Spirits, Ghosts, and the Paranormal

My time here at Dart has led me to meet a smattering of believers in the above, though I grew up surrounded by Christians, no one really ever talked about ordinary spirits much. So even as a Christian I only believed in spirits like the Holy Spirit or a spirit that only left the body when god came to judge us. Nothing more, nothing less - people who believed more were pretty rare. To the point that when I read that Jesus exorcised evil spirits from pigs I excitedly told people that Jesus could do that. (Don't judge 12 year old me). Now, as an atheist and a hard naturalists, I find more and more people who do believe in spirits, and its not that there are actually more people that belive in spirits now - its that there are some things I just accepted axiomatically that require a spirit to be a thing.

For example; soulmates, they kinda.. well assume that you accept spirits to exist or superstitions regarding grave sights. All kinds of things, a lot of things about ethics, in general - when I stopped believing in spirits I stopped believing in a lot of other stuff - though I was only ever lightly aligned with the position. My point is - spirits are such a widely accepted thing, and they propagate so many other assumptions, I wanted to know some other examples of things that you find are dependent on the existence of spirits, whether you disagree or agree with their existence. For me, the biggest thing that I changed in my framework was how I viewed conception, birth, babies in general - after I stopped believing in spirits was the first time I considered that abortion might not be bad.

What are some examples from you guys?

Edge, I'm going to relate something that is so personal, I rarely raise it, but this thread is exactly on point. 20 years ago, my father-in-law laid in a hospital bed. I knew he was dying, but had no idea that event was so close at hand. I visited him one evening without my wife with me; I respected him greatly, and I wanted some time alone with him. AS it turned out, he passed away the next morning. That evening, about 7pm, I entered his room, which just had indirect, subdued lighting toward the ceiling and wall behind his bed. He was asleep, with the bed covers up to his chin and his arms outside the covers straight at his sides. He looked so peaceful, I almost walked out again, but something impressed me that I should sit in the chair beside his bed. I did. In a few minutes, suddenly, still asleep, his arms rose straight up, perpendicular to the bed. Then they curled toward one another, forming a circle that had his hands almost reaching the other elbow. He held that pose for a moment, then the arms dropped again. As I was trying to figure out what he was doing, he did it again. And then again. Four or five times more were repeated before I finally figured it out, when suddenly, I began to sense an odor with which I had become familiar when I was dating his daughter, now my wife wife of 47 years. In school, she lived with her grandmother; his mother. She was an avid quilter, who worked daily in the basement of her old house. It had a unique combination of scents, somewhat mouldy, and old fabric. I was there often.  Immediately, the two things clicked. In knew she, long since dead, herself, was in the room, and he was hugging family and friends, all unseen, but felt by me. They had come to welcome him home. I felt I had been invited to witness, and realize what was happening, but that now, the room was getting crowded and it was time for me to leave. The feeling I had was glorious, and I began to weep. Complying, I left the room and shut the door, witnessing all that was needed for me to know that death is no barrier and not the end. The spirits of the dead are among us, and aware of us, and can be sensed if they will it. 

a spirit or soul is required for near death experiences to make sense as authentic experiences of the after life. it's a ridiculous argument from atheists, who have no other choice but to claim that it's common for people to hallucinate elaborate after life stories when they die. (no drug causes people to hallucinate elaborate afterlife stories) 

I fully believe in souls and the supernatural, however I buy into the idea that not all souls permanently remain, especially after anyone who knew them has themselves passed away.

I think that the aim of life is basically to cease any need to exist, until one is fully at peace with having left this world as it is, they don't move on.

I would even buy into the notion that rebirth really is a thing that occurs for souls that haven't yet found said peace.

I don't buy into the idea of a heaven or hell, reality wouldn't be designed for perpetual punishment or reward, nothing in our world implies the god who designed it had that kind of system of justice in mind.

That's very touching. 

As an animist I believe all living things have a spirit. People can work with them whether plant, animal, land, water or dead person.  Healings and insight can be gained by working with spirit, but that's my personal experience. 

Um... no - sometimes its made up, sometimes its a traumatic experience, sometimes its a hallucination - there are so many different explanations I could list them for a while. The fact of the matter is there has been no actual studies to verify this stuff, because if you COULD prove it, you could do that - but the fact of the matter is that a majority are mistaken in the interpretation of their experience. Sometimes its lying, sometimes its an honest mistake - and sometimes its a coincidence. There's not much else to it. 

@Theweakeredge.

Spirits, Ghosts and Paranormal as existent entities/forces.

Some of many things that we assume but never actually prove.

However, the self is internally responsive to and motivated by, external stimuli.

So the juries always out.

I personally side with spiritualty etc, as  being internal constructs.....Imagination as it were.....The more affective the stimulus is,  the more affected the mind will be, so the more vivid the response will also be.

If the mass does have an embodied, physiological spirit, it hasn't been scientifically discovered yet.....So I will remain sceptical until such times.

I will also mention, as I have on previous occasions, that it is very easy to induce spiritual experiences/moods.

Well, religion is the opiate of the people.

This is why I don't use drugs ( which I don't use in general) when doing meditation or trance work. I feel it clouds the experience. 

For sure...I've never done drugs....And I wasn't suggesting drugs.

Quite simply if you believe or expect that a certain place or event will induce a feeling/mood of spirituality, then it probably will.

And if something is a positive experience for you then it is also probably beneficial.

I am probably pseudo spiritual about certain things that I do, which physiologically benefit me.

I just don't read so much into those experiences, as you might do.

Either way, I would suggest that our experiences are all self induced, rather than externally influenced.

And I would say that money is the opiate of the people.

Religion is a Sunday morning social event for most participants.

Of course, there are always a few mad zealots in every aspect of society.

i have never seen or read or heard of any drug that consistently causes afterlife stories the same way NDEs do. some drugs cause some similiarities, sometimes... but that's it. 

Ironically, the Bible is a book that supports the belief in spirits if you really pay attention. I mean they're as much a part of the Bible as any other theology. Maybe the limits you are familiar with pertain more towards the human spirit but honestly, the spirit (or soul) of every being precedes the physical womb. There are some verses in the Bible that are a bit of a misconception, at least they paint the wrong picture because souls are immortal and they are not limited to just the planet earth. To add, each soul comes out of the heart of God, figuratively speaking. There is no spirit or soul that exists independent of that Reality. 

The more you study spirituality and religion as a whole the more it (spiritism) falls into place as a very strong theology. 

Spiritism is a good term to begin with, not as a religion per say but as a worldview and ideology. I don't know what exactly has you so sold on the assumption that spirits (souls) don't exist to support HARD naturalism but I understand it. I think with all the information available it's a bit of a mistake to be so opposed to it. However, needless to say if souls or spirits don't exist my personal worldview falls apart, on the other hand if they do so does yours. I must say though that the full scope of human experience falls gracefully into the worldview of spiritism more than any other belief including atheism, materialism or naturalism. 

Let me say this, I don't just start with the assumption that spirits exist. I don't just accept that and then build my worldview based off of that. It's much more complex than any given assumption for me personally. My beliefs are based upon a lifetime of experience, observation and acquired knowledge given all the information and evidence that exists. The one thing I find interesting about atheists is that many of them were raised Christian, I don't blame for rejecting such a belief system but I do hold them to the fact that they become bias towards the possibility that such realities beyond the immediate physical sense perception exist. I can understand why they would become so opposed to the idea because they simply never connected with that, they may become skeptical about religious dogma because of that, but there's no reason to limit the reality that souls exist just because they disagree with Christian dogma and teaching. There's a kind of disconnect between rejecting Christianity as a childhood indoctrination and being intellectually honest about spirituality and a Creator as a whole. It always comes across as it's either one or the other....in other words it's either what I was raised to believe exists or nothing at all period, to me that is very small minded in relation to a wealth of knowledge and experience/observation and human experience. 

I raised to believe in spirits, its simply that it was not brought up much, you looked a tad too much into a off-line that meant literally nothing (its what writers would call "needless fluff") 

Furthermore, as we have already discussed, there is exactly zero peer-reviewed research that demonstrates spirits exist, and... interestingly enough, the ones that try do a lot of fraud in the process, the biggest evidence we have for spirits are collections of anecdotal experiences that are not controlled for other occurrences, are not checked by other researchers, and are not able to be recreated or reproduced, a lot of times, you can't even verify that it happened at all (the instance where someone was nearly dead, not the experience, you can't verify that). So while I do think that accepting naturalism automatically means that spirits don't exist, the utter lack of evidence, and repeated failure to demonstrate such existence only helps that notion. 

Again, the "biggest source of evidence" not that the evidence itself is big - or large - so you have the sources? Please present them. So far the only thing that you've asserted to me that you've "substantiated" is with a quack's documentary. So please - give me the evidence. You say that there are "two distinct fields of research, two different studies" and that a study would "find correlation" - that's the thing THERE ISN'T A STUDY TO ACTUALLY PROVE THE CORRELATION. So far you've asserted things, but not actually proven them. You know the easiest way to prove your point that a study would say x or y? Showing the study! It doesn't matter if you THINK the evidence is permissible, you have to PROVE that's the case with solid and concrete methodological practices. That's how you actually prove things, and eliminate as much confidence as you can. 

And.... um - no - that's the cased with HISTORIC EXISTENCE, the mere fact that there are "sources" which agree that a THING (not a historic thing, not a thing we no longer have access to, something that allegedly still existing) exist, means literally nothing. If all of these sources are not valid, they mean literally nothing, and the quantity of them does not impact that truth. For example, regardless of how many people claim that the earth is flat, that does not mean that the earth is flat, the reason that historic assertions are vetted like that is because we literally no longer have access to the thing being asserted to be a thing, so that is often the best evidence we have for its existence, but evidence, widely, does not work like that whenever you still have access to the thing you are claiming to exist. 

Seriously... you are that pedantic at this point? Completely ignoring the ad hominem, I don't mean the literal individual cases of spirits or near-death experiences, I MEAN NEAR-DEATH EXPERIENCES in general, I mean spirits, I mean the spiritual - are you seriously grasping that hard to where you have to so obviously misinterpret what I say? Like did you actually believe that sentence as you were writing it? If so, I would beg for you to take a stats course, please, and if you have already taken one, please take another ten or so. Because apparently, it did not teach you about what "repeatable experiment" means. And yes, it is extremely important to be able to repeat something like this to confirm it exists, it is by far the most efficient (and in some cases only) way to eliminate other causes of x or y behavior. Repeating it under different conditions. 

Please present the valid, preponderance of evidence to me. Because, and as I've already lectured you about, yes anecdotal evidence is "evidence", but it is, when making a claim as you are, the weakest form of evidence, and means nothing in regards to actually proving an assertion. Its like you're so caught up with the pedantic fact that a person saying something is evidence that you aren't actually analyzing the quality of the evidence.