A friend and I are arguing over ghosts.
I think it’s akin to astrology, homeopathy and palm reading. He says there’s “convincing “ evidence for its existence. He also took up company time to make a meme to illustrate our relative positions. (See image)
(To be fair, I’m also on the clock right now)
What do you think?
Isn’t it irrational to believe in things that cannot be proven or disproven?
Seriously. There is no reason to believe in something that not only isn’t proven to exist, but can’t. That argument could be applied to nearly anything.
Vampires? Can’t prove they don’t exist, so may as well believe in them.
Fairies? Same.
Flying spaghetti monster? Prove it doesn’t exist.
Like, I don’t want to knock other people’s religions, and I’m not so arrogant as to think I have all the answers, but I just can’t stand the “you can’t prove XXXX doesn’t exist” argument.
it is not irrational, to observe (or experience) something and not being able to explain it.
i do not have any reason to assume my friend is a liar. so she heard her fathers voice. how or why she heard it we will never know, as she was not hooked up to a brainwave scanner or similar.
apparently we have different people from different times having experienced similar things. thanks @Timecircleline@sh.itjust.works for pointing to the Third Man Factor! so i would say it is quite reasonable to believe something can happen to us humans in extreme situations. is it just our imagination? quite possible! especially considering the more extreme stories mentioned in the wikipedia page surely drove those people to or past their individual limits. but that brings me back to my last paragraph: it doesn’t change anything or even matter. those voices, or whatever they where helped those people survive extreme situations and live to tell the tale. whether it was a deceased loved one, a valkyrie from norse mythology, friendly tree spirit, their subconsciousness wanting to survive, … or just hallucination due to thirst/starvation/exhaustion.
the effects didn’t change. so whatever the cause is, shouldn’t change my, your, or anybody else’s life
I agree, and that’s where I would stop, I can’t explain it, I don’t know what this is.
I think in general it matters what we believe to be true or not, you might think that in a certain situation believing a false thing can result the same (or better) way than not believing but beliefs are not restricted to certain situations and will inform our decisions elsewhere, maybe with more dire consequences. A quick example would be mediums who pray and scam grieving people out of time and money.
mediums are a completely different thing, as they peddle a ‘wonder product’. claiming things without proof and asking for money. but that modus operandi is not restricted to non-science. radioactive underware was a thing…
i am talking about people who did experience something and how they choose to interprete that experience for themselves. if you ask me, it was most likely their body and mind being pushed across certain borders - which made them feel things that where not actually there. if you asked me about my grandfather, i would tell you that he is most likely not here or there and it is just my imagination. but it gives me a little bit of comfort to at least allow the possibility that he is somewhere.
those are all personal choices about personal experiences, which do not affect anybody. but if someone start selling a product or even a religion. they crossed a line and are (trying) to affect other people.
Can you disprove all mediums? What if someone has an experience with them that they can’t explain but felt powerful and they made a personal choice to believe that they did talk to a dead relative.