I understand what you're saying. I have had experiences like the ones you described. And after those experiences ive come to realize it was probably just a matter of imagination and being frightened.

It's true that you can fool yourself into thinking you saw something when you really didn't. But it's also true that you can second guess yourself so much that you can fool yourself into thinking that it was just your imagination, because not everyone wants to believe it was a ghost. I, along with many others I'm sure, want there to be another explanation. Therefore, you start coming up with all these other explanations, and you want to believe them enough that you fool yourself into believing them.

And no, there was nothing up against the chair. There was nobody there to prank me, I'm positive. But I can understand how you could question it. You weren't there, and like you said, I could just be full of **** for all you know. :laughing:

Right now there's this "alternative" wave in Norway which I think is pretty hideous. People here seem more inclined than ever to choose an "alternative" explanation over the rational, be it that people have healing or psychic powers, that their houses are haunted or even that guardian angels leave their feathers in people's wallets - one of many experiences with angels described by the norwegian princess Märtha Louise in her latest book (she runs an "angel school" where people learn how to get in touch with and use angels for finding keys and other mundane practicalities).

So here today, it seems to me that those explanations are often preferred. I believe the underlying reason is that people are not rational beings. We're emotional beings and alternative explanations in general appeal to your emotions rather than your rationality. I believe it takes more effort and knowledge to be a critical thinker because you have to try and turn yourself into a rational being which may include denying yourself certain knee jerk reactions and being open and humble to the idea that even you yourself can be fooled.

I just don't think that the idea of ghosts is that irrational.

It persistently and consistently fails to be proven by science and I'd rather be guided by scientific research when it comes to what I want to believe in than anecdotes by people I don't know or trust.

edit :

As for irrationality, scientific backing to explain the existence of ghosts is lacking and to accept their existence would be very irrational according to the principles of occam's razor. The reason is, explaining ghosts would also mean you would have to accept that there's existence of the "self"/"spirit" after death, that dead spirits are able to manipulate objects, perhaps possess the living and a whole range of other ideas that may be wrong - just so that you can acommodate the idea that ghosts are real. Not believing in them requires no such feats of wild imagination as the world without ghosts is (increasingly) well documented.

It's not. Apparitions can be a number of things, not just the classical wandering spirit.

As for science - 500 years back science was convinced that the earth was flat and the center of the Universe. What do you think science will evolve to if humans are around another 500?

Can't keep a closed mind to what you see and experience. But you as well can't be set in a belief 'entirely'. The only things that are irrational spiritually speaking are the planets major religions, but that's because they're philosophically moronic and any intelligent human can pick them apart.

These were assumptions that existed pre-science when they were not rationally deducted from any work using scientific methods. Galileo Galilei, the most famous scientist from the scientific revolution, is known for challenging this misconception and he famously got into trouble with the church for it and was forced to renounce his research.

The geocentric hypothesis had proponents arguing for it in science, as is healthy for any scientific debate, but didn't come from science and was eventually disproven. So, as an example of 500 year old science, I don't think it's a good one.

I don't know all the details to how Galileo Galilei "got into trouble with the church." But the idea or the proposition or theory that the Earth orbits around the Sun goes back to Capernicous ("De Revolutionibus orbium coelestium") and even further back to the ancient Greeks - namely Aristarchus of Samos.

I think it is a good example. Both the Geocentric system & Flat Earth Theory are examples how learned men of their time (whether some would considers them being a part of science or pre-science) can adopt an erroneous ideas of the universe. It's easy to point the finger and say "hey that's pre-science" but not all pre-science is bad either. You have to admit modern science relies heavily on pre-science knowledge (or what we now call "science") from ancient times. Now it is easy to see how the geocentric hypothesis is wrong and to say that it didn't come from science - but hindsight is 20/20.

(And in some ways we are back to square one with the newer sciences, with Einstein's theory of Relativity the Earth is relatively the center of the universe from our perspective here on Earth and the Flat Earth theory hasn't really left us it had an extreme make-over and now appears as the theory of Holographic Universe... and that is the beauty of science... old theories don't get thrown out - they just get recycled into new ones. :) )

ahhhh who cares?

"reality is consensual hallucination" - Bono

You can't disprove God but you can easily debunk claims attempting to prove God.
It pretty much comes down to the idea of burden of proof... with that in mind there's absolutely no point in entertaining a discussion about God's existence until theists can present a solid scientific theory.