nope. Let me put it this way, if there were truly ghosts, spirits or whatever in this world we would KNOW about it, we would have real proof of it, there are so many people who constantly claim they have seen this or that, yet their "proof" is always lacking. It's always simple stuff as a weird noise, a shadow, something that was moved or the like. Never is there real footage of it. Why would even a ghost/spirit waste their time in doing simple "tricks" like that? It's just illogical.

    For each time a person's ghost story is proven untrue those who believe in it just shake their heads and turn their focus to another one...
    Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
    Much of what we understand nowadays in the sciences were once thought impossible or were simply unknown until we found evidence to the contrary.
    There is much we still do not understand, and I am not convinced we ever will understand everything.

  2. #42
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    Quote Originally Posted by Spectral View Post
    I'm disinclined to promote people believing false things just because they're fun. I'd like to be hooking up with Allyson Felix this weekend, and believing it's so might be fun, but I wouldn't encourage people to tell me it just might happen.
    After a quick google of Allyson Felix, bit butch for me but that isn't the only reason I would discourage you. Perhaps if you believed you had hooked up with Allyson I'd be more inclined to encourage the belief. Also if this belief moved you in a way ghosts or religion often does then yes, even if I knew with 100% guarantee that you didn't bang the athlete I would continue to humor you. This is what I do with my friends and what I'd hope they do with me.

  3. #43
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    I'm going to be one of the "lame" rational guys that are going to post here just to say No. I'm not scared of ghosts or any supernatural beings. If I'm alone in the dark there are much bigger risks out there... Shady people in the streets, bears in the forest... (literally).

  4. #44
    Epic! Sayl's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Sythari View Post
    I'm just curious to what other people think of the matter
    I think we're long overdue for rejecting archaic folklore.
    Ghosts, poltergeists, spirits, werewolves, vampires, faeries, bogeymen... only exist in people's imaginations.




  5. #45
    Quote Originally Posted by Themius View Post
    There is a theory that our consciousness could be located in another dimension and manifest in us perhaps using some type of electronic tuning mechanism. It's not completely far fetched. Could say it's like string theory.

    I find it quite interesting that people will call others fools if they don't "just" believe in science... I mean some of the greatest minds weren't atheist and yet science tends to forget this.
    Hmm, that's about the most plausible theory I've read for the existence of a soul! It does make me wonder though, if our brain is some kind of tuning mechanism, how would that interact with acquired brain injuries leading to massive personality changes? Would that mean the "tuning fork" is broken, the consciousness is unchanged but coming through "wrong"?

    That's what I always get hung up on when it comes to the idea of consciousness. It clearly exists as a complex chemical reaction, and the best way to prove it exists is because it can be affected, it can be broken or changed. It has a real world state that can be interacted with.

    Now, I'm open to that idea above, that your soul has some kind of "true" state and your tuning fork could be broken, but that seems to shut out positive modifications. If you're depressed and you take anti-depressants, and they worked (side-stepping the debate about anti-depressants, just as an example), that's when things get confusing. Is your consciousness not really depressed then? If it exists elsewhere, why does medication affect it? If your body is just a tuning fork and the medication fixes that, then...apparently you weren't "really" depressed? It starts to get really murky.

    So yes, I think my mind is a result of the chemical reactions in my brain. I know some people think that cheapens life, but I actually think it improves it. It makes my life and what I make of it even more valuable, because this is it.

  6. #46
    Quote Originally Posted by dystin View Post
    After a quick google of Allyson Felix, bit butch for me but that isn't the only reason I would discourage you. Perhaps if you believed you had hooked up with Allyson I'd be more inclined to encourage the belief. Also if this belief moved you in a way ghosts or religion often does then yes, even if I knew with 100% guarantee that you didn't bang the athlete I would continue to humor you. This is what I do with my friends and what I'd hope they do with me.
    Clearly we have very different approaches.

    I don't want to get into some sort of religion bashing situation, but I'm wildly unconvinced of the notion that false beliefs move people in positive directions with any sort of regularity.

  7. #47
    The Undying Kalis's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Sayl View Post
    I think we're long overdue for rejecting archaic folklore.
    Ghosts, poltergeists, spirits, werewolves, vampires, faeries, bogeymen... only exist in people's imaginations.
    I'm glad you didn't mention Pixies, as they are real, I've seen them.

  8. #48
    Epic! Sayl's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Kalis View Post
    I'm glad you didn't mention Pixies, as they are real, I've seen them.
    I was quite tempted, but I did not wish to offend you.

  9. #49
    I do recall my grandmother telling me about her grandfather dieing and appearing before his two sisters both in two different locations telling them that his wife needed them. And sure enough when they went to her they discovered he had died at the same time that he had appeared before them.

  10. #50
    The Undying Kalis's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Sayl View Post
    I was quite tempted, but I did not wish to offend you.
    ...or Black Francis.

  11. #51
    Old God Grizzly Willy's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Spectral View Post
    It would indeed be awesome if magic was real. That doesn't mean the universe isn't awesome sans magic, just slightly less awesome.
    I dunno, I find stars a lot more fascinating when I know that they're being powered by nuclear fusion and not magic.

  12. #52
    Quote Originally Posted by Jackdemenzes View Post
    Hmm, that's about the most plausible theory I've read for the existence of a soul! It does make me wonder though, if our brain is some kind of tuning mechanism, how would that interact with acquired brain injuries leading to massive personality changes? Would that mean the "tuning fork" is broken, the consciousness is unchanged but coming through "wrong"?

    That's what I always get hung up on when it comes to the idea of consciousness. It clearly exists as a complex chemical reaction, and the best way to prove it exists is because it can be affected, it can be broken or changed. It has a real world state that can be interacted with.

    Now, I'm open to that idea above, that your soul has some kind of "true" state and your tuning fork could be broken, but that seems to shut out positive modifications. If you're depressed and you take anti-depressants, and they worked (side-stepping the debate about anti-depressants, just as an example), that's when things get confusing. Is your consciousness not really depressed then? If it exists elsewhere, why does medication affect it? If your body is just a tuning fork and the medication fixes that, then...apparently you weren't "really" depressed? It starts to get really murky.

    So yes, I think my mind is a result of the chemical reactions in my brain. I know some people think that cheapens life, but I actually think it improves it. It makes my life and what I make of it even more valuable, because this is it.
    I believe it would function more like your consciousness manifest in you much like televisions or a radio. It's all around us all the time and passes through most things yet we don't see/hear/feel it unless we use a tool to tune into it, but quality can fail depending on the actual equipment used.

    There's also speculation that the other 98% of our dna for which we don't really know what it does could be integral to this.

    It's rather interesting, now...would be nice if someone continued to do testing to see if they could indeed find another dimension like this.

  13. #53
    Quote Originally Posted by Spectral View Post
    Clearly we have very different approaches.

    I don't want to get into some sort of religion bashing situation, but I'm wildly unconvinced of the notion that false beliefs move people in positive directions with any sort of regularity.
    I agree with this, even positive delusion is delusion.

    Although if I wanted to play devil's advocate, some sort of low level delusion might have a place. I had a huge argument with a co-worker about self-confidence and how it works, particularly in regard to things we haven't done before. It went a bit like "Your boss just wants to know you're confident you can do the job." Me: "Well, I think I can, I think I'll be fine". "No, don't say you 'think'." "Well, I don't 'know', I haven't done it yet." "No, they want you to be confident." "I'm confident I can do it, but I don't know I can because I can't see the future, I think I can, I think I'll be fine." ... et cetera, it went on for awhile, haha. That might be more of a semantics argument but you could say confidence, at least in regards to things you haven't done before, could be a kind of self-delusion that has a good outcome. Of course, it also leads to people confidently saying they can do something, and then crashing and burning.

    I'm not even arguing, I agree with you, heh, just something that occured to me, throwing that out there.

  14. #54
    Merely a Setback Adam Jensen's Avatar
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    I believe "ghosts" and "spirits" are simply hallucinations, tricks of the light and other phenomena that the witness simply misunderstood and did not see properly. The brain is easily fooled after all, and there's no decent evidence to say such things exist.

    I am a skeptic, I do not believe in things that cannot be confirmed through the senses.

    ---------- Post added 2012-07-29 at 12:03 AM ----------

    Quote Originally Posted by Grokan View Post
    I dunno, I find stars a lot more fascinating when I know that they're being powered by nuclear fusion and not magic.
    Indeed. I like looking at the sky and knowing that there's an orb of nuclear hellfire heating up this planet, and has been doing so for billions of years. The sun is an extremely interesting object, especially from a scientific viewpoint.
    Putin khuliyo

  15. #55
    Warchief Tydrane's Avatar
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    The best way I think to approach ghosts, spirits, demons, poltergeists, whatever you wanna call them, is to simply acknowledge that there is no conclusive proof to suggest that they exist. That's not to say that they don't, but that we can't test or measure whether or not they do. It's like the God fallacy, you can neither prove they exist or don't exist, which is no good reason to believe that they do. I've never had an encounter with something I didn't understand or recognise and think "Must have been a ghost." I have had some bizarre experiences, working night shift at a hotel entails just that, but each time I just dismissed it as something I have no explanation for. It doesn't bother me that I can't explain weird occurrences, so long as there isn't anything for me to worry about - and there has never been any suggestion that there is - I just put it out of my mind.
    Quote Originally Posted by Steampunkette View Post
    Didn't help that he had Sky Admiral Warcrimes McEvillaugh flying his airship for him.
    hi im tydrane from dranasuss

  16. #56
    Nope , at least not until I see one .

  17. #57
    Barry Gibb haunts my stereo. When I close the drawer empty, the machine 'finds' a BeeGees album and plays Stayin' Alive.

    I have taken the unit apart and there's no CD lodged in there. Sony are equally confused, but they offered me an exorcism under warranty.

  18. #58
    Deleted
    no and no! my whole family believes in ghosts, and swear they have all seen some ghosts. i have fun picking holes in their stories, really winds them up and they get really defensive when i challenge them on it.

  19. #59
    Sleep paralysis and similar things are extremely common.

    I still get, and it's hard not to just laugh it off as nothing... even though I know it's nothing.
    The most successful tyranny is not the one that uses force to assure uniformity but the one that removes the awareness of other possibilities.

  20. #60
    Deleted
    The only people who still believe in anything of the supernatural are either of the following:

    • Idiots
    • Raised in a very religious home
    • Ignoramuses following the social norm
    • Frauds and crooks
    • Delusional
    • Despots seeking to use the faith of a people for their own gain


    'That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.'
    - Christopher Hitchens


    Let that be the end of it.

    Infracted
    Last edited by Pendulous; 2012-07-30 at 12:48 AM.

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