What are ghosts and spirits?

Philosophy Forums Science, Technology, and Math
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What are ghosts and spirits?

  • Dead souls left to wonder the earth?
  • Masses of energy and light?
  • Errors in time?
  • Hallucinations and trickery of the brain/eye?
  • Unfinished work needs to be finished before heaven?
  • Revengefull evil spirits?
0 voters

I was wondering are ghosts part of the christian religion? Do religious people believe in ghosts? What do you think ghosts/spirits are? Are they balls of light and energy, hallucinations, eye trickery or errors in time that display past events, or are they actually dead people? I personally believe that ghosts are errors in time and that spirits are masses of energy and light. I just wondered what everyone else thought.

2

Jesus acknowledged ghosts:

So we can know at least two things about ghosts from here: one Jesus “understands” the concept, and two they do not have flesh and bones. They are spirit (or soul -We have not been able to distinguish these two yet.)

There is also another story in the Old Testament.

Some reflections:

  1. Dead people become ghosts.
  2. Ghosts are spirits. (or souls?)
  3. Ghosts come from the ground.
  4. Ghosts are “intelligent” - ie they can understand just as they could as humans.
  5. Ghosts can talk and can hear us.
  6. Ghosts have memories.
  7. Not all can see a ghost. (Saul could not see Samuel’s ghost)
  8. Ghosts are seen wearing clothes.

So perhaps ghosts are disembodied people, ie who we are when separated from our physical being, the body.

Now if the spirit is God’s spirit, which departs, and returns to God when a person dies, then what is left behind is the soul.

And the attributes of a ghost above are also the attributes of our soul, namely that it is the intelligent, thinking, remembering part of us that is within us. And this soul do not die.

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What do you think the purpose of ghosts are then? Why are they left to wonder the earth?

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That we may know that there are things beyond merely physical. (ie things accessible to physical measurements and perceptions) That it is a glimpse of the immortality of the man. That there are things unknowable to man. And that there are good and evil spirits too.

5

so youre telling me that peoples souls are left to forever wonder the earth just as evidence that there is further life and immortal man? Unless it is a punishment I see this as unfit to besiege upon an innocent man. I dont believ in God therefore your pints are not to me believable. But thankyou for your input anyway it was interesting to hear of your veiws.

6

I am not saying ghosts are to wander forever on the earth, and I am not sure they do. I am not even sure where ghosts “sleep”. Samuel’s ghost complained about being awaken and he arose from the earth. That some ghosts are perceptible, by some humans, within earth’s spacetime is undoubtedly true, but does not necessarily apply to all ghosts.

And why is being a “wandering ghost” a punishment? What to you then should the situation be after a person dies? Even if it is a “punishment” is it a just/fair one?

You do not have to believe in God to believe the Samuel story. For that you only need to believe that there was someone who wrote such a story.

Of course you may questioned whether the story is true at all, for if it is not, then all my observations are false. But then here you apply the same acceptance/belief criteria for everything else that you read or hear in the media or amongst your peers or here on this forum or anywhere else in cyberspace.

Also you need not believe in God to accept that there once lived in history a man named Jesus.

And of course you - or I - need not restrict your knowledge sources to just the bible. And in this case science is not entirely applicable. Have you not heard of people’s experiences of being out of the body? I personally know at least 2 people, who are not Christians by the way, who have had such experiences are living today to tell them.

7

Ghosts and spirits are the thoughts or thinking because without a spirit we cannot exist. When a person dies, all the food energy is there for him to live on and yet the heart stops beating, etc., so this other energy call it spirit, leaves it anyway. I think when we die our physical body becomes the elements of the environment but the thoughts go to the Higher Consciousness. So, spirit is really just the mind that lives on as a part of the Higher Mind and then gets re-incarnated in the form of a physical body on earth depending upon our actions on earth. That’s what I think.

8

why is this in the natural sciences forum? a question that can be naswered with jesus would seem to exclude itself in principle.

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Answer:

g) None of the above.

I find it amusing when someone claims they saw a “ghost” it’s always wearing clothes. You’d think they have a Gap for Ghosts in the “afterlife”?

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There was an option missing - errors of thought!

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they are fluctuations os space and time distorted by the membrane in the 11th spatial dimension.the reasons people see relatives is because of the cortex,cerebellum,and hippocampus that emit some sort of enrgy and fluctuations in quantum mechanics that cause such strabge events such as miracles,apparitions,orbs,etc. its just a minor tear in the metaphysical and physical fabric in the universe also human beings only use 8% of thier brains at time humans con pick up signals and emit signals using brain waves.

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callumdodsworth

I would agree slightly your thoughts on what you think ghosts are. I for one have experienced such a phenomenon. One experience would be to see an very small and bright orb floating near my self help books. Other experiences would be voices of warnings or suggestions when I was doing something like yoga or meditation. Infact at one point I was Ahem!! surfing a porn site late at night and out of nowhere a woman’s voice whispered out “Pervert!”. I nearly jumped out of my seat and turned the computer off and went to bed.

I havent looked into how christianity takes views on what ghosts are. Perhaps some would view ghosts as evil since they are not in heaven / hell where dead people should go. While others view them as prophets e.g. holy spirits sent to spread the word of love and light. Personally I think ghosts mainly wander without much choice, but spirits on the other hand are those who are conscious and at times interact amoung us. I suspect they are here to carry on what humans do best.

CREATE!!

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So, callumdodsworth, you are asking that every ‘ghostly’ event, every person has experienced throughout history must:
a) all fall into one of the above categories?
b) fall completely within a category and cannot be a combination or bit of several influences e.g. energy field blip + hallucination?

And, more importantly, your categories ignore the tool we have for perceiving and computing these events – the mind –
a) is tiny in its field of vision (e.g. many animals can hear and see far more vibrations of sound and light than we can for instance)
b) has only a few gross input sensors where all subtleties get dumped and ignored that don’t get picked up. e.g. the eye which only picks up a tiny portion of the known light wave spectrum
c) has to fit the minds hard wired operating system of cause/effect, reason, logic etc. Even our physical world on the very large (astrophysics) and very small (quantum) levels don’t make “sense”, yet we demand something in another realm to make sense? A little egotistical, don’t you think so?
d) has to be filtered through language (both mental and verbal/written). And language is a pattern of primitive symbols that have different subtle meaning to each person who interprets them through his/her own experience.

I’m not against exploring, questioning and wondering… but don’t fool yourselves in thinking you can get anywhere near the ‘truth’ by using the primitive brain. If you think you know what lies outside your brain, chances are you’re looking into a mirror.

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Ghost is not spirit. lol. I see a ghost as an afterimage. Like someone was so powerful alive that when they died, it left a permanent imprint with other residual effects.

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I have had several clients in psychotherapy that thought they were seeing ghosts. Mostly these were young people.

Anyway, I asked them if they believed in Jesus. They usually say that they do. I reported that Jesus would not leave souls unaccounted for. He’s not a slob! He would take care of them. He would also not allow beings from the spirit world to tease people! Why would he allow that to happen.

There’s usually jaw dropping, and then I ask them if just maybe their minds are playing tricks on them?

16

Thanks, purge. My hairs are standing on end now. They needed an airing.

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Sorry to have to supply a very boring answer, but the physical structure of some rooms, buildings and even open air places, and the positioning of surfaces relative to one another in said location, can create an acoustic ‘trap’… trapping/amplifying a standing wave of infrasound - a sound we cannot actually hear (it’s of a lower frquency than our ears can detect) but which can cause physiological → psychological effects within the body. Probably by being on the frequency/harmonic that causes parts of our neurophysiology to vibrate sympathetically with it.

Anyway - these effects usually encompass feelings of fear and dread, nausea, and in extreme or chronic exposure - hallucinations. Couple that with a suggestibly scary place - bingo, the dead ride again.

I’m not sure, but I think the military experimented with acoustic weaponry regarding crowd control/disabilitizing enemy soldiers… Don’t know if they succeeded though.

Does this account for everything - probably not… But I’m more inclined to go with the “glitches in sensory processing” theory than anything else. At least until the ghost of christmas past comes and brings me a turkey dinner. :wink:

Oh… And by the way…

[size=200]Boo !!![/size]

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Assuming ghosts are real (I’ve never seen one but I’d like to), why is it that only a few people become them?? Why don’t we all turn into ghosts?

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For the people with religions…

Ghosts are deceist people waiting for the “judgement day” to come so they can be judged on whether or whether not they will go to heaven.

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Have anyone watched “The Crow”? It’s story where the Crow takes man’s soul when he dies, but sometimes the man have to complete his mission on the Earth, so the Crow makes it some kind of spirit… well, it’s the same man, but my idea was that ghosts are people, who have to complete their mission on the Earth. But I can’t choose certain answer from the pool, cause I see few correct answers there.