Atheists, do you believe in ghosts??

Question

Atheists, do you believe in ghosts??

Answer 1

Nope.

But little green men, well that's a different story!

Answer 2

i believe they are a possibility

Answer 3

A few do, most don't.

Answer 4

Only if they don't make noise down stairs, while I'm upstairs trying to figure out how to spell the word Portuguese for my scrabble game.

Answer 5

I personally don't.

Answer 6

No more than I believe in vampires, werewolves, banshees and fairy folk.

Answer 7

Of course not.  I have even less evidence of ghosts than I do of God.   This is not to say there is credible evidence of God, just tons of unproven alleged "evidence".

Answer 8

The answer will be almost universally no. Those who answer yes, or not sure, are just trainee atheists who haven't mastered level 3 yet.

Answer 9

The word 'ghost' is just 0ld English for guest    So why should they not?

Answer 10

im not atheist but i do believe in spirits

Answer 11

Nope, not me.

To save asking, I don't believe in the tooth fairy either.

Answer 12

Not enough evidence to be conclusive.

Answer 13

Absolutely not.

Answer 14

I know they exist.  i have had way too many experiences with them to say otherwise.

Answer 15

Im atheist and belive in the supernatural.

Answer 16

No. I've only ever seen them on television. Casper was the most memorable.

Answer 17

Nope.

Answer 18

Yes. I've never had an experience like that personally, but I've heard compelling stories from very credible people.

Answer 19

No, i do not.

Answer 20

i believe in Norton Ghost

Answer 21

No as I haven't seen one yet.

Answer 22

Yes I do.  We are comprised of energy and when we die that energy has to go somewhere.  It lingers.

Answer 23

No. There is no evidence for anything supernatural.

Answer 24

Only if I see one but I haven't yet so I say no.

Answer 25

I'm agnostic and I've seen something weird to be sure. Ghost? Who knows.

Answer 26

There is no evidence to support them

Answer 27

Of course I believe in ghosts - "I'm feigning twenty first- century lunacy just like you are. So as not to draw attention to myself. "

the laws of physics and of logic -- the number system -- the principle of algebraic substitution. These are ghosts. We just believe in them so thoroughly they seem real. For example, it seems completely natural to presume that gravitation and the law of gravitation existed before Isaac Newton. It would sound nutty to think, that until the seventeenth century there was no gravity, before the beginning of the earth, before the sun and the stars were formed, before the primal generation of anything, Sitting there, having no mass of its own, no energy of its own, not in anyone's mind because there wasn't anyone, not in space because there was no space either, not anywhere...If that law of gravity existed, I say, I honestly don't know what a thing has to do to be nonexistent. It seems to me that law of gravity has passed every test of nonexistence there is. You cannot think of a single attribute of nonexistence that that law of gravity didn't have. Or a single scientific attribute of existence it did have. And yet it is still `common sense' to believe that it existed." if you think about it long enough you will find yourself going round and round and round and round until you finally reach only one possible, rational, intelligent conclusion. The law of gravity and gravity itself did not exist before Isaac Newton. No other conclusion makes sense. and what that means is that that law of gravity exists nowhere except in people's heads! It's a GHOST! We are all of us very arrogant and conceited about running down other people's ghosts but just as ignorant and barbaric and superstitious about our own."The problem, the contradiction the scientists are stuck with, is that of mind. Mind has no matter or energy but they can't escape its predominance over everything they do. Logic exists in the mind. Numbers exist only in the mind. I don't get upset when scientists say that ghosts exist in the mind. It's that only that gets me. Science is only in your mind too, it's just that that doesn't make it bad. Or ghosts either." Laws of nature are human inventions, like ghosts. Laws of logic, of mathematics are also human inventions, like ghosts. The whole blessed thing is a human invention, including the idea that it isn't a human invention. The world has no existence whatsoever outside the human imagination. It's all a ghost, and in antiquity was so recognized as a ghost, the whole blessed world we live in. It's run by ghosts. We see what we see because these ghosts show it to us, ghosts of Moses and Christ and the Buddha, and Plato, and Descartes, and Rousseau and Jefferson and Lincoln, on and on and on. Isaac Newton is a very good ghost. One of the best. Your common sense is nothing more than the voices of thousands and thousands of these ghosts from the past. Ghosts and more ghosts. Ghosts trying to find their place among the living."

Answer 28

I certainly don't believe in ghosts as some sort of manifestation of the souls of the dead.

Like many "supernatural" phenomena, it seems the more closely ghosts are investigated the less verifiable evidence is found. Most such anecdotal experiences with ghosts appear to be little more than the products over-active imagination and auto-suggestion.

As a scientist I would say that the appropriate response to anecdotal evidence is to keep an open mind and apply rigorous scientific techniques in investigating. On balance I would say that at present there is insufficient evidence to state that "ghosts" (whatever they may be) exist but I am not wedded to any dogmatic view that precludes a change of view if more evidence becomes available - that's what science is all about.

Answer 29

Not really... I believe there's a possibility ghosts exist, but I don't particularly believe in them.

The main reason I believe there is even a possibility is because of a couple things my boyfriend went through, which he is sure was caused by ghosts.

I don't have a better explanation for a lot of what he said.  

Answer 30

No, I don't really.  Sometimes weird things happen and it makes me wonder, but no, not really.