So you don't believe in God, but you believe in spirits????

[Edi Gammon]

I've seen a lot of replies to posts here where people say they believe in ghosts or spirits or that in essence they believe there is a way to have experiences after death..... It really leaves me scratching my head.


If you believe in a spirit.. please explain exactly what a spirit is...
... or at least what kind of things it does, what properties it has, what is it for, where can you find them, et cetera. Tell me something about your concept of spirits.  

[Daffodil the Destroyer]

I don't necessarily believe or disbelieve in spirits, etc. My family has experienced a lot of odd phenomena that most would attribute to "ghosts" of some sort, but very little of this has happened to me, and none of it has happened in the past six months or so since I gave up my faith. Quite honestly, I don't care too much. Given that I don't actually believe in them, I do think that non-omnipotent spiritual beings are more plausible than omnipotent ones.  

[WritelySo]

The alarming or unusual experiences that people attribute to "ghosts" generally have very mundane and boring explanations, it's just that people react to them with such emotion that they think the explanation needs to be as extraordinary as their emotion. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.  

[Xiporah]

I am not sure entirely where I stand on this, because 'ghosts' have always freaked me out. I am not entirely sure I believe it though, but I'm scared of having an expierience. It's a bit of an irrational fear, I suppose.

I hate it when people tell me that my dead grandmother is watching over me because I always tend to think about it during sex or something.

 

[Daffodil the Destroyer]

WritelySo

The alarming or unusual experiences that people attribute to "ghosts" generally have very mundane and boring explanations, it's just that people react to them with such emotion that they think the explanation needs to be as extraordinary as their emotion. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.

Normally I'd say something similar. I can't help but have a little bit of doubt when I hear my grandfather's story about the "lady ghost" in his bedroom... When the Army sent him away somewhere, if my grandmother slept in his bed (for some reason they slept in separate rooms, just like on tv... XD), the covers would always end up at the foot of the bed. No matter how many times she pulled them up, or if she held them there, they always fell onto the floor. If my grandfather was sleeping in the bed alone he would often feel someone get into bed next to him, thinking it was my grandmother, but he would look and nobody would be there. They didn't have any pets that slept in the bedroom, so it just seems a little too weird to me... XD  

[AnonymouZ]

i don't believe in ghosts and/or spirits, but if we are all made of energy, and this energy finds a way to "stick around"... leaving an impression of it's former self (the body in which it was contained) for other people to see at special occasions... (like, said flow of energy interacting with the person who sees it) then... yeah, i think it might be possible for these images to exist.

Do i attribute them intelligence or purpose? No. Do i believe my half assed explanation of "ghosts"? no, i just came up with it just now. xD

But really. If you think you're an atheist, and you believe in souls/spirits... then, you're not an atheist... you're just confused. wink  

[SkeletonPhoenix]

No...End.  

[Koravin]

This is why people think I'm a bad atheist. I'm pagan. But I have no deities. I believe in spirits because of experiences and observations. I don't know what all of their properties are. My current hypothesis is that they are a sort of particle wave. I think that spirits are drawn to organisms, and express themselves through the framework of our brains.

Meh, you guys probably think I'm a nutter. Maybe I should just quit while I'm behind. But belief in spirits does not conflict with atheism. Atheism is just disbelief/nonbelief in deities. That would be me.  

[Daffodil the Destroyer]

AnonymouZ

i don't believe in ghosts and/or spirits, but if we are all made of energy, and this energy finds a way to "stick around"... leaving an impression of it's former self (the body in which it was contained) for other people to see at special occasions... (like, said flow of energy interacting with the person who sees it) then... yeah, i think it might be possible for these images to exist.

Do i attribute them intelligence or purpose? No. Do i believe my half assed explanation of "ghosts"? no, i just came up with it just now. xD

But really. If you think you're an atheist, and you believe in souls/spirits... then, you're not an atheist... you're just confused. wink

As Koravin said above me, and as I said in another thread, atheism deals only with the existence of deities. The Greek root word, "theos," means "god," therefore atheism means "without gods." Atheism doesn't preclude belief in pagan practices or what have you. I have quite a few pagan beliefs, myself, though I don't follow any particular pagan religion.  

[Edi Gammon]

True, being atheist doesn't imply anything other than what it says. But I'd like to think that people who maintain this position even after they have been presented with other ideas that might persuade them to believe in a deity do so out of rational reasoning. I would also hope that this kind of reasoning is applied to any other would be belief structures.

Actually, after seeing a few responses I've thought of something. There is a lot of 'new-age' type beliefs these days. For an overview here's the wiki:

New Age

With new age beliefs there is as many different belief structures as there are people to have them. Everyone is free to make up their own hypotheses about how the world works. For the most part it seems to me that new agers beliefs are harmless enough. Except when you get things like the Heaven's Gate cult. And less harmless might be the thousands of products that are sold that people claim have real healing effects like crystals, therapeutic magnets, homeopathics, acupuncture, et cetera. Any effects from these things can be chalked up to placebo effect, or do not happen consistently enough to be statistically significant. People who believe these things work usually believe is spirits or chakras or chi too... Theres always some unseen, undetectable thing that is magically linked to our material bodies so that these objects or practices can do their job. It's only logical
wink .

The problem here isn't what you believe, but why you believe it.

If you don't believe in deities because there's no evidence of their existence, then if you believe in spirits you should have some evidence of their existence.

T.B.C.  

[Redem]

I consider the idea of a spiritual "soul" an unnecessary addition to my existence.

Nothing that I know of suggests that it is plausible.


And there is ample evidence that it is untrue, at least in terms of what soul means. We know that brain damage can change personalities entirely, so the idea that the "self" is separate from the body seems ridiculous.  

[Matataur]

It's possible.

But then again, it's also possible that Santa Claus and egg laying bunnies exist too.