Ghosts are Proof of God

A) Ghosts have long been detected and are known to exist.
B) Ghosts are proof of after life.
C) An after life is proof that the human soul transcends our physical bodies and counters the atheist contention that there is no life after death.
D) Therefore, a transcendent soul is proof of God.

 

How so?

 

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This is the report that put me in mind of it, though reports of ghosts pervade all cultures throughout all of time. Ghosts are a very well known paranormal phenomenon.

 

Lets pretend for a second that ghosts actually are a real phenomenon, and they actually have something to do with an afterlife (both contentious and debatable positions, but just arguendo).

Why would they necessarily have anything to do with a god?

Please... connect those dots for us.

 

Not so fast. A lot of electronic voice phenomena are likely little more than white noise that our brains detect as meaningful sound. Similarly, a lot of photographic "evidence" is probably in the same vein. However, even if we did detect evidence of ghosts...

...this does not follow. Ghosts are not necessarily the souls of deceased humans. They could be proof of any innumerable hypotheses, of which a great deal do not relate to them being the surviving consciousness of dead humans, which means....

...this point is tenuous as well. If ghosts exist, but are not departed human souls, well, then this point is absolutely incorrect. Even if ghosts told us they were dead humans, well, we don't have any reason to think they're telling the truth, any more than humans are. And this means...

...this is probably wrong as well. Just because ghosts may exist (if we accept that as true, which I am only for this argument), then it does not follow that YHWH is a real entity. Even if we accept premise A of your argument, arguments B, C, and D do not logically flow from one another. Only if we have decent proof of B can we really say that C directly follows. D is completely and utterly divorced from the previous points.

 

Atheists contend that the soul simply ceases to function after physical death. A ghost would be proof this is not so. If humans have a transcendent soul then it necessarily is proof of a spiritual component that humans posses that is every bit as valid as the physical or intellectual side of human beings.

 

Most do, I'm sure. But since belief in an afterlife has nothing to do with a belief in God, the two are not mutually inclusive. Buddhists, for example, generally are atheists who believe in an afterlife.

Which has nothing apparently to do with God.

 

Well you could hypothesize anything to avoid the fact that virtually every instance of ghost sightings are connected with physical places (homes, hotels, mansions, etc.) that have a traceable identifiable history of some traumatic psychic event that holds a known spirit with a past in that place to that place.
But anything to deny a clear nexus between a haunted location and the spirit that used to dwell there (as a living person, I mean).

Yes....IF.

People with an ideological stake in denying the possibility of a transcendent soul certainly wouldn't, anyway. But as I say, ghosts necessarily have a troubled past and in almost every single instance, this past is known to others.

Of course they do. You have to strain credulity, given the premise of a ghost, to deny the step by step logic of my set up. Your contentions are absurd, except as a devise to deny what is true.

A ghost would have to be proof of transcendent life by definition.
That's a given because that's what a ghost is. A troubled soul that cannot go through it's spiritual progression because it has become emotionally attacked to a traumatic past event.
Your real goal is to deny D. All your logical flips and turns show this.
But if ghosts exist, then life is transcendent and God then becomes the inevitable end.

 

Even if I accept this, this puts Bhuddism at odds with the rest of humanity. I go with the rest of humanity.

Especially because if life is transcendent, then the soul is eternal. It is not limited by physical restrictions, as God is not. Therefore the soul can be said to be a small bit of God, within us all (even you, possibly).

In your bigoted personal philosophy, perhaps.

 

Truth has never been a popularity contest. But whether you "go with them" or not, the demonstration remains unchallenged.

Belief in one simply does not require belief in the other.

Even pretending that ghosts exist, there is no reason to suspect that they are not limited by physical interactions, or even that they are not themselves completely physical. In fact, many classic manifestations of ghosts (poltergeists for example) would suggest otherwise.

I will only note in passing that it is droll you would in this thread pretend to know the characteristics of God while in other threads you have asserted that it is not possible... or at least that it was not something you were personally capable of.

No. Simply an observation that you have made no significant effort to challenge.

 

I was almost ready to take you seriously Yosh...but ghosts???

Whats next UFOs?

People believe in ghosts for the same reason they believe in UFOs...because they want to...not as a result of real evidence.

Therefore, you would have to prove the exsistence of ghosts for me to even consider them evidence of an afterlife.

 

Truth is also not a function of whatever you say it is.

Ghosts are, by necessity, people that have died. They have therefore, transcended death. Whatever you postulate after that has to take that into account (no matter how hard you try not to).

I contended that God is eternal. Any claims after that are pure products of your imagination. Why don't you argue for yourself, and let me take care of my own arguments?

It is absurd on it's face. For a died in the wool atheist that believes there is nothing after physical death you suddenly think you can become an expert in God and the afterlife?
Anything to make an argument, I guess.

 

And your real goal is to do the exact opposite. How does that make you any better?

If? So you're going back on your initial statement that ghosts do exist?

Even if ghosts do exist, exactly what they are (or even if all things identified as ghosts are the same thing) is not at all clear. The self-proclaimed experts, past and present, give a wide variety of explanations.

I fail to see how "life being transcendent" proves the existence of God. Why does there being something beyond what we know as life require an sentient deity, left alone a very specific one?

The existence of ghosts, if demonstrated, would prove the existence of ghosts. Anything beyond that would depend very much on their nature and characteristics.

 

Even people who believe in ghosts do not always agree on that. But that is neither here nor there. I have arguendo conceded that ghosts are the spirits of deceased people. Your challenge here is to demonstrate how this has anything whatsoever to do with the existence of a God.

Please.... try to focus.

And then ran away from contending that he was omniscient. In fact, in final measure you ultimately even refused to give Him credit for the Big Bang.

Your arguments end the way T.S. Elliot says the world does.

What arguments? You don't even answer questions, let alone make arguments. Here there is supposed to somewhere be an argument that ghosts are proof of God. However I am unable to find that argument anywhere in your posts.

Is there an echo in here? I distinctly thought I heard somebody say, "Why don't you argue for yourself, and let me take care of my own arguments?"

Please... you've presented two dots: ghosts and God.

When are you going to get around to connecting them?

 

You have a very frivolous relationship with the concept of proof.

 

Then the entire planet should be covered in clear evidence of spectres. There have been estimates of somewhere between 35 and 100 billion people having lived on earth prior to the present day, with many billions having died through violence or horrible disease. Yet, in such places as, say, Petrograd, Tenochtitlan/Mexico City, or Ypres, we don't see evidence of tens of thousands of ghosts making their existence apparent. Rather, in a few places that people feel are likely to have ghosts, well, that's where they see ghosts.

Additionally: again, the evidence for ghosts is not compelling in the least. The electronic evidence (EVPs, pictures, videos, etc.) is ambiguous and usually better explained in a bunch of other fashions (human pattern detection false positives, dust, etc.).

Why are no clear apparitions seen all the time in Buchenwald, then? Proving ghosts should be trivial, because of their omnipresence. Hiroshima, the Somme, and the Congo should be filled with the revenants of the unquiet dead and, yet, no, we don't see clear evidence all the time in such places.

You've done nothing to convince me that, even if point A is correct, that point B follows. If ghosts exist, there is nothing to point to them being deceased humans.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence and all. You've not provided a shred of evidence for this claim, merely posited it as correct.

How so? If we accept point A, point B does not follow from it. Point B does not necessarily prove point C, due to the equally plausible idea that ghosts are not derived from humans at all, and point D does not follow from point C. Hell, none of the points can be derived from each other at all. They're all non-sequitors.

Then you must prove that what is being seen is actually a ghost, then, and not some other phenomena that is not derived from non-human sources.

Proof?

Proof?

You're the one who made an argument composed entirely of non-sequitors.

You have another non-sequitor in there. Even if consciousness persists after death, that does not indicate YHWH exists, anymore than it implies that Odin, Shiva, or Huitzlopochtli exists.

 

And we can see this by the ... evidence used by atheists?

You atheists realize in order for something to be a standard .... it has to apply to both sides right?

It's pretty easy to deny, particulatrly when you change standards to deny, but this is not how evidence works is it? That is how subjectivity works.

So its no wonder that atheists spend their time denying, why most atheists threads down here deal with some aspect of something else that they find fault with.

And its curious because, similar uses of evidence and reasoning are warmly embraced by atheists. In discussion about things like dark matter, atheists will speak excitedly about new technology and insights that advance our understandings of these things - new technology and insights, however tentative, are proof and evidence.

Now when the discussion swings toward ghosts, even as modern technology allows better documentation of these things, suddenly any old excuse will do. Absent entirely, from the broad claims of what else it might be, is any sort of arguementation that will allow someone to actually compare the two claims and teh growing body of evidence in support of ghosts.

Might ghosts be something else? Sure. However, if you find yourself denying them with what amounts to nothing more than a hand wave - you probably don't have much business telling others that they have aloose relationship with evidence.

If there is anything lacking in atheist reasoning in this thread - its evidence.

 

Ghosts are evidence of the multiverses ebbing and flowing around us. No deities necessary.

 

I've argued against you so much I see your patterns now. Even when I address your points you ask over and over again the same questions (as if you'd never heard them before).

Well let me just say again, for the last time, that a soul that survives the physical death of the body is a transcendent soul. And a transcendent soul must be eternal (because it is not subject to physical death or decay).
And what other being is transcendent? God is. Therefore we can posit a nexus between God and other transcendent beings. It's hardly surprising that you, a hard core blithering atheist that thinks life ends when the body assumes room temperature, can see no connection between the after life and God. But that says more about you than my argument.

That's yet another lie because I said that God was omniscient if He wanted to be omniscient. Would it please you no end if I just came out and said God was absolutely omniscient? It seems terribly important to you. Sadly obsessive, even.

Too absurd and dishonest to dignify. That's you.

Oh, oh...someone is living rent free in your head.

Then feel free to run off again. You are good at that.
I hardly need your dishonest contentious commentary to make my life complete.

You made your argument without me butting in and dishonestly framing it (unlike you). And I'm telling you it's garbage. Sorry you have a problem with that.

Already done. Sorry you missed it.

 

Better?

I'm making a rhetorical point. Please don't get too excited over it.

Everyone, without an agenda, understands perfectly what a ghost is. "The spirit of a dead person, especially one believed to appear in bodily likeness to living persons or to haunt former habitats."

I'm sure this is so. And it must take all your powers of denial to come to this conclusion.

Why must your soul die when your body dies? This makes little sense to me.

The very prospect of absolute life being proven to transcend death must scare you to death (all appropriate puns intended). IF life goes on without the physical body then atheism would totally collapse from lack of support for your belief system.

For atheists here to whistle past the graveyard pretending that the prospect of life after death does not smash atheism to pieces is a supreme bit of absurdity.

 

By whom? The ghost hunters? lol If ghosts are known to exist, why is there not any definite proof for their existence?

Not necessarily.

Not necessarily.

Um...... no. Ghosts can be completely independent from a theistic god. The two ideas are unrelated unless you can draw a demonstrable connection between the two.

 

Buddhists, especially Theravada Buddhists believe in ghosts and spirits. They also believe in reincarnation and an afterlife. This has nothing to do with "God".

 

I'm going GHOST!!

 

I have witnessed where one of my Buddhist friends detected or sensed a ghost. She called it a spirit. There was no logical explaination to this but even for me, an atheist, freaked me out.

To add, this young woman, highly educated and very intelligent is also very spiritual.

 

Like what? DNA samples?

Yes, necessarily. People once alive now manifest themselves as ghosts.

You are just being a fool now. You are very good at it, by the way.

Oh, I see. Ghosts aren't real but you
know anyway how they fit in with God? Yes...very convincing.