Saying with certainty things like "There are no ghosts", or "There is no God", or "There is no Flying Spaghetti Monster" is foolish. As you said, none of it can be known 100%. But the thing is that the burden of proof lies on the side arguing for their existence, not against it. So what one can say is that the "evidence" provided for their existence has not held up under scrutiny. The evidence provided for ghosts in this thread certainly hasn't. B-Bob is right though, and I'm not trying to be a party pooper, these stories are fun to share. As long as you take them for what they are -- stories. For example, the best part of TdashDUB's stories for me was when the ghosts obviously felt bad for making his mom yell at him and so they stopped. :grin: The comparison with electricity is misguided. A world of electricity has always existed. Ancient Greeks could show you that rubbing things together produces charge. Lightning predates man. These phenomena were not understood but they were demonstrable. And current understanding of electricity was arrived at by starting to investigate these phenomena. What is the equivalent of that for ghosts/spirits? Indeed, any serious attempts to investigate them have lead to the conclusion that people are not in control of their brain as much as they'd like to think, are quick to jump to conclusions and easy to scare or fool.
One of the many times sarcasm/kidding isn't well translated through text without proper inflection to accompany it. No worries.
Well that's just it. A world of electricity has always existed just as a world of spirits might have as well. Just because we haven't invented a machine to make it further demonstrable doesn't automatically make it fantasy in the sense that certain scenarios/experiments haven't lead to the proof that spirits don't exist, just leads to it being further more unexplainable. If there's millions of people at least willing to admit that they've encountered some unexplainable situation (and I mean concrete crazy stuff), it can only create more question marks rather dead ends in my book.
So you're saying you are 100% sure that ghosts, spirits, and angels DO NOT exist? Keep in mind, I'm not saying that they do. I'm just saying that I don't know if they do or not. I have an open mind about it but have not experienced anything personally. I think some of you dorks try to look at everything scientifically and logically like a bland robot reciting calculations as if you can apply that to all aspects of the world.
True, the world of spirits might exist. But again, proving that spirits don't exist is impossible. Even if we have a perfect description and understanding of the Universe and the human mind one day, one still be able to say that spirits exist but we can't detect them because blah blah blah. Finally, just because YOU can't explain something doesn't mean it cannot be explained. There are plenty of things I can't explain but I don't then leap to the supernatural as a cop out. But if it's there, it needs to become part of our understanding of the world, i.e., "natural". So these things should be investigated. To this point, however, just a bunch of people have been proven to be liars or imagining things or being fooled by someone/something, etc. This looks like a good book on the subject, Paranormality: Why we see what isn't there, looking into the psychology behind the paranormal. I haven't read it, but this thread has given me motivation to do so. In the first paragraph that you quoted I pretty much explicitly state that that is not what I'm saying. Why are you replying if you don't even bother to read the first couple of sentences? Indeed, neither do I. And as Carl Sagan once said, we should all keep an open mind about things, but no so open that our brains fall out.
I had almost the exact same experience to this part.It took place many years ago,but still stands out as the most terrifying thing to ever happen to me. I actually had it happen several times over about a month long period.Just like you described,dark figure on my chest,couldn't scream or move,just sheer terror.Afterwards I'd tell myself it was a dream,but it seemed so real and I just never could really convince myself.I was like those kids on Elm st., trying to stay awake all night,sleeping with guns and knifes under my pillow.I thought maybe I was going insane or something but it just stopped happening.I had actually forgotten all about it until I read your post
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_paralysis - This is how the medical industry describes what you might have experienced
No, because they don't exist. Your friend is now telling the story of how scared you were that night on crap he made up. He owns you now.
I've never seen what most described as a ghost but I've seen these: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_people I used to see them all the time (every month at least) until my late teens, LOL always in the corner of my eye until it would disappear. There were about two times when I look straight at a couple and they slowly disintegrated, if you will, or disappeared slowly. I've seen a lot or weird ish in my life really, more than what anyone would believe.
Yep, had that happen and I've watched it happen to someone else. It is pretty terrifying and I can understand how anyone who doesn't understand it can come to the conclusion that something paranormal was ******* with them. As for Shadow people I'm pretty sure that's your peripheral vision not completely understanding what it sees yet and your mind playing tricks on you.
Sorry, I as well as others (heck, it has a Wikipedia page and it's talked about on Coast-to-Coast AM) have seen them and a few times they didn't just appear in my peripheral, I look straight at them moving (both the hat man and the hooded figure) before they disappeared. Whatever the explanation, I don't think it was just a figment of my imagination. Once or twice would be but not dozens of times.
Well, Dragons and Vampires have their own wiki page. Pretty much anything has it's own wiki page. I wouldn't call it imagination. It's said that your brain thinks it's there in your peripheral, but when you turn and look your brain gets more information and corrects itself. Therefore it's not really imagination. If you say you've seen it head on then fine. It's just I'm not really one to believe in such things without proof.
I took a picture of ghosts at the Gettysburg Graveyard. Several orbs where flying around. I posted them on this forum. Folks blew them up and one of them had what looked like a face. I can't search for it because I don't have the right status. But it is here somehwere.
