Do Christians believe in ghosts?

Foxy... Wikipedia sums it up this way..Many Atheists believe its important that Richard Dawkins doctrine is of absolute importance. Atheists worship their God "Flaying Spaghetti Monster" and their Gods only son Richard Dawkins.

[edit] Atheist Churches and Monasteries
There are far fewer Atheist churches than those of their God-fearing counterparts. As of this writing, the African American Commission of Atheist Churches in America and its Colonies (rarely referred to as the double-A.C, A.C., A.C) has reported the count of modern Atheist churches in the Industrialized World to be exactly zero.

[edit] Atheist majority countries
France is one, so is Russia and all of Eastern Europe (Soviet bloc), a few Scandinavian countries and pretty much the whole European continent. Atheism is catching up in Canada, Australia and Japan, any other free democratic industrial/developed country except America.

[edit] Atheist Practices
[edit] Rituals

An typical Atheist tourist.Though Atheist rituals vary widely by geographical location, they show a distinct pattern: meals are never preceded by any form of prayer, and the exterior of Atheist households is never adorned by anything that can be construed as a Holy Apparatus. All activities are conducted in a way that modern astronomers have referred to as "objectively heathen". National Geographic notes that Atheists seem particularly fond of tourism.
On weekends, Atheists often partake in rituals such as shopping, catching up with chores, and sitting around. These practices are often conducted in Athletic Wear, notably sweat pants, especially in South America. The question of circumcision is highly disputed among Atheist sects, and its practice varies widely depending on how convincing the surgeon was and whether the parents can afford it.

[edit] Religious Garb
Though casual Atheists are virtually indistinguishable from God's people in terms of their appearance, the more active cult members (orthodox atheists), particularly those who practice tourism, show a predilection for topless nudity. These topless travellers tend to stay away from popular vacation hot-spots, and prefer to make pilgrimages to less-frequented haunts such as the Amazon Jungle or Canada.

Though Atheists are by far the most common practicioners of topless tourism, God's children shouldn't be too quick to assume that all bare-breasted women are Atheists: while many of those found on the beaches of the Mediterranean are from a sect of Atheists known as Protestants, a substantial number of them are harmless, God-fearing Germans.

Normal folk are sometimes confused by Atheists who paradoxically wear religious emblems like the crucifix or the American flag. While some Atheists do in fact wear crucifixes, they normally do so for purely sacrilegous purposes and in acknowledgement of other Atheists such as Marilyn Manson and Christina Aguilera, as opposed to the more ceremonial use of the crucifix by pop celebrities such as the Pope and David Beckham.

[edit] Atheism in the Media
In 1982, the government-sponsored shockumentary An Unbiased View of Those on the Wrong Path declared Atheism to be "a disturbingly well-organized religious cult, with congregrations and priests that mimic and mock those of our good people." The renowned documentary's most shocking scene showed a religious ceremony lead by a priest in a Lacrosse shirt and bell-bottoms mumbling words in an obscure tongue to an audience of naked prepubescent children. The scene was shot in what appeared to be a dreary, dark cellar. The documentary caused an uproar throughout the world that lead to the U.S. invasion of several Central American countries.

In the 1990s, however, a shockumentary by the Discovery Channel showed An Unbiased View to have used questionable methods of reporting that were a possible breach of the rules of journalism set forth by the Geneva Convention. The Discovery Channel hired prominent scientologists, most of whom were translators, to show that the previous documentary was nothing but a misunderstanding. The supposed gathering in a gloomy, dark basement was in fact filmed during daylight hours in a park in Sweden. Further scrutiny displayed that the obscure tongue spoken by the High Priest was actually Swedish, and that the alleged naked cultists were nothing more than Scandinavian children on a nudist field trip. Shortly after this discovery, U.S. Religious Leader George Bush Senior issued a formal apology to the government of Nicaragua, "even though you have to admit you're better off than before the invasion", and proceeded to bomb Iraq instead, out of principle.

[edit] Atheism and the Law
The practice of Atheism is legal throughout most of the world, with the exceptions of China (unless it's the state atheism with Mao as its' god), North Korea (with Kim Jung Il in his "cult of personality"), the Muslim countries, Singapore, and the United States of America. In another blatant attempt to suck up to the American government, Great Britain has expressed intentions to outlaw Atheism.

The treatment of Atheist suspects varies among the Muslim countries. In less tolerant nations such as Syria, Atheism is punishable by flogging or decapitation, depending on how devout the suspect is, whereas in more lenient, progressive nations such as Saudi Arabia, Atheism is largely overlooked when the suspects are male, but is punished by publically urinating on the perpetrator and then stoning her to death in the case of a female suspect.

In Singapore, punishment ranges from a two thousand dollar fine to death by electric chair, a policy similar to that of the state of Texas in the U.S. They began to ponder the use of ovens and gas showers.

But the left-leaning state of California prides itself as a religious colony for persecuted atheists, along with Gays, scientologists and Marxists seem to congregate in San Francisco.

JLEveryONE:
human beings r the ephemeral, imaginary alter-bodies of Permanent Spirit

OmSigDAVID wrote:

JLEveryONE:
human beings r the ephemeral, imaginary alter-bodies of Permanent Spirit

That I believe would be Plato's view.

I can't quite get it out of my head that our earthly bodies are quite real, however, but the are impermanent vessels inhabited by the spirit. But if the spirit is something separate from the earthly body, then it remains logical to assume that such spirits exist apart from the earthly body and that they could inhabit almost any realm including appearance as ghosts on earth.

Do I think that spirits that are no longer inhabit a human body exclusively inhabit either heaven or hell? I have a hard time accepting that as verifiable truth in any way other than metaphorically as we currently have no verifiable means to describe or define heaven or hell other than one is promised to be good and the other bad.

So do I, as a Christian, believe in ghosts? I don't know. I have never seen nor conclusively experienced one. I am not conscious that I have ever been one. I do believe that intelligent, credible, believable people do believe they have seen and/or experienced phenomenon of a type that we think of as ghosts. I have a hard time believing all "ghosts" are simply demons mimicking people. A notion of a benevolent demon is contrary to my image of demons.

So I'll keep an open mind for now and find the subject fascinating.

But David, I just explained that I'm not qualified for your group,
as I haven't had the experience. At least not yet.

A trip to the zoo would be fun though.

Well thanks,but that week-end is already booked for us.
Sounds like fun, and probably more serious than our E.T. convention in Roswell each year.

Quote:

David, does your conference and convention correspond
with our celebration of HAlloween?.

It has in the past
(which temporally conflicted with HalloweeM in Chicago).
This year it is earlier in the month.

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I believe that your group is taking the rules of
thermodynamics and conservation of energy a bit far.

I thawt that conservation of energy was supposed to be ABSOLUTE.
If so, then there is no such thing as taking it too far.

There is a notion that "Life is but a dream. Its what u make it.";
i.e., the universe is made out of consciousness -- that there is One Dreamer

Some years ago, I was in bed, dreaming.
I dreamt that I was outdoors near a lightly forested area
with about a quarter inch of trodden down snow; the wind was biting,
burning a little in my nostrils; cold.

I thawt to myself, in my dream, that I am dreaming.
This is all an illusion, based upon memory.
I am making this all up, as I experience it
and I make it up so that I WILL experience it.

Did u chance to see the Matrix movie ?

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As far as I know, there are very very few forms of energy that can reverse
their state once energy is released to the environment.
This is what belief in ghosts as entities requires and Im wondering
how your scholars of ectoplasmic research get around that ?

The scholars consist either mostly or entirely
of medical doctors who inquire into this phenomenon, or nomenon,
in the spirit of scientific investigation as all biological and chemical research;
whatever works to find out what is going on.

I read of an experiment that was attributed to Thomas Edison
in his later days: in hospitals, he put the beds of patients
who were approaching their final moments of Earthly life
upon scales of weight. He allegedly found a loss of weight
at the moment that thay expired. The record will note that
people 's final breaths are not like someone trying to blow up a balloon.

I 'd like to see that experiment replicated for confirmation or disproof.

People of all religions have died and recovered their human health,
myself among them. We can and sometimes we DO comment upon
our experiences while in an out-of-body condition.

no demons

OmSigDAVID wrote:

People of all religions have died and recovered their human health,
myself among them. We can and sometimes we DO comment upon
our experiences while in an out-of-body condition.

no demons

Quote:

so how long were you dead? A year? 2 years?
a month?
10 minutes?

Longer than could be explained by the action of endorphins?

a few moments on the operating table during surgery

Quote:

I doubt it..

Were you actually dead, you would not know it.

Some folks have been disinherited because,
while their human bodies were in a dead condition,
their consciousnesses floated over to the waiting room
where their relatives have been in conversation among themselves,
some of whom bad-mouthed the decedent,
during said conversations and were overheard by the decedent
who later returned to life and had his lawyer remove the nasty-mouthed
relatives from his will.

I don 't remember being dead, but I remember some out-of-body
experiences awake, on-the-job in court, and in a restaurant for lunch.





David