/atheism/ - Atheism

Obviously god doesn't exist but ghosts are totally real. Just kidding. Neither has evidence, just claims.

> but I would actually like a more rational explanation than "ppl like making shit up".
Actually that's a pretty good nutshell explanation.

Even when there are people who experienced things they genuinely perceived as supernatural when really it was their perception playing tricks on them. They are still making shit up when they claim it's a ghost instead of an optical artifact or neural misfire, etc or the admittance of them not being sure.

Human perception isn't perfect, it glitches a lot. If you ever had experience with psychedelics you may see the extent of which but even normal operation is very susceptible. Optical illusions wouldn't be possible without this susceptibility.

And then there is emotion to factor in as well which clouds judgement. Walking through a spooky cemetery at night and hearing some rattling in the bushes may make someone think zombies. Factor in that most people aren't very rational and quite gullible you got a good sense of why these stories persist.

I would wager that the belief of ghosts also overlaps the belief in skywizards to some great extent.

>ghost sightings,
bullshit
>reincarnation
bullshit
>astral projections
bullshit

If one doesn't believe in a god, then by that same criteria, they shouldn't believe in ghosts. Even though, ghosts are more plausible than a god, there is no evidence.

What we call the paranormal is usually your brain seeing patterns that aren't there. Like for instance me seeing a face in a flickering flame, which makes me think I saw a flame demon, or some noise that slightly resembles a word or a phrase.

It's not really evidence for the paranormal or supernatural until someone can conclusively demonstrate your mind isn't simply playing tricks on you

>>3839
Or more colloquially, an illusion.

>It just fascinates me that these strange experiences happen to so many people, online and irl. It almost makes me think there's indeed some strange,

A lot of people already believe that ghosts and the afterlife exist. Sometimes things happen that they can't explain but they've already heard stories about how things like weird sounds or optical illusions are really ghosts so they assume it's that.

Very few people are willing to investigate something, especially if it scares them. Not everyone saying they saw a ghost is bullshitting, they just don't have a better explanation.

I think if you examine what people say about ghosts you might come to a few questions. Do ghosts wear clothes as some people have said? Why would an outfit carry over to the afterlife? Do ghosts have disabilities? Why would a physical impairment carry over to the afterlife? Are there mentally retarded ghosts? Etc.

Pareidolia/Apophenia

It all has petty evidence for massive claims such as ghost and spirit sightings, very poorly recorded footage, and most of these people who have these "experiences" are religious themselves. So if they experience something they jump straight to the conclusion that it must be something supernatural.

And either way it doesn't make any sort of sense, why would humans take these glowing forms after they die to spook you? Why don't they meet up with other spirits instead and chat? It's all taken from horror books and movies.

>>3831
>Where I live, everyone seem to have some sort of "supernatural" experience happen to them at some point in life (ghost sightings, haunted houses, etc). Granted, I live in a fairly superstitious country but I have never experienced anything remotely "paranormal" in my entire life.
Funny how that works. The reason people who believe in paranormal stuff are more likely have paranormal experiences is because they're more likely to accept it as an explanation even when it's not strongly supported.

My dad has told me that one of the reasons he believes in an afterlife is because one night he "felt" my dead mom's "presence" so much so that he sat up in bed and called out to her. I don't think he's lying or making it up, but I think that simply having a vague feeling about something isn't enough to confirm its existence and if he were thinking about it objectively he would realize this too. What did cause it? I don't know, probably some part of his brain related to the memory of her being randomly activated for some reason. In any case, a false perception seems a lot easier to explain than how a dead person could actually contact the living.

Another example from my life: when I was a kid I would often look at something and get the strong impression that I had seen it before in a dream. I could clearly remember having a dream where I saw this exact thing (although I wouldn't remember when I had the dream or anything else about the context) and I started to wonder if I could actually see the future in dreams. But since these particular dreams were something I could never recall until after I had seen whatever induced this feeling, combined with my skepticism that anything in the human brain could be capable of seeing the future, I was forced to conclude that these feelings were ordinary deja vu and that ordinary deja vu does not result from seeing the future and then forgetting about it until it actually happens.

I think everyone has experiences that some people would conclude are "supernatural", it's just a matter of how rationally they analyze things.

"Supernatural" is a contradiction in terms, because "nature" encompasses everything in the universe. Are there things we don't understand? Yes. Are there things that violate our understanding of reality? Yes, it's called quantum mechanics. Is the universe anthropomorphic or does it at least lean toward favoring the human experience in the way it manifests? There's no evidence to support this and quite a lot to contradict it, starting with the overwhelmingly vast majority of space that is totally inhospitable to human life. Is human perception vulnerable to mistakes or misapprehensions? Unless you're active in psychology/neuroscience/cognitive science, you have no idea how bad it really is.