Faith isn't just about God

Hambydammit
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Faith isn't just about God

This article illustrates just what kind of nonsense people will believe.  While it's easy to dismiss this as silliness, it's important to realize that the exact same rationale is what theists use to believe in god.

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That's the spirit: Belief in ghosts high
By ALAN FRAM and TREVOR TOMPSON, Associated Press Writers 2 minutes ago
WASHINGTON - Those things that go bump in the night? About one-third of people believe they could be ghosts.
And nearly one out of four, 23 percent, say they've actually seen a ghost or felt its presence, finds a pre-Halloween poll by The Associated Press and Ipsos.
One is Misty Conrad, who says she fled her rented home in Syracuse, Ind., after her daughter began talking to an unseen girl named Nicole and neighbors said children had been murdered in the house. That was after the TV and lights began flicking on at night.
"It kind of creeped you out," Conrad, 40, of Hampton, Va., recalled this week. "I needed to get us out."
About one out of five people, 19 percent, say they accept the existence of spells or witchcraft. Nearly half, 48 percent, believe in extrasensory perception, or ESP.
The most likely candidates for ghostly visits include single people, Catholics and those who never attend religious services. By 31 percent to 18 percent, more liberals than conservatives report seeing a specter.
Those who dismissed the existence of ghosts include Morris Swadener, 66, a Navy retiree from Kingston, Wash.
He says he shot one with his rifle when he was a child.
"I woke up in the middle of the night and saw a white ghost in my closet," he said. "I discovered I'd put a hole in my brand new white shirt. My mother and father were not amused."
Three in 10 have awakened sensing a strange presence in the room. For whatever it says about matrimony, singles are more likely than married people to say so.
Fourteen percent — mostly men and lower-income people — say they have seen a UFO. Among them is Danny Eskanos, 44, an attorney in Palm Harbor, Fla., who says as a Colorado teenager he watched a bright light dart across the sky, making abrupt stops and turns.
"I knew a little about airplanes and helicopters, and it was not that," he said. "It's one of those things that sticks in your mind."
Spells and witchcraft are more readily believed by urban dwellers, minorities and lower-earning people. Those who find credibility in ESP are more likely to be better educated and white — 51 percent of college graduates compared to 37 percent with a high school diploma or less, about the same proportion by which white believers outnumber minorities.
Overall, the 48 percent who accept ESP is less than the 66 percent who gave that answer to a similar 1996 Newsweek question.
One in five say they are at least somewhat superstitious, with young men, minorities, and the less educated more likely to go out of their way to seek luck. Twenty-six percent of urban residents — twice the rate of those from rural areas — said they are superstitious, while single men were more superstitious than unmarried women, 31 percent to 17 percent.
The most admitted-to superstition, by 17 percent, was finding a four-leaf clover. Thirteen percent dread walking under a ladder or the groom seeing his bride before their wedding, while slightly smaller numbers named black cats, breaking mirrors, opening umbrellas indoors, Friday the 13th or the number 13.
Generally, women were more superstitious than men about four-leaf clovers, breaking mirrors or grooms prematurely seeing brides. Democrats were more superstitious than Republicans over opening umbrellas indoors, while liberals were more superstitious than conservatives over four-leaf clovers, grooms seeing brides and umbrellas.
Then there's Jack Van Geldern, a computer programmer from Riverside, Conn. Now 51, Van Geldern is among the 5 percent who say they have seen a monster in the closet — or in his case, a monster's face he spotted on the wall of his room as a child.
"It was so terrifying I couldn't move," he said. "Needless to say I survived the event and never saw it again."
The poll, conducted Oct. 16-18, involved telephone interviews with 1,013 adults and had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points. 

Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin

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Cpt_pineapple
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Beyond Saving
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Actually ghosts are far

Actually ghosts are far more likely to exist than god, at least there is an explanation about where they come from. Besides, it is a lot more fun to believe in than god. What would you rather do when you die go hang out with a bunch of dead people in heaven where you can't smoke, drink, lust, swear, lie or do anything fun, or float around earth messing with peoples minds?

 

If, if a white man puts his arm around me voluntarily, that's brotherhood. But if you - if you hold a gun on him and make him embrace me and pretend to be friendly or brotherly toward me, then that's not brotherhood, that's hypocrisy.- Malcolm X


Hambydammit
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See, this is where a lot of

See, this is where a lot of theists get atheists wrong.  I, for one, take every chance I get to sleep in a "haunted house."  Anytime I'm travelling and someone tells me there's a ghost haunting this or that place, it gets at least midway up my priority list to try to get by.  I'd love to see a ghost.

At present, I completely disbelieve in their existence, but like you say, if they exist, it would be a lot cooler than if god existed.

Which brings up an interesting point... if the Christian god exists, and ghosts exist, there is a bit of a problem.   I know Christians will find a way to explain it.  Most likely, they'll say ghosts are not really dead people.  They're demons impersonating our relatives.

I always thought it was strange that demons tried to impersonate dead people.  I've never heard of ghosts coming back to say, "Hey!  Don't believe in that Jesus guy!  It's a bunch of hooey!"  They always say things like, "Don't worry about the money," or "I'm happy here.  Have a good life!"

 

Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin

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    Well Hamby, there is

    Well Hamby, there is a haunted house here near my place in Mississauga, Ontario, the place is called the cherry hill restaurant and the Duke of marlborough (should hopefully reopen soon). They have said that they cannot count the amount ghosts in the place (well in the 2nd floor/attic area) they figure 4 ghosts on the main floor and 2 - 4 in lower floor/bar area. At least most of the descriptions have been the similar, in the basement and first floor it's native americans, one comes through the door, tall about 6 feet, dark hair wearing a deer skin clothing, the other is a female native that sits by the fire place, there is a coin the rolls across the floor, and girl on a white horse that is seen from the outside only on the main floor. Angelic music will sometimes be hear on the speakers of the duke downstairs (something I never heard in the 3 years that I worked and the 8 that I have been going there). So many stories from that place, but I tend to think that it's due to the mass consumption of alcohol and the stories that get passed around in that place.


Hambydammit
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Oh, hell... I've had

Oh, hell... I've had absinthe.  I know about hallucinations from alcohol...

 

Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin

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Nero
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Hambydammit wrote: Oh,

Hambydammit wrote:

Oh, hell... I've had absinthe.  I know about hallucinations from alcohol...

 

Yes, barkeep, wormwood will do that to you.  I had it in Prague and was made to believe that the Czech government was the only one in the occidental world that allows it.  Where did you have it?

"Tis better to rule in Hell than to serve in Heaven." -Lucifer


Hambydammit
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What, reveal my secrets on

What, reveal my secrets on the internet?

Let's just say pilots who fly for private firms sometimes pass customs easier than other folks.

 

Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin

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I had a chance to go on an

I had a chance to go on an amateur Ghost Hunters style shoot with IR cameras, but I'd just finished a shoot, and didn't feel like schlepping it to Barstow the next morning. Also, the GH have never had anything (anything!) remotely cool caught on disk or tape. Ghosts are more plausible than gods, since we know that consciousness exists (whereas we can't say the same for omniscience, omnipotence, etc.). You then have the issue of whether a confirmed ghostly presence would support dualism, or still some other means of imparting the patterns we call consciousness to undetermined media.

I've had a few strange personal experiences, but nothing I'd put forward as falsifiable evidence. I do find "seeing ghosts" everywhere is a common trait among what I'd call attention/praise seekers.