Is there such things as ghosts?

[kookieduck]

Yeah, OK, almost every religion in the world (and there are hundreds) have a faith component.

So either there is a difference, somehow or other (scientifically? in some non-scientific way, but what way?) or there’s not.

If there’s not, then we’re all playing Russian Roulette with our eternal souls. Which is not impossible just because it’s not desirable, but I’m just curious how you look at the situation.

Well, my faith not only includes faith in God but also faith that the Catholic Church is the church that Jesus Christ founded so that’s how I chose my religion based on my personal faith. I was raised non-demonational (sp) and converted to Baptist in 1984. About 5 years ago I realized that something was missing and I started studying other religions. This led me to the Catholic Church! For me, there is a major difference in religions - even though all do require some degree of faith as you point out.

 

[marymary1975]

Once I spoke to a priest who was an exorcist also. He said that 80% of the reported ghost cases he had ever seen all had a scientific explanation. He seemed quite skeptical and told me whenever someone speaks about ghosts to him usually his departure point was to look for a scientific explanation as only a minority he could really qualify as supernatural. The other 20% he told me in some.way or another involved some kind of invoking spirits, try to contact the death or someone around tried to this before or some kind of witchcraft, etc. and in these cases he said those were demons passing themselves as ghosts. Again he was exercise so I guess moat of what he sees is not precisely friendly things but I found interesting that pretty much he was quite skeptical about it.

 

[Zeno11]

I can only say from my personal experiences that some form of ‘ghosts’ exist. My grandmother, who was born in 1888 in the West of Ireland, regularly saw ghosts and I seem to have inherited some of this propensity
She told me that in the early 1900s she regularly had to make a journey by horse and trap to the nearest town, often leaving so early in the morning that it was still quite dark. At a certain point on the road, the horse would rear up and become distressed and stop. A man in a dark coat and hat would then appear in the trap, the horse would set off again, and a few miles down the road the man would disappear into thin air. They never discovered who he might have been. When I asked her what she would do whilst this apparition rode along beside her, she would reply ‘I would keep my head straight, looking forward and say a few prayers to myself. It’s the living you have to fear, not the dead!’

For myself, I have had a few strange occurrences, thankfully none in recent years, because in spite of my Grandma’s excellent advice, I found them petrifying and terrifying. The most dramatic was an encounter I discussed elsewhere on Catholic Answers and the general agreement was that I had been visited by a demon; I’m still not sure whether it was a demon, an angel or something else. This was particularly frightening because it conversed with me, mostly about religion and foretold things that have since come to pass, and I was completely powerless in it’s presence, unable even to muster the presence of mind to ask who it was, or to get up and run. I also couldn’t hide anything from it in that it knew what I was thinking and responded to my thoughts. It was the most terrifying incident of my life and still haunts me (no pun intended!) over 30 years later when I think about it.

So yes, they are real. Why some people have these experiences and others do not is an interesting question to me. The apparition mentioned Doubting Thomas and believing without seeing, chiding me for my lack of faith, so maybe it’s a way of getting our attention. It certainly focused my mind on the things of heaven rather than of earth!

 

[Gordon_Sims]

So yes, they are real. Why some people have these experiences and others do not is an interesting question to me. The apparition mentioned Doubting Thomas and believing without seeing, chiding me for my lack of faith, so maybe it’s a way of getting our attention. It certainly focused my mind on the things of heaven rather than of earth!

This is something that’s always bothered me. I tend to think that those who don’t see these things are more a result of denial rather than those who do experience them having some sort of propensity to or affinity for it. One of the things I experienced years back was witnessed by an entire group of people. There was no denying what had happened, as everyone reacted to it and discussed it at the time. A couple weeks later, though, two of the people in the group insisted that it hadn’t happened and went so far as to claim they either weren’t there or that everyone else was making the whole thing up. Others I know come up with ridiculous and outlandish explanations that could never actually explain what had happened (“So you’re saying the office supplies flying off the shelf one by one, each seemingly being aimed directly at Billy’s head, was all simply a result of the air conditioning kicking on, even though there aren’t any vents built into the shelves or even on that side of the room?”). I think it’s a sort of self-defense mechanism and while I can see it coming from atheists, I find it odd that so many of the people I know who are adamantly opposed to the idea of ghosts are Catholics, who converse with dead people and supernatural beings on a daily basis.

 

[Transalosania]

Yes otherwise known as spirits/demons etc they can take forms, however for the most part they are demons, trying to scare or harass you, i have had an encounter with several such entities, and i tell you now it was not pleasant.