An amusingly different take on ghosts. Despite the blogger's wry tone, I think he genuinely does believe his house is haunted. He's just singularly unimpressed by those who do the haunting.

http://ace.mu.nu/archives/326821.php

Comments

[dmduncan]

That is hilarious. I posted it on my Twitter.

Yeah, I think he's serious about it. He's in no way dismissive about the phenomenon.

[Cyrus]

Ghosts are voyeurs. My belief at this point is that the dearly departed, at the end of the day, are not much different. In some way, this is good.

[Matt Rouge]

I think this is a sign of progress in the understanding of the Afterlife, etc. He is being humorous, but his take is very accurate. Thanks for the link!

[Matt Rouge]

BTW, who is this guy? He certainly gets a lot of comments on his blog.

[Bruce Siegel]

There's an interesting little dialogue between a non-believer and believer in comments 185 and 187.

[no one]

A simple, off the cuff yet to the point observation by someone who appears to actually believe that the ghost is real. And, reading the post as well as comments, who knew that right wingers had such a sense of humor?

[Michael Prescott]

"BTW, who is this guy? He certainly gets a lot of comments on his blog."

Ace of Spades is a conservative political blog. Ace is the main blogger; the person who put up this post is one of the co-bloggers. The blog almost never deals with anything paranormal, which makes this post all the more unusual.

[Matt Rouge]

Thanks, Michael, for that info-bit.

I thought the skeptic was not thinking clearly when he said:

If I ever had absolute [profanity deleted] evidence of the existence of the soul, life after death -- and by implication the existence of God, Satan, Heaven, Hell, Jesus, redemption, the Apocalypse and all that stuff -- I'd treat it as more than a mildly interesting anecdote. I'd sell my possessions and join holy orders, or spend every goddamned minute of every day telling people with white-hot intensity that IT'S ALL TRUE [PROFANITY DELETED]!

I heard and saw a ghost in my mom's house (and there were lots of other noises and stuff that could be more easily brushed off). Well, the skeptic is right about one thing: I DO tell people about it and my other paranormal experiences. White-hot intensity, however, is not really useful. But skeptics do have white-hot intensity for their own religion, so I guess they assume that everyone else has the same.

[Michael Prescott]

Good point, Matt. People react differently to these things. Some just take the spirit world for granted and don't regard it as anything to get excited about. Others are are reluctant to talk about it at all, for fear of ridicule. Still others have found that talking about it to skeptics is not a productive use of time.

And why would ghosts constitute proof of God, Satan, Jesus, Apocalypse, etc? Ghosts are part of many non-Christian traditions and could conceivably be some kind of quasi-physical phenomenon with no supernatural implications at all.

[dmduncan]

Speaking to people with white hot intensity about experiences that they didn't have...well all that's going to do is get you called a nut by Mr. Skeptic there.

"And why would ghosts constitute proof of God, Satan, Jesus, Apocalypse, etc? Ghosts are part of many non-Christian traditions and could conceivably be some kind of quasi-physical phenomenon with no supernatural implications at all."

Because your mind is supposed to just be a product of the brain, so when the brain is dead, there's nothing left of you to exist. This is also part of the same reasoning that atheists use to argue against Christianity. There is no survival of the mind, and no afterlife, because the mind is purely a product of a material brain.

So if there's survival, there's spirit. And since God is claimed to be the very biggest spirit, it suddenly becomes harder to say there is no God if you can't say there is no spirit.

[dmduncan]

In Lakota culture there is a similar trinity: Wakan Tanka, Tunkasila, and Skan Skan. Skan Skan would equate, I think, to the Holy Ghost.

[Bruce Siegel]

"Ghosts are part of many non-Christian traditions and could conceivably be some kind of quasi-physical phenomenon with no supernatural implications at all."

Could you give me an example of some sort of explanation for ghosts that wouldn't rock the entire skeptical enterprise?

The guy in comment 187 obviously agrees with you, because even though he's had compelling proof that ghosts are real, he doesn't think they're spirits. But I'm trying to think of some way that a skeptic could agree that ghosts are real, and still feel completely confident in his materialistic stance.

Seems to me that an admission that ghosts are real makes it really hard to claim that "matter's all that matters".

[Bruce Siegel]

Here's something else about the subject of ghosts: it's one of those "domino issues" we've talked about before. Suppose the scientific establishment decided tomorrow that ghosts are real--whatever the explanation they might care to offer.

Wouldn't that mean we'd suddenly need to pay a lot more attention to all those people who've been ridiculed for seeing ghosts over the centuries, and writing about them? Mightn't we even need to reconsider some of the other things they've been saying?

So while I agree that ghosts may not be 100% proof of survival, if real, they certainly make it much, much, harder to argue the case against it.

[Michael Prescott]

"Could you give me an example of some sort of explanation for ghosts that wouldn't rock the entire skeptical enterprise?"

Oh, I dunno ... Maybe someone could argue that ghosts are images imprinted in the environment in some way - that certain kinds of activity can somehow leave traces in the physical world that continue to be present for an indefinite time. I'm not saying this is true; it probably isn't. But if such an explanation could be developed, it would not necessarily have any supernatural implications. It still might rock the skeptical world, though; that's a different matter.

[Bruce Siegel]

"Maybe someone could argue that ghosts are images imprinted in the environment in some way . . . if such an explanation could be developed, it would not necessarily have any supernatural implications."

Yes, in a pinch, I suppose they could explain it away in one way or another, just as they do gravity, for example--attach a lot of words to it so they don't have to admit they really don't understand it at all.

But when you come down to it, I don't think a single thing in this great universe can be explained without what you call "supernatural implications". Because ultimately, you always have to account for the First Cause, and that's impossible to do in terms of matter alone.

Anyway, that's how I see it!

[dmduncan]

The imprint theory has been around for a while, but it doesn't account for interactive phenomenon or movement of objects. Or the turning on of lights, like this guy is complaining about.

[Matt Rouge]

By the way, gotta give the Michael Prescott book I'm reading now a plug. Dangerous Games--this thriller is hard to put down! Character of Abby Sinclair is a great contrast to favorite Tess McCallum. NO IDEA where this is headed!

[Michael Prescott]

Thanks for the kind words, Matt!

[Matt Rouge]

U bet!