What percentage of Americans believe in ghosts?

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The discussion revolves around the belief in ghosts, with participants sharing personal experiences and skepticism. A comparison is made between the percentage of baseball fans in the U.S. and those who believe in ghosts, UFOs, and other controversial topics, highlighting how data representation can be misleading. Some participants recount eerie personal encounters, such as seeing apparitions, while others attribute these experiences to psychological phenomena like sleep paralysis or the brain's tendency to misinterpret sensory information. The conversation also touches on the nature of ghost stories in film, with a preference for psychological thrillers over modern horror tropes. Skeptics argue that there is no scientific evidence for ghosts, suggesting that many reported experiences can be explained by natural causes or psychological states. The dialogue reflects a mix of belief, curiosity, and skepticism regarding the existence of ghosts and the interpretation of supernatural experiences.
  • #121
out of whack said:
Were you wearing your tinfoil helmet at the time?
Never without it.
 
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  • #123
Evo said:
did your hawk sound/look like this:

http://www.boredtodeath.co.uk/vid361.php
That's IT!
 
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  • #125
zoobyshoe said:
That's not a ghost story.
What makes you think it's not a ghost? It fits rewebster's definition. :biggrin:

Speaking of Ghost stories, have I mentioned I love scary ghost stories and movies? Unfortunately none are on tonight.

The Discovery Channel has documentaries on hauntings all night. I'm watching one now and it's horrible.

Ooh, the new lastest hidden Nostradamus predictions are going to be on - you guessed it, The History Channel. Hoo boy.
 
  • #126
rewebster said:
That's IT!
Ooops, I edited your post.
 
  • #127
Evo said:
How many cats do you know of that jump into a box fan that's running?

If it was Ember doing it, it would not surprise me in the least. I seem to catch sight of her in mid-air on the way to lots of strange places pretty often. Right now, she's chasing a fly all over the house (I can't decide between leaving the fly to keep entertaining her, and swatting the fly so she stops driving me nuts chasing it all over the house with no consideration of what...or who...she runs across while focused on nothing but the fly). And she does have a rather uncanny ability to rapidly transition from peaceful rest to sudden airborne-ness at such minor things as the phone or doorbell ringing...or a fly buzzing overhead :rolleyes:
 
  • #128
Evo said:
The Discovery Channel has documentaries on hauntings all night. I'm watching one now and it's horrible.
They're all repeats too. They had the one on earlier that's all based on a little girl with an imaginary friend, and they seem to decide it's more than that because she picked out a photo of some dead guy from a stack of photos...considering they said it was the last photo in the stack, she probably decided she better pick something so the grown-ups would leave her alone. :rolleyes: I've seen some shows where you can think, "maybe." But most of the ones that series on Discovery Channel shows, I just sit here rolling my eyes over.

Ooh, the new lastest hidden Nostradamus predictions are going to be on - you guessed it, The History Channel. Hoo boy.

Y'know, there's so much history to cover, I have to wonder why they've started doing so many shows on what seem more like Sci Fi than history. I might watch that anyway, though. Nostradamus' predictions were so vague, I'm curious to see what they're claiming they mean.
 
  • #129
AAAACK. They show a picture of the bust of a king and the bust of a monk on pedestals and some moron goes "to me this clearly depicts the beheading of King Louie and Marie Antoinette". WHAT? WHAT?

What does a monk have to do with Marie Antoinette or the French Revolution?

And where are the people with some semblance of sanity to put things in perspective? This show is just a bunch of Nostradamus crackpots. There's not even any balance, unless the second half of the show is going to be a reality check.

Anyone else watching this?
 
  • #130
I watched for a little while, and then it was just background noise while I got other things done because they totally lost my interest. I agree, it's just a bunch of Nostradamus crackpots trying to find ways to fit the verses to real events, but they have to twist the verses so much to fit it that it's beyond laughable. And trying to interpret the pictures...yeesh! They even kept saying the drawings probably weren't even done by Nostradamus, yet they seem to want to give them all predictive meaning too. :rolleyes:
 
  • #131
OMG, it's a free for all for crackpots! This is horrible. I think I might actually write to "The Lack of History Channel" and complain. But I can't buy air time, so I'm sure it would be a waste of my time. I can see them reading my letter and doubling over in laughter "oh look, this person thinks we care about truth or quality!". :smile: :smile:
 
  • #132
Evo said:
OMG, it's a free for all for crackpots! This is horrible. I think I might actually write to "The Lack of History Channel" and complain. But I can't buy air time, so I'm sure it would be a waste of my time. I can see them reading my letter and doubling over in laughter "oh look, this person thinks we care about truth or quality!". :smile: :smile:

You're Penguino's mother.
 
  • #133
Do you believe in ghosts?
No.

But my post count is now 6666! Muahahahaaaaaaaa! :devil:
 
  • #134
The Discovery Channel has documentaries on hauntings all night. I'm watching one now and it's horrible.

Ooh, the new lastest hidden Nostradamus predictions are going to be on - you guessed it, The History Channel. Hoo boy.
Ummm - you really need to get out!

I just don't watch TV anymore - and these comments pretty much convince me I'm not missing anything. I thought the History Channel was about history, and TDC about science. This is really discouraging.

Oh, and I'm about to slaughter my home PC. The OS is just about totally hosed, and when I check the Tools tab on the C-drive, I discovered that the defragmentation app has been disabled (actually Windows indicates it's not installed). So the Thunder and ground shaking on the Atlantic Coast will be me going Nuclear on my PC. :mad:

Can we get a :ballistic: smiley?
 
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  • #135
Astronuc said:
Oh, and I'm about to slaughter my home PC. The OS is just about totally hosed, and when I check the Tools tab on the C-drive, I discovered that the defragmentation app has been disabled (actually Windows indicates it's not installed). So the Thunder and ground shaking on the Atlantic Coast will be me going Nuclear on my PC.

Don't you think the problem might be ghosts in the machine?

(my least favorite Police album).
 
  • #136
Chi Meson said:
Don't you think the problem might be ghosts in the machine?

(my least favorite Police album).
Same here. What's your favorite?
 
  • #137
Chi Meson said:
Don't you think the problem might be ghosts in the machine?

(my least favorite Police album).
Hmmm. I thought Microsoft was the problem. Hmmmm.
 
  • #138
zoobyshoe said:
Same here. What's your favorite?

Easily Regatta de Blanc. It could be the nostalgia talking; I was 14 when it came out. Target audience!
 
  • #139
Chi Meson said:
Easily Regatta de Blanc. It could be the nostalgia talking; I was 14 when it came out. Target audience!
That's a good one. Released 18 years ago this month: Oct '79.

 
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  • #140
Chi Meson said:
I was 14 when it came out. Target audience!

zoobyshoe said:
That's a good one. Released 18 years ago this month: Oct '79.
Gosh, that makes me...ONLY 32! Yaaaaaaaaaay!
 
  • #141
Chi Meson said:
Gosh, that makes me...ONLY 32! Yaaaaaaaaaay!

Hehehe. My wishful thinking error is even more strongly motivated than yours.
 
  • #142
EL said:
This would work:

Originally Posted by Wikipedia
A ghost is defined as the apparition of a deceased person, frequently similar in appearance to that person, and usually encountered in places she or he frequented, or in association with the person's former belongings. The word "ghost" may also refer to the spirit or soul of a deceased person, or to any spirit or demon.[1][2]

Okay, so you don't believe in spirits, souls, or demons.

Ghosts are often associated with hauntings, which is, according to the Parapsychological Association, "the more or less regular occurrence of paranormal phenomena associated with a particular locality (especially a building) and usually attributed to the activities of a discarnate entity; the phenomena may include apparitions, poltergeist disturbances, cold drafts, sounds of footsteps and voices, and various odours."

Do you believe in sounds, cold drafts, footsteps, voices, or odors? Do you require that any apparition be a spirit, and if so, how do you justify that? Also, do you often refer to the Parapsychological Association and wiki for your information?

EL said:
Seriously?
You could ask that question about anything.
How do you know Santa doesn't exist? (There are millions of people claiming so, and the main part of them also claim they have actually seen him.)

Children are taught to believe in Santa and they often do see him as far as they're concerned. However I am not aware of one adult who believes in Santa. Do you understand the difference?

What one should ask is: what are the scientific evidence for the existence of ghosts?
Answer: None.

What sort of evidence do you want? We have audio and video evidence of strange occurrences. We have people running all over the country with scientific equipment and seemingly getting strange results. Granted, I have no idea how trustworthy any particular evidence may be, but it does exist, and there is plenty of it. So your statement is false; that is, unless you demand evidence for spirits, but that is your personal choice. And even then, it does exist.
 
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  • #143
Ivan Seeking said:
Okay, so you don't believe in spirits, souls, or demons.
Of course I do not believe in those things.

Do you believe in sounds, cold drafts, footsteps, voices, or odors?
Yes. These phenomena are not ghosts. They can just be associated with ghosts (by those who believe in them.)

Do you require that any apparition be a spirit, and if so, how do you justify that?
Why would I require any of those things to be a spirit? (Or do I get you wrong?)

Also, do you often refer to the Parapsychological Association and wiki for your information?
I sometimes refer to wiki (or really parts of texts on wiki) when I have read the text I'm citing through and agree with what it is saying. It is often much faster than writing the text myself. You asked me for a definiton, and I think what I cited from wiki fits the general publics defintion of a ghost pretty well. I am simply not very interested who wrote the text I cited, since I agree with it.

Children are taught to believe in Santa and they often do see him as far as they're concerned. However I am not aware of one adult who believes in Santa. Do you understand the difference?
My point is that many people claiming that something is true, doesn't make it true.

What sort of evidence do you want? We have audio and video evidence of strange occurrences. We have people running all over the country with scientific equipment and seemingly getting strange results. Granted, I have no idea how trustworthy any particular evidence may be, but it does exist, and there is plenty of it. So your statement is false; that is, unless you demand evidence for spirits, but that is your personal choice. And even then, it does exist.
Wait a minute. There is claimed "evidence" for all sorts of things: Chi, Homeopathy, Bigfoot, Creationism, Astrologi, Martians, Healing, etc. The "evidence" in all this cases are of the very peculiar kind that they somehow disappear the closer you look at them.
I'm not saying people haven't "heard footsteps", "smelled odors", etc, I'm just saying those phenomena are not due to ghosts.
Are you serioulsy claiming there are scientific evidence for ghosts?
Simply stated: An "observation" is not an "evidence".
 
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  • #144
Ivan, have you seen this video:

?
 
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  • #145
I want to state for the record that I believe in odors.
 
  • #146
I can't remember-----are ghost particles part of MWI?----and I have heard that strings are involved with many illusions
 
  • #147
Chi Meson said:
I want to state for the record that I believe in odors.
A lot of people in their thirties believe in the existence of odors.
 
  • #148
My point is that many people claiming that something is true, doesn't make it true.
That's a reasonable statement. Many people claiming something is true makes it much more likely that others will believe it also, even if they believed it to be false. Consider how people with varying beliefs might interpret that statement and how effectual your point is.

In the experiment, social psychologist Solomon Asch showed groups of college students a line, and then asked each student to identify which of several other lines matched it in length. (The answer was obvious.) Only one student, however, was the "subject." The others were "confederates," in league with Asch. In many of the trials, all these students insisted that a shorter or longer line was the correct match.
http://www.americanexperiment.org/publications/1998/19980408kersten.php
 
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  • #149
Just recently in the news, some famous haunted place got debunked in Albuquerque.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071030/ap_on_fe_st/odd_courthouse_ghost


People resort to common explanation such as "ghosts" and what not to explain a phenomenon that is peculiar with respect to everyday experiences.
 
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  • #150
waht said:
Just recently in the news, some famous haunted place got debunked in Albuquerque.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071030/ap_on_fe_st/odd_courthouse_ghost


People resort to common explanation such as "ghosts" and what not to explain a phenomenon that is peculiar with respect to everyday experiences.

It took that guy a bit of time and effort to set up his experiments. Most wouldn't bother.
 
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