Are ghosts real or is the belief of them immoral?

I'm doing a research paper on ghostly phenomena in the christian perspective and I need quick advice. Do you agree that ghosts are real? I believe that the Bible is right when stating that we go to either heaven or hell when we die, but I also believe that it doesn't lie when it says that God sends angels and the devil sends demons. To me, ghosts are just angels or demons sent by God or Satin to either harm us or protect us. What is your view?

Well, the Catholics believe in Purgatory. That isn't heaven or hell. The movie 'Ghost' seems to believe in heaven and hell, yet there was the whole 'rectifying' things on Earth bit.

But honestly, you will hear some religions call the idea of a ghost a blaspheme. Technically an Angel or a Demon were never human nor had a soul so therefore they couldn't be a ghost. A ghost would be a manifestation of a soul that has passed from its earthly flesh. Ghosts and spirits may be real, they may not be. The 'moral' implications of a belief one way or the other could are irrelevant considering that belief itself is not a source of morality. Morality is what we do with our beliefs in actions that are done here on Earth. Your belief in ghosts (and by the way some refer to Jesus' spirit as the 'holy ghost') will not affect your morality or make you better or worse for believing. It may however, conflict with popular beliefs at a church, mosque, or temple which may have its own ramifications for someone trying to different than any other person in the flock (notice I didn't make any reference to zombies or puppets or any other word other than what the christians decide to think of themselves as...... although I still can't find the compliment in the socialistic term about a mindless animal that doesn't even fight for its own life when it is slaughtered.) But by all means I think that you should decide for yourself.

ghosts are real. I believe there iz otherz amongst us ... but little do we no who they r

In the Old Testament, Saul asks the Witch of Endor to call forth Samuel's spirit. She does so and Samuel appears.

So from a Biblical perspective, I'd say that yes, ghosts exist and they can be communicated with by those who are alive.

(From my own scientific perspective, I'd say no)

I appreciate all of your advice. If you give me something really good, I will quote it in my paper and give you credit. If that is ok. Thank you.

yes!!! I will not say ghosts because it's sounds like halloween type stuff,so I'm going to say spirits. one day my mom was sitting in a chair and she asked me to take her a picture so I did and when the picture came back there was a figure standing in the background of her.... a DARK FIGURE of a man with a hat on .she got scared but she didn't want nobody to know about it, so I never told but I swear as the lord is my witness, I seen a demon like figure like it's face I always see it but when I close my eyez it's not so vivid though, like his face is black he has greenish reddish eyez and his face is very hot he has sharp long teeth and they're black like pitch black,now I'm telling you what I've seen when I close my eyez and it's dark. now one night,I swear to GOD,LORD FORGIVE ME FOR SWEARING,BUT ONE NIGHT I WAS LAYING ON THE SOFA,AT THAT TIME WE HAD A SHOT GUN HOUSE BUT THE HOUSE HAD ROOMS ON ONE SIDE WITH DOORS TO THEM FOUR BEDROOMS,A LONG HALLWAY,WE HAD A CURTAIN UP TO THE DOOR OF THE HALLWAY BECAUSE THE HALLWAY HAD NO DOORS SO I WAS LAYING ON THE SOFA I WAS IN THE LIVING ROOM I WAS WATCHING TV,IT WAS NIGHTTIME AND I GLANCED AT THE CURTAIN AND IT WAS PUSHED BACK AND I SWEAR I SAW THAT SAME DEMON FACE I SAW WHEN I CLOSE MY EYES IT HAD AN EVIL SMURK ON IT'S FACE, SO I PULLED THE COVER OVER MY HEAD AND PRAYED TO JESUS AND I LOOK TO SEE IF IT WAS STILL THERE,AND GUESS WHAT IT WAS ACTUALLY STANDING OVER ME...............IF I TELL YOU MORE YOU WILL PROBABLY GET SCARED AND I WOULD PROBABLY SEE IT AGAIN.

I am a christian and I believe in ghost. I see them all the time. My dad died almost 4 years ago and ever since, I see him and my grandparents and other people that I have never even seen before. I believe strongly in them. But other people have different beliefs.

Just as there are angels there are also demons and evil spirits . If you consider them gohst then yes .

I know you asked about it in the christian perspective but I am only aware about ghosts in the islamic perspective..

in the Quran Allah (swt) (Name of the God that muslims believe in) mentions that man was created from clay and djinns were created from smokeless fire, both were created to worship no other exept Allah (swt). Djinn are not visible to man in their natural form but we are visible to them.. Djinn like human have free will whethr they choose to be muslim or non-mulim, Djinn can appear in forms of animals such as dogs and snakes etc in addition when you see a ghost you actually see a djinn in the form of another craeture/being etc (this is the only time they are viible to us) this is what I have read from a website about ghots;

if you want I can give you the address.

Ghost are real but they are demons in disguise. Read this article - http://www.spotlightministries.org.uk/hauntings.htm

If ghosts were real, how could it be immoral to believe they exist? How can it be 'immoral' to believe anything exists, if you are convinced that they do?

The existence of ghosts (with the identities of people now dead) presents some problems from a naturalistic worldview. If they can see, they must block the light they see with. So we should see little ghosts' retinas moving about the place. If they are not material, how can they wear clothes, or are the clothes part of their ghostliness? If they move, they have to react against their surroundings, but if they can go through walls, they can't. Once you are removed from your body, can you still be you?

I know this is probably not what you want but I'm pagan and I believe in ghosts. I know you are Christian and all, but I don't think it's immoral to believe in ghosts. As people have stated there are references in the bible to ghosts. I've never truly read the bible but I'm doing some research like you were. My topic is a little different but it's close. My topic is 'Are ghosts and poltergists real?'. I have always said they were and always will. So, no, I don't think it's immoral to believe that.

'Ghosts are real but they are demons in disguise.' But demons are not real.

Maybe ghosts are like 'shadows' of past or future people, appearing as a result of some kind of slight overlapping in the space/time continuum.

I think kamex's suggestion creates more problems than it solves. Temporal paradoxes, for one thing. What if someone was so startled by the appearance of a ghost that they did something that prevented the ghost ever being born?

And don't you first need a lot better evidence than we have that there are any such things as ghosts? Virtually all poltergeists can be traced to attention-seeking children or teenagers. Virtually all the others also have naturalistic explanations.

The stories started somewhere, didn't they? Not to say that proves anything, but it's not like the first time anyone heard of ghosts was two years ago when some teenager made them up.

But just because you've never seen one, or we can't prove they exist, that's no reason to dismiss the idea of ghosts existing.

What about this: What are thoughts, and can they only exist contained inside a brain? This could even branch off into the topic of 'psychic abilities', but what if ghosts were a persons thoughts remaining on Earth after leaving the body and somehow not reaching the final resting place, assuming there is one. This would basically be the definition of a 'spirit'. Maybe if a person remaining on Earth only as thought is unaware that they are dead, this magical mystical essence they now exist as appears as they did when they were alive, and they go about doing the things they did when they were alive/did right before they died. You know the stories. But of course this 'essence' is magical and mystical, so they're not tangible, nor are they always visible.

I don't know if ghosts exist or not. But there's some crap to think about.

Sure they started somewhere, and so did fairy tales. They're consistent with the idea that 'we' are immaterial and only live briefly 'in' our bodies, an idea that's been prevalent for thousands of years all over the world.

But the more we learn about our relationship with our bodies (read the books by Oliver Sacks about people with different kinds of brain damage, and how that affects the way they think about themselves and their bodies), the more it seems that they are inextricably tied together.

Very recently they've done some interesting experiments where they got people to wear 'virtual reality' headgear and look at their own bodies from outside. An experimenter would touch the real person and their virtual image in the same place with plastic rods so they felt what their image would feel. Very soon the person wearing the headgear was having an 'out of body' experience.

I think some sort of memory diplacment takes place when a person has an expierance, memory in another dimension. some people have an extra sensory where they are able to see people who had died, or ghost tend to do the same things they did in life before they died. But other outside forces such as magnetic feild, have to come into play. Evil ghost, are people who were angry, or evil in life, and continued to be so during death. Many people think that ghost are proof of an afterlife, but I just think it's another mystery of the world that has yet to be solved. Or people could just be exaggerating truth, or lying.

WHO KNOWS I WOULD LIKE TO KNOW TOOO

No ghost are not real.But spirits are.You hae to know the difference =]]

'No ghost are not real.But spirits are.You hae to know the difference =]]'

Yes, the difference is that other, silly, people believe in ghosts, but sensible people like ME believe in spirits...

yes there is demons sprits and angels and to be honest I don't know if people can communicate with them I sometimes think those are demons sprits trying to decieve and I believe its not of God to try too communicate with them.

there are really no such things as ghosts its just the devil and his demons trying to trick your mind DONT BELIEVE HIM!! HES THE FATHER OF ALL LIES

Jonasluver: A ghost-believer might equally say -

'there are really no such things as demons its just the Chief Ghost and his ghosts trying to trick your mind DONT BELIEVE HIM!! HES THE FATHER OF ALL LIES'

The evidence for them all is the same - vanishingly weak.

Seriously, what do you say to someone who believes in ghosts OR demons in the 21st Century? Shake them and say 'Don't be so silly!' perhaps.

I find it really interesting that people are saying that all ghosts are demons in disguise. Last I looked the Christian religions did believe in ghosts and saw some of them as good. The easiest one to site is the holy trinity: The father, the son, and THE HOLY GHOST.

Hope this helps,
S&S

Jonusluver, you are being superstitious. Ghosts might indeed exist; I'd have to say simply 'I don't know'.

If there really are ghosts - that is if the spirits/personalities/identities of the dead continue to exist after death and somehow impinged on the physical world that we know (I nearly said 'the real world') - why do they always hover on the fringe of detectability? Wouldn't there be some conditions under which we could see them clearly? Or wouldn't some be visible for long periods of time? (There are natural phenomena that we study that are a bit like that, but they are a lot more consistent. If something is very small or very faint or very distant or very rare, at least when you find it or magnify it or whatever, it STAYS found and magnified.)

Isn't it much more likely that these phenomena that are always on the brink of perception are just artifacts of our faulty senses? That is, we see or hear some weak or faint natural thing, and (just as we are very ready to see faces in fires or tacos) we are very ready to conjure it into something more comprehensible, the voice or the face of someone we miss.

So far as I know, there is no hard evidence anywhere that has convinced everyone who encountered it (or even a substantial majority) of the existence of ghosts.

my view is youre all really deluded and I pity your existence. the belief of ghosts immoral? the stupidity makes me shudder