I love a good ghost story [View all]

[Stuckinthebush]

To me they are so much fun. I love to tell them and watch people squirm, wide-eyed and twitchy.

One of my family's favorite past times is to turn on the Travel Channel or Bio and watch the campy ghost shows such as "Ghost Adventurers" or "Celebrity Ghost Stories". The former is just freaking hilarious. Three guys who are locked into a haunted location for a night and every now and then scream, "Dude, I was just touched!" It is rarely scary but often very instructive on the hysteria associated with the experience of seeing ghosts. The latter is just plain fun. You have actors who are natural story tellers relaying their ghostly experience in hushed tones with a few tears thrown in. Interspersed in this re-telling are recreations of the event in question with a load of spooky music. It truly is enough to make you shiver if you allow yourself to move into it for a short period of time and suspend disbelief.

Last week my daughters, my girlfriend and I were watching a particularly fun and silly show called "The Dead Files" in which a physical medium and NYC cop work independently to uncover the strange happenings of a particular location. They come together in the end to "reveal" their findings to the residents and make a determination on what is the cause of the disturbances and what should be done by the family to either live with it or make it go away. The medium is freaky and the cop is a stereotypical NYC detective. Great popcorn eating, clean fun.

At the end of this show we were discussing the claims. My 15 year old - an atheist and skeptic - opined that, while interesting, there are so many opportunities for the producers of the show to help steer the results in a certain direction that it calls into question the veracity of any of the claims. My 13 year old who loves to be chilled and scared commented that it would take a lot to do that to which my 15 year said, "Really? It is quite easy." I, in my spookiest "I love a ghost story" voice said, "One never knows when it comes to the dead!"

We all laughed but the discussion then centered around the question of whether an atheist can be a believer in ghosts. I thought it was a great question that brought up a discussion of what atheism means. Questions that the girls and I explored were:

Does the non-belief in deities also include the automatic non-belief in the super or extra natural?
If not, what is the scientific evidence that supports claims of ghosts?
If this evidence is simply personal experience how is that not the same as evidence of personal experience of a god?
While individual claims are easy to debunk what about mass sightings of the same phenomena?
Is it worthwhile to examine claims of ghosts or is it impossible to study these claims like it is impossible to study the existence of gods?
Why do we like ghost stories? What does this say about our human nature?
What role does the brain play in these experiences?
How does a presupposition of "evil" and "heaven/hell" direct ones supernatural experiences? (notice how demons are mostly experienced on these shows by devout Catholics, for instance)
How does one's cultural background influence one's experience of the supernatural?

I ran across this ThiningAtheist broadcast from a couple of years ago on the subject.

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/thethinkingatheist/2010/10/16/can-atheists-believe-in-ghosts

At the end of the night, the girls and I had a wonderful discussion that had them engaged in critical thinking.

Boo!