atheism and ghosts.

You could start believing in God, or you could continue believing in the law of the conservation of energy.

For all our knowledge, humans don't really know shit about the natural world or the true nature of time. Something can exist on a different plane without existing in a world formed by God.

 

i fail to see the need for a connection nor the implication of one.

 

Don't know. But for the sake of argument - let's assume you could.

Supernatural: Attributed to some force beyond scientific understanding or the laws of nature.

Being: Something that actually exists.

Yes and Yes.

I have the same problem with some aspects of quantum mechanics - Elementary particles for example - like quarks - that pop in and out of existence.

 

nothing HAS TO BE anything. nor to exist or not exist.
some things happen more often then others
and some things happen more often when other things happen first.
that is all that can actually be known, whatever else we might either wish, or surmise from it.

 

All right .... but just this time.

Not to be splitting hairs here .... but:
beyond laws of nature + something that actually exists = error

Let's say everybody leaves a "ghost" behind when they die but 99% of all people in 99% of all circumstances are unable to see/hear or otherwise perceive them. What does that say about supernatural?

Is there actually something we can define as supernatural? I think by definition the word cannot be used. Nothing that actually exists within nature is beyond it.

No unnerstand?? Mutually esclusive, no?

Or in and out of perception?

 

I cannot witness a supernatural event. Any event I witness is by definition within the realm of the natural (for it occurs in the universe, and I am witness to it, and my witnessing abilities come from natural means), so if I saw what must surely be a "ghost" then "ghosts" must simply be as natural as embryos.

 

What is "natural" and what is "supernatural' depends on whether or not a phenomenon fits within our existing understanding of the laws of physics. Calling something "supernatural" means that it doesn't--which could just be a reflection of our limited understanding of the laws of physics.

 

If we are basing the distinction between "natural" and "supernatural" on the laws of physics, then the distinction is meaningless because in the strict sense of the word there is no such thing as a "law" of physics.

Okie, your observance of the differences between the natural and supernatural, semantically makes sense, but I don't think it's entirely valid. Perhaps I'm reading too much into it but it seems to make the suggestion that only things we don't understand can be supernatural, and therefore the supernatural cease to be as our understanding gradually progresses. Either through dismissal of the phenomenon as a fabrication/delusion, or integration of the phenomenon into our understanding of the natural world.

For me, I'd say the supernatural would have to be something that defies understanding at all periods of human growth, rather than a distinction that relies on our present understanding. For instance, if God exists, it naturally transcends our intellectual depth not only now, but forever. If God exists it is inherently supernatural because it exists beyond the constraints of the natural world, and there would never be a hypothetical future human understanding of the natural world where the full comprehension of God is included.

I realize that God is certainly a more sweeping example than ghosts, but still.

 

Last I looked, there were laws of physics and they were very much in operation. True, some sages like Bertrand Russell told us a truly rational person doesn't expect the sun to come up tomorrow (or more accurately, the earth to continue its rotation around the sun), but I think a person who is that rational is really irrational. The existence of regularities is an objective mathematical fact. Human efforts to formulate these regularities are ultimately rooted in induction, which is always vulnerable in principle, but the laws continue to hold remarkably well. But the laws don't necessarily explain everything. There are phenomena that haven't yet been accounted for by scientists.

I think you point about God being supernatural is well-taken, because supernatural literally means beyond or above nature, and if nature was created by God, as is understood in Abrahamic concepts, God would be, by definition, above or beyond nature, outside time, and in a completely unique situation vis a vis the laws (S)he created. Some scientists argue that the laws of our universe might not apply elsewhere in the multiverse, etc. But I think we should be cautious about limiting in advance what we think scientists might ultimately be able to determine. Sometime in the next century, we might find that the equations of physics that unify the various forces converge into a fundamental theory like the TOE (Theory of Everything) scientists are searching for. Of course, as physicist Steven Weinberg remarks, the mystery then will be "Why is that true?"

 

There are laws in the books, but all bets are off if we are going to apply them to all of existence now and forever.

This is somewhat off topic, but what I meant was that there are no laws, only observations of repeated occurrences of causal relations. The empirical methodology is incapable of predicting future events.

You astutely point out that the difference is basically between perfect certainty and extremely high certainty. It may seem like splitting hairs but when the difference is between the absolute and the non-absolute, I feel the complaint is valid.

 

well I thiiink that your crazy if your actually seeing ghosts

 

i would conclude it was a hallucination, in other words an anomaly in my own brain chemistry. and i would try to relish the experience.

 

A ghost doesn't HAVE to mean afterlife, it could depend on interpretation.
I'm 100% atheist and I believe in ghosts in a way...

 

This question still puzzles me noiw lol. It makes no sense me being a athiest but sometimes i see ghost like apparitions could they be spirits or am i just plain tripping? xD

 

Perpetual denial usually works. If everything that we could experience is defined a-priori as being materialistic in nature ... then denial of anything and everything that is non-materialistic is S.O.P.
Atheists will sometimes site empiricism as as standard, likely without realizing that The First Principles of Logic (upon which empiricism is founded) cannot be proven empirically ... in fact they are known to be true intuitively (intuition is a transcendent quality) therefore empiricism is founded upon transcendence. Yikes! Who forgot to mention that??
In addition someone seems to have neglected to inform atheists that non-locality is a proven scientific fact ... quantum physics (Bells Theorem)1982. Non-locality being a firmly established fact is a philosophical wrecking ball - the underpinning of Philosophical Materialism is destroyed by the knowledge that reality is not local.
People who call themselves atheists have no choice but to distance themselves from Philosophical Materialism knowing that it has been exploded by scientific fact. The problem with saying that "atheism has no philosophy" and is "merely the non-belief in the existence of a deity or deities" is that, without a guiding philosophy there is nothing to provide a rationale for that belief (or is it non-belief) lol. Furthermore a belief that has been (non)ed isn't anything! It's meaningless.
If I were of the opinion that "God does not exist" (that can only be a personal opinion ... since no evidence exists to support it as a fact) I would be very reluctant to describe myself as an atheist because logical analysis reveals that atheism as described by it's faithful acolytes is little more than a relativistic shell game designed to divert attention from it's inadequacies.

 

Hello people, Im new, i've never had a chat with any of you, thought I would post a comment on your thread. I have seen several "ghost type" beings throughout my life. I lived in a house where all sorts of activity occurred. My house mates witnessed it too. I have communicated with a being through a medium that identified itself as my deceased Dad. I told the medium i was dubious as to the authenticity of what was happening and asked "Dad" to identify himself in a way only he and i would relate to. Well i was shocked, he told the medium my nick name, told her of some events in our lives etc. All seemed authentic and low and behold he warned me of impending danger! I was to avoid a situation which i did and yes, i would have been seriously injured. Other than that i have encountered spirits that hide things about the house which later turn up in a very obvious spot. (car keys vanished for 10 hours then reappeared in the middle of the lounge room floor) One of my house mates was reading the occult by colin wilson. Interestingly when he went to his parents for xmas he took the book to read and had a pot plant move from the verandah to his bed! placed on the bed. No prior activity in that house. ??? i don't know what to think. After being a new ager for ten years, the time this all happened, My spiritual journey took me to Christianity. The Christian would say the activity is all dark in origin and the devils mates playing us. I was told to say the Lords Prayer when they are lurking. I did that and all activity around my houses and in my life ceased?? i can't explain it. It would appear the prayers keep them away. I have to be open minded. Think we all do in these things. Oh and one more thing the "White Lady of St Andrews Cathederal" in Scotland.. my Mum is Scottish and one night whilst walking her dog she and her boyfriend saw what they thought was a woman in a white raincoat walking around the grounds and up an alley that ended with a wall. She didn't come out. Later they learned she was a real entity that haunts the grounds where she was beheaded. These are my experiences, i hope they shed some light on yours. Take care.

 

yes, i love my friendly atheistic ghosts.
this should be a problem?

 

I always had a problem with religion. As a child I pretended to be a good christian and all, but I always questioned. As I got older and smarter I began to see the inconsistencies. I spent a lot of my youth searching, in hopes that there was something of deep meaning out there. I tried to be very open, and tried to see various beliefs from the eyes of a believer, yet at the same time I wanted the belief system to prove to me that it was valid. I found that all these institutions of religion were in the end, institutions, manipulative structures of power. I didn't want life to end at death, but I didn't want to blindly believe without some kind of proof, either.

I spent much of the 1980's and 90's living in Asia. I saw a couple of odd things that were hard to explain in Japan, but I wrote them off as coincidences. I met my second wife in Japan (who I am still married to, I met my first wife in Japan too but that's another story), she was a TV actress and a Filipina. Her grandparents were healers in the Philippines, and she would tell stories about them, and I would politely pretend to believe her. All of her family tells how they received different gifts from their grandparents, but they don't know much about them. My wife claims she could change the weather, and I would always answer "wow, yeah---thats something." (But you know what I was really thinking).

They believe in all kinds of things in the Philippines---little people, monsters, spirits. One time I saw something, but it was like it was out of the corner of my eye, I could describe it, but at the same time it was like I couldn't see it---but I ask myself, did I really see that? The answer is I don't know, to which I conclude I didn't really see it. (and that is how an atheist would proabably see a ghost). Then came the death of the biological father of my stepkids, and that was one weird thing after another. But I could chalk it up to coincidences and people's emotions making things into something they aren't. Then my 9-year old daughter, who barely knew her father, had a mental breakdown. We went to several doctors who all said that she would have a long hard recovery, that it was strange for someone so young to have this type of breakdown, and we might consider institutionalizing her. But a healer who used Pre-Spanish methods took us to a stream and healed her within a couple of minutes. (While suffering from this condition of a dissociative consciousness--using Jung's terms through which I tried to diagnose her myself--she looked like a scared little animal. literally to be near her, felt unnerving, as if you were near a scared and sick animal---you were on your guard, yet helpless to do anything for her. But suddenly she was human again, and looked up and said "Mama, where am I?") He said that her father's spirit was lost and used her soul to try to get back to the other side. Apparently that was a gift she had, but she was too young to know it or use it, and so her soul too was lost. That was the wierdest thing I had ever heard, and could make no sense out of it, but for a while I felt like it was hard to disprove life after death, after considering how he healed her. It was so weird though that over time, I was able to write it off. I decided that things just clicked with everything that happened, and she was cured.

Much of my time in Asia was focused more on making money. I had read Jerry Rubin, and agreed that true freedom required economic freedom. So I was an analyst for Shearson Lehman in Tokyo, and then had a small investment company in the Philippines. In other words I had kind of given up on my search for meaning. That is until we had lost money and headed back to America. We arrived in the fall, and it had been my first fall for a number of years. Watching the leaves change, being back home, my first real snow fall in many years---I found some of my old haiku books, and suddenly started composing haiku again. Suddenly it became important for me to again search for that truth. I knew that organized religion did not fit with me, so I decided to explore back through history.

Through this time there were numerous odd synchronicities which I would go over and over, but in the end concluded that they were just strange coincidences. Some of these things were just too coincidental, and a part of me wanted to believe it, but I questioned it nonetheless.

It would bother me that if I couldn't find deeper truth out there, that the ultimate conclusion is that death is the end of everything. But rationally speaking it made more empirical sense that life is simply the result of electrochemical reactions in a biological structure. And that religious experience, and things like the Near Death Experience, for example, were just defense mechanisms programmed into our psyche by evolution.

I studied first the goddess cults, and then indigenous spirituality extensively. In a book on Shamanism by the famous anthropologist, Eliades, I discovered that what had happened to my stepdaughter and the stories that went on in my wife's family were all part of that whole tradition of the shaman. Things that happened in her family, and in the Philippines, fit right in with things that happened on the steppes of Mongolia, or the Siberian Tundra, and even accross the Americas. Out of curiosity I learned how to spirit journey, and tried it as an experiment. It was actually very amazing, but I can tell you exactly what happens in a rational way---the drumming or whatever technique that is used to induce a lucid state of consciousness, allows you to consciously manipulate yourself into your subconscious mind, where you then interact with the various archetypal elements of your subconscious---simple Jungian psychology. Somehow my stepdaughter may have been healed in the same way, because she had an inherited cultural tradition that may have made her open to the way she was healed--another Jungian explanation. The problem is, it didn't satisfy my problems with death. I didn't want all I had done, all I loved, to simply end at death.

Sometime after that, something happened that I have referred to numerous times in this forum. I have e-mailed the story to numerous people here. I may have even told the story on a post somewhere--I am not sure. I don't expect people to believe it, because, first of all, I would have a hard time believing it. Second of all, it was something that was meant for me. This post is already long, so I won't bore you with all the details, but I am always happy to e-mail them if someone wants them, or the details of other sychronicities. But here's a shortened version:

There is a hill behind my house, and on top of this hill used to be a hackberry tree that had bones of a Native American in its base. Supposedly the Hackberry seed was in a medicine pouch on hist chest when he died. The next nearest hackberry tree, they say is over 200 miles away. The town was proud of it, and felt it added history. However it was in the way of a major road, and as the city tried to fight it being chopped down, someone chopped it down in the middle of the night. Years later, a church bought the land where the tree once bordered and shaved off the top of the hill. Late one night I was coming home, and there was this huge electrical storm with lightning all over the city. I love lightning, so I decided to pull into the church's lot and watch the show. As I sat there, I suddenly had this strong desire to do something for the Indian that had passed away on this hill, and had lost it to a road and a very fundamentalist church. The idea sounded stupid, and like I was some new age phoney of some sort. But all week long I kept thinking about it---saying, "I'm not really going to do this." I would have been embarassed if someone even saw me do that. But I couldn't get it out of my head. So well after midnight the following weekend, I went up there and made a medicine wheel, tied to the North star, at a spot that just 'seemed right', and happened to be somewhat clear of weeds. And then I had the feeling that I had to come back up and drum. "Oh man," I thought, "What if somebody sees me." But I mentally promised I would return. Again, all week I went through the same feelings---but for some reason I could not get it out of my head. The following weekend I returned well after midnight. It was a full moon, and I was very careful with my steps because I did not want to trip over a rock or something and drop and break my drum. I sat and drummed a bit, and mentally expressed that this was done to honor the spirit of the dead man that had the Hackberry Tree, I didn't ask for anything, just wanted to honor him. I drummed for about 10 minutes and then the thought went through my mind that, "If I was a Native, there would be some kind of synchronicity here that would have shown me this was good, but I'm not so..." Immediately I saw something black on the ground, right where I had stepped 10 minutes before, and something told me it was for me. I picked it up---and suddenly realized I was holding a piece of a dead animal. But even more important is that, that is exactly where I had stepped, and there was nothing there but dirt. I took it back to the car and looked at it in the light---it was a tail, and was not bleeding but it was wet with blood on the severed tip. I took it home, and had no idea what to do with it---would it rot? would it smell? So I hung it off the rafter on the back of my house. The next day I had my son smell it (I have bad allergies and can't smell). And he said it smelled like sage, so I brought it in the house. I drove back up to the top of the hill, and tried to figure out how a tail would get there. Sure enough, I confirmed that I picked it up, exactly where moments before I had carefully stepped, looking down to make sure I wouldn't trip. I was the only one there, I didn't black out or have anything that I couldn't explain happen---except the tail. It was not there, and suddenly it was. I went over it countless times. And I know why the tail was there---even sitting there a part of me doubted all these synchronicities, and that was my answer.

Today, I still have the tail. It has been almost 10-years, and the medicine wheel is still there. The church was supposed to expand and they never did. Kids pass through the field on their way to school. People drive up there to watch fireworks on the 4th of July. Some times the stones will sink into the dirt, and I'll put another one on top of it. I even thought the church would decide it was of the devil and destroy it---but that's never happened. It has stayed there all those years, same place, same shape. The weeds grow up near it, but that spot allways remains clear.

I don't question any more. Since then I have hooked up with a Lakota lodge community. I have done haŋblečiya (vision quest) filled with synchronicities and lessons that defy rationality. I attended a sun dance and experienced wierd synchronicities. A year later I took my son, but never told him of the weird things that happen, and yet he experienced them too with me. I have attended yuwipi ceremonies and house ceremonies, where very strange things happen--you could rationalize it as a hallucination, but every one there experiences it. (The Lakota, by the way, do not mix peyote with any of these things. Some of them are members of the Native American Church, but the traditional Lakota ceremonies do not include any kind of hallucinogen or drug, and they keep the two traditions separate). And yes, my wife has changed the weather many times, even in front of my disbelieving son-in-laws.

I have learned that for the most part our ego, which acts like a filter, will only allow us to percieve or see what we consciously believe we can see or perceive. Sometimes things happen that give us a glimpse of a little more--a sychronicity or maybe a ghost. But I questioned for more, and eventually got my answer. And to another point made in this thread---to the indigenous people who walk the Red Road, these things that we call supernatural from our Western standpoint, are very natural, and the synchronicities are a matter of everyday life.

 

"... may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of underdone potato. There's more of gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are!"