I Ain’t Afraid of No Ghost

Posted on September 22, 2006 by Reon

Okay, this post might be a flop, or it may invoke some fun conversation.  I just thought we needed a new post, and I think these kinds of things are interesting.

Last weekend I was sitting in a hotel room watching The Travel Channel’s Most Haunted and tried to get into a conversation with my sisters (whom I was staying with) about their thoughts on ghost sightings.  Given that we all were suffering from a severe lack of sleep, nobody else really cared and the conversation died quickly.  One sister did say, though, that the American Institute of Paranormal Psychology dubbed Savannah, GA (where she lives) America’s Most Haunted City (according to Google, it’s the American Institute of Parapsychology).

There are LOTS of (normal-looking) people out there who claim to have seen ghosts, and there are apparently relatively intelligent people out there who study this stuff for a living (and probably spend taxpayer dollars to do so).  Do we put them in the same category with UFO chasers and Elvis sighters, or does the spirit world (in the sense of ghosts) truly transcend the dimensions of Earth?

And do ghosts at all line up with scripture?  One would be hard pressed to find scriptural evidence of tormented spirits roaming the hotels and B&B’s of biblical times.  But Jesus did ask Thomas to touch him so he could be sure he was flesh and not spirit, which leads me to assume that they did have an understanding of spirit forms. 

So I ask you, our loyal but few readers, what’s up with the paranormal? 

5 Comments »

Comment by Lynn

September 22, 2006 @ 3:04 pm

“So I ask you, our loyal but few readers, what’s up with the paranormal?”

My profound contribution:

It exists.

Comment by Rey

September 22, 2006 @ 7:29 pm

I’m not sure if it’s a tormented spirit of a dead human but I wouldn’t doubt roaming spirits or the like especially since Jesus discussed that sort of thing. If one of these things appears as a relative that wouldn’t surprise me either. I guess some might call them ghosts, others Thetans but they’re pretty much of the same stuff. Ectoplasm. Heh.

Comment by Jungle Pop

September 23, 2006 @ 2:54 pm

Well, we do have one documented ghost sighting in the Bible. In 1 Sam 28, the prophet Samuel makes a from-the-grave appearance to King Saul (1 Sam 28:12-19). So God allows it…or at least did one time.

Of course, what would be the purpose of God allowing Abe Lincoln to wander the White House corridors, for example? I don’t know. But I’m more inclined to say that ghosts are real things. Maybe they’re really the spirits of the bodies they represent, or maybe they’re demons wandering the earth in humanish form.

There. It’s my limb and I’ll be out on it if I want to.

Comment by Reon

September 24, 2006 @ 9:47 pm

Thanks to all for your responses. I’m still baffled by the whole thing a little b/c I’v always assumed that when you die, your spirit either goes to Heaven or Hell, period. End of story (in an earthly sense, anyway). But when I go to find a passage of scripture that confirms that, I can’t think of much.

I did come to Luke 16:19-21. The Ryrie Bible has this to say about the passage:

16:23 Hades. The unseen world in general, but specifically here the abode of the unsaved dead between death and judgement at the great white throne (Rev.20: 11-15). In this saying the Lord taught: 1)conscious existence after death; 2)the reality and torment of hell; 3)no second chance after death; and 4)the impossibility of the dead communicating with the living.

Assuming Ryrie is correct, the “abode of the unsaved dead” could possibly transcend Earth. But the concept of “the impossibility of the dead communicating with the living” leaves me to ask some more questions. Can we equate visibility of the dead with communication with the dead? Does Ryrie’s interpretation fully line up with scripture (didn’t Moses, Elijah and the aforementioned Samuel make after-death appearances)?

If anyone has any other thoughts on what happens to the unsaved after death and the state of ghostliness, I’d love to hear it. I’m assuming that the saved don’t hang out on Earth after death in spirit form. Some may think differently. Thoughts?

Comment by Clare

September 25, 2006 @ 10:05 am

I guess ghosts exist, somewhere, somehow in one plane or another, maybe some folks here can conjure up visions of them, I certainly wouldn’t want to.

The official-tell-the-kids story? There’s no such thing as ghosts. Makes the nights go much more smoothly for us all.

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