Do Christians believe in ghosts?

Might be of interest

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1088824/God-eclipsed-supernatural-believers-tales-UFO-sightings.html

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@saab,

saab wrote:

The concept of possession by evil spirits and the practice of exorcism
are very ancient and widespread, and may have originated in prehistoric Shamanistic beliefs.

A ghost usually haunts a place. An evil spirit - not a ghost -
takes over the personality of a human being.

Yeah; a place can be haunted by man or ghost,
haunting makes neither man nor ghost "evil".

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@saab,

What you say is true, Saab, but -- not to put too fine a point on it -- sometimes an exorcism is performed to banish a suspected ghost from a particular place. It differs slightly from the other kind of exorcism in that it is not assumed that there's anything "evil" about the ghostly presence. But it's referred to as an exorcism nonetheless.

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ERRATUM:
Yeah; a place can be haunted by man or ghost,
haunting makes neither man nor ghost "evil"

shoud be:
Yeah; a place can be haunted by man or ghost;
haunting makes neither man nor ghost "evil".

Sorry.

David

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Maybe, the "holy ghost?"

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There's at least one ghost story in the OT i.e. the story about King Saul, the prophet Samuel, and the "witch" of Endor. It's a mistake to think Jesus was the first and/or only person ever to be seen or heard from after he died; he was basically the last. A thousand years before Jesus' time, it was common.

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I don't think Jesus was the last actually.

In Northern New Mexico in the little Village of Cimmaron is the old historical St. James Hotel currently operating as a restaurant but also occasionally renting out one of the old upstairs rooms to somebody willing to pay out the rather pricey fee for staying there. The hotel is billed as haunted by a number of long departed characters and the staff and management carefully records, documents, and notarizes reported ghost sightings by both staff and guests. Many of those testifying to such sightings are people not known to be eccentric, neurotic, given to visions or to making up stories. I personally have never seen a ghost there, but the testimony is persuasive that these people are seeing and/or experiencing something quite unusual.

I have also talked to other quite normal, sensible, unstrange people in different places who have testified to experience with something they liken to ghosts.

At times we hear sounds we can't identify in our house and joke that it is just Ms. Baird, the former owner, long deceased, puttering around in the kitchen. We don't believe that, of course. But sometimes it does make one wonder.

Is there a paranormal world of which we are mostly unaware and know little about? It is difficult to dismiss that possibility in the face of so much testimony that simply can't be explained by anything else.

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@Foxfyre,

Jesus was the last well documented case.

Quote:

Is there a paranormal world of which we are mostly unaware and know little about?

The answer is yes, but there has been a breakdown in communications.

The Torah or Old Testament is in two parts, i.e. Genesis and then everything which comes after Genesis. The books which follow Genesis are permeated with information regarding elaborate rituals and devices meant to communicate with this spirit (or 'paranormal') world; these included prophets and prophecy, the practice of idolatry and the elaborate ceremonies which caused people to hear real voices emanating from idols, "familiar spirits" like the story about the witch of Endor, and electrostatic devices like the so-called ark of the covenant and you could add the Greek oracles to that if you want to be expansive.

In Genesis the words prophecy/prophet occur only once in the vague reference to Abraham as God's prophet, and the other stuff is missing; in Genesis God communicates with men directly. You do not read about Cain walking up to his neighborhood prophet and saying anything like

Quote:

Hey, man, I need you to get into your trance state and see if you can figure out whether or not the Lord might be bent outta shape about me croaking Abel....

Likewise in the material we have from the pyramid walls of the Old Kingdom of Egypt and the images of a man and his spirit ('ka') being created at the same time. Those people viewed dying about the way we'd view moving from Richmond Va. to Baltimore or from Philly to Baltimore. It didn't mean you wouldn't see the person any more, just not quite as often.

After the flood and the incident associated with the tower of Babel, the use of cderemonies and contrivances and occult practices to communicate with spirits became common. All such things involved trance states and they all involved static electricity and, roughly around the time of Alexander, they all broke down and ceased to work in all but the rarest of cases.

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My wife's sister began having "ghostlike" symptoms in her house. The dog would not go in some parts of the house. There were unexplained noises, and other occurences I have since forgotten the nature of. They were pretty convinced, until we discovered a map of a fault line running directly under the house.

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I didn't believe in Ghost's until i realized i was the Holy ghost amen.

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@chemist,

chemist wrote:

Just curious to know people's thoughts on ghosts. Please share.

I am confident that the same way that radio waves pass thru
and have effects upon radios, so also intelligent living force,
the essence of myself -- or what I feel to be the REAL ME -- is in
my material, animal body, upon whose expiration it leaves,
the same as a motor ist leaves his car when it fails to function
(if u 'll forgive my mixed metafors). I don t know, but I 've been told
that a body loses weight at the moment of expiration.
I believe that the record reflects that upon death, corpses do not
bellow out air as tho trying to blow up a balloon.
Medical personnel have never claimed the opposite.
It 'd be very interesting to have that experiment replicated,
to test for average loss of weight, if such there be.

In states of ordinary good health, with no use of drugs,
I have had a few out of body experiences, while fully conscious.
(Most of them were while taking depositions in court.)

It appears to be the case that ghosts--meaning the spirits of people
whose material bodies have died, and thay have hung around-- are ofen
in poor states of mental health,
(except the ones who have recently excarnated)
and are not sensible of the passage of time.

Incidentally, people who have returned from death in hospitals
do not report that thay were ever challenged upon the basis
of their religion. Indeed, one Christian clergyman said that
he was surprized that God was not interested in his theology.
I come from a Christian background; I see no particular relationship
between Christianity and ghosts.

It appears to be that death is alien to us,
altho our animal bodies wear out, as our cars wear out,
but when thay do, we still keep going.
The confusion seems to be in identifying a person
with HIS BODY, when in fact the person is operating that body.

David

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@OmSigDAVID,

A rather remarkable assessment, David. And I'm not about to say it ain't true.

I have been told, by some, that many events that we recall as dreams are actually out-of-body experiences when our spirit is out traipsing around the universe, physical or otherwise, and that such dreams will be confusing and frustrating though strangely familiar to us upon awakening. I can't testify to any identifiable personal experience of my own, but I have had dreams that were confusing and frustrating through strangely familiar. It would be a way of explanation, but I can't say that I am seriously sold on the concept.

I have not personally experienced an identifiable ghost though I have experienced phenomenon that is not easily explained and almost certainly those comfortable with the idea of ghosts would tell me that a ghost or ghosts is what I experienced.

But as previously stated, I do believe and have experienced spiritual presence and I do believe in a spirit world. If I pass before you do and can get word back, I'll let you know about ghosts if I can. Smile

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christians who believe in the bible should not believe in ghosts. This is another paradox (contradiction) that many christians ignore. According to several passages in the bible, souls enter a sleep after corporal death and will only be awakened and accepted into heaven after judgement day. Other passages refer to Abraham's bosom and the fact that souls are instantly delivered to either heaven or hell. Yet other passages refer to a temporary hell, while still others refer to the fact that only saints are immediately accepted while others enter soul-sleep. http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/864087/posts

By that rationale, the whole idea of exorcism is heresy, since according to the catholic church souls are asleep until the second coming of christ.

I used to be a christian and believed in "ghosts." Now I'm not a christian and I still believe in "ghosts." I believe that the corporal body is merely one level of the soul's existence. I believe that all souls are from the same god-energy and cannot be forced to sleep, die, or otherwise remove themselves from the universal energy that exists. I believe that communication with souls of bodies that have died is possible, but not common in today's stunted society.

So, what some might call "ghosts," I call communication with the next realm. What some might call "exorcism," I call another way for the catholic church to instill fear in its followers and extract more money from their wallets.

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@curtis73,

Why should a Christian not believe in ghosts? The Bible contains numerous references to ghosts or spiritual or post death phenomenon. I can't imagine how one would be Christian and not believe in the spirit; not believe in the transcendence of the spirit. Now whether those spirits can revisit the mortal/physical world once they have departed, is a valid subject for debate, but there is nothing in the Bible or widely developed Christian dogma that would suggest that it is impossible.

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@curtis73,

curtis73 wrote:

christians who believe in the bible should not believe in ghosts. This is another paradox (contradiction) that many christians ignore. According to several passages in the bible, souls enter a sleep after corporal death and will only be awakened and accepted into heaven after judgement day. Other passages refer to Abraham's bosom and the fact that souls are instantly delivered to either heaven or hell. Yet other passages refer to a temporary hell, while still others refer to the fact that only saints are immediately accepted while others enter soul-sleep. http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/864087/posts

By that rationale, the whole idea of exorcism is heresy, since according to the catholic church souls are asleep until the second coming of christ.

I used to be a christian and believed in "ghosts." Now I'm not a christian and I still believe in "ghosts." I believe that the corporal body is merely one level of the soul's existence. I believe that all souls are from the same god-energy and cannot be forced to sleep, die, or otherwise remove themselves from the universal energy that exists. I believe that communication with souls of bodies that have died is possible, but not common in today's stunted society.

So, what some might call "ghosts," I call communication with the next realm. What some might call "exorcism," I call another way for the catholic church to instill fear in its followers and extract more money from their wallets.

I don t believe that u have made out a sufficient case
about what CHRISTIANS shoud believe.
U did not quote Jesus.
For followers of Jesus, that is all that shoud count.
(As a matter of fact, if I remember accurately, Jesus was quoted
as telling someone who was being crucified along with him,
that on that day he 'd be with Jesus in Paradise.)

So far as I am aware no one has attributed anything to Jesus
that contradicts out-of-body-experiences or survival of death
in a conscious condition. I referred hereinabove in this thread
to the account of a Christian clergyman.

If the Old Testament says something different,
Y shoud Christians care ?

I find it odd that some Christians whom I have met
ASSUME that out-of-body-experiences r somehow unChristian.
When I ask them to explain the reason, thay cannot.

In any case,
religion seems not to be involved
with people 's spiritual experiences.
No one has ever returned from death and said that he was of
the rong religion, so someone objected. On the contrary:
thay reported encountering unconditional Love
(except for some suicides and atheists, who reported problems).

David

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@chemist,

The story in 1 Samuel about King Saul, the prophet Samuel, and the "witch of Endor" is certainly a ghost story. Nonetheless communication between living creatures and spirits is exceedingly rare in our present age if it ever happens at all.

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@gungasnake,

The human mind can be "tricked" into believing almost anything.

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@gungasnake,

gungasnake wrote:

The story in 1 Samuel about King Saul, the prophet Samuel,
and the "witch of Endor" is certainly a ghost story.
Nonetheless communication between living creatures and spirits
is exceedingly rare in our present age if it ever happens at all.

We shoud not doubt that spirits, including our own, are LIVING

Deepak Chopra, M.D. put it engagingly
when he said that we tend to believe that we are human beings
with occasional spiritual experiences,
tho in fact we are spiritual beings with occasional human experiences.

At a Mensa Annual Gathering in St. Paul, Minn. in 2003,
we had a speaker, Janis Amatuzio, M.D. who is the coroner
of numerous counties in Minnesota and others in Wisconsin.
She wrote a book Forever Ours of her professional experiences
over many years having to do with spirits returning
to and interacting with their loved ones.

David

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Our world is basically a kind of a training ground for what lies beyond. No other assumption allows our lives to make any sense or have any meaning. There is nothing any of us could possibly do which anybody 5000 years from now will have any way of knowing about.

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@gungasnake,

gungasnake wrote:

Quote:
Our world is basically a kind of a training ground for what lies beyond.
No other assumption allows our lives to make any sense or have any meaning.

Agreed.

Quote:
There is nothing any of us could possibly do
which anybody 5000 years from now will have any way of knowing about.

Disagreed.
I 'm pretty sure Neil Armstrong will be remembered;
the Wright Bros. Thomas Edison.

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