Raymond B. answered • 05/07/22
Math, microeconomics or criminal justice
There are several Nobel Laueates in sciences that believe in the paranormal. They kept quiet about it until they received the Nobel Prize money, so they won't worry so much about loss of income if they got fired. Saying you believe in ghosts can ruin your reputation in a scientific field
Hugh Everett believed in the parallel universe interpretation of quantum physics, much like fictional Prof. Sheldon Cooper. He was an atheist physicist, like Sheldon. Everet believed when he died he would continue to live in another universe.
Physicists try to explain the Big Bang as an interaction between multiple universes, one crashing into another, explaining what existed before time began in our universe.
If another universe interacts with our world, it may include some ghostly images
Your dog or cat stares at the wall or some place, yet there's nothing visible there. It's seeing a ghostly image, like the cat, the only real person to see Patrick Swayze in the movie "Ghost" other than Whoopi Goldberg, but she only heard the ghost, and never saw it.
Your dog is used to you coming home at 5pm, and waits eagerly in the window, looking out waiting your car to drive up. Then one day, unexpectedly you leave work early and come home at 1pm. Yet your dog, with no way to know, is back at the window looking out, waiting, wagging its tail. It knows you're coming, as if some energy field connects you with the dog, over a long space.
Prof. Gary Schwartz won a $2 million dollar grant to study communication with the dead. He's not religious, but bases his theory on Physicist Hugh Everett's parallel universe quantum physics. Schwartz believes we surive biological death and our energy lives on. Schartz wrote the "Afterlife Experiments" where he has medians connect the dearly departed with their loving survivors. Allison DuBois is one such median. She is like Whoopi Goldberg in "Ghost." DuBois also gives seminars to police and prosecutors on how to communicate with deceased murder victims, to help solve cold murder cases and identify the murderers. Police often use psychics to solve crimes. But they deny it, as they'd lose any trial if it came out.
Religions are similar. The Jewish Bible recounts Samuel appearing to Saul when he visits a witch.
The Christian Holy Ghost is a Ghost or Spirit
At the Transfiguration Jesus, Moses and Elijah were with John and James. Moses and Elijah were ghosts or spirits.
The Angel Gabriel talks to the Virgin Mary. Gabriel is a ghost or spirit
Abraham and Sarah were visited by 3 men. They were spirits
The New Testament Book of Hebrews says to show hospitality to strangers as they may be angels, spirits or ghosts
Jesus quotes the Old Testament, "Ye are gods" referring to more than a Trinity of 3 persons in the Godhead.
Hindus have a billion deities and more, but 3 chief Deities, Braham, Vishnu and Shiva, similar to the Christian Trinity
Buddhists have no top Deities, and is considered an "atheist religion," but they have other "masters" who are spirits and supernatural
Religions may differ, but it's more a focus on different aspects of God(s) or gods or spirits.
the differences are similar to various scientific views of the paranormal.
Abraham Lincoln & Mary Todd did seances, communicating with the dead. It's not clear what religion Lincoln was, although he did quote the Bible often, such as in his "House Divided cannot stand," speech, a quote from Jesus, referring to demons, more spirits, evil ones.
Espiscopalian Bishop Pike communicated with his deceased son, through medians.
The Virgin Mary's apparitions, ghostly images, appear to the Catholics and even to non-Catholics and non-Christians, worldwide.
Whitney Houston's daughter saw her deceased mother after she died.
Guards at a Florida prison saw and heard executed Ted Bundy's ghostly image in the electric chair. So many guards so it, they refused to work alone on death row's cell block. The warden threatened for fire any guard who was caught talking about Bundy.
Gettysburg is top of the list of haunted places, for Halloween tours. More ghosts are sighted there than anywhere, although other cemetaries have similar reputations. People visit the South Atlanta graveyard where hundreds of Confedrate soldiers are buried and report seeing them alive and walking. When they ask if it's a play or people dressed up to look like Confederates, the officials there deny that's ever happened.
There was a murder trial about 100+ years ago, maybe called Greenbriar, where the mother of the murder victim testified that her dead daughter told her the defendant was the murderer. The jury bought it and convicted.
Shintos are pantheists, believing the divine is everything, everyone and everywhere, including sacred trees. But their "chief" Deity is the Sun Goddess, with Emperors also deities, descended from the Sun Goddess.
Before the Fall, the Old Testament Deity created everything and it was 'Good," divine, perfect. The words
"Good" and "God" are related.
Philosopher Berkeley argued all is perception. There is no external world. What you see and hear is your own perceptions, with no distinction between hallucinations and an external reality. The ghost is as real as a physical person. Plato had his theory of forms, where this world is just a shadow of a greater reality. Jesus rose from the dead, but in a different spiritual body, like a ghost. Agostic Bertand Russel distinguished an afterlife belief from belief in a Deity, but said given enough evidence he'd believe in either one.
Main reason the secular claim people believe in deities is they were brought up that way, brainwashing, or fear of the unknown. Secular scientists usually see religion as an explanation for things science can't explain, but they're confident eventually science will explain it all, with a TOE, Theory of Everything. Yet it seems impossible for science to explain consciousness, ever.
John Locke wrote on Toleration, that we can tolerate any religion or belief, but not the ones that don't believe in an ultimate sanction for crimes, as then the criminals have nothing to lose and they're dangerous. Much like "lifers" in prison. They have nothing to gain by being good, if this world is all there is. Just as Casey White seems to feel free to try to escape from prison, steal cars and kidnap people, as he expects a death penalty regardless how good he acts. A belief in a Deity or an Afterlife makes us act better in this world. It was agnostic Nobel Laureate FA Hayek's utilitarian argument for religion. It makes people better. Even the former atheist Soviet Union, unable to control crime, turned to churches for morality, to help stop the crime wave.
The same issues that seemingly different religions or viewpoints deal with, get resolved in oddly similar ways. Determinism vs. Free Will is a secular philosophical scientific issue. Hard determinists argue all is predetermined, with no free will. Some atheists, like French existentialist Sarter believe in free will, that you create your own reality. In religion, there's a similar split, with Presbyterians and St. Augustine believing we're all predestined to be saved or damned, with no free choice. But Free Will Baptists and most Christians believe when Jesus knocks on your door, it's your free choice whether to let him in. Yet St. Augustine of Hippo, the first Catholic theologian considered it a heresy to believe you have any choice in the matter, since God controls everything. Then there's the "compatiblists" or "soft determinists" who argue free will and determinism are consisent, and a false dichotomy.
How you define terms leads to similar seeming disputes. Christians claim 3 persons in One Deity. Oneness Pentecostals call it One God and One Person, just 3 different forms. Mormons are accused of believing in 3 persons and 3 Gods, polytheism. Unitarians have been seemingly a Christian denomination or sect, but they have alternated from One God One Person, to zero Gods and outright atheism.
They used to argue how many angels could dance on the head of a pin, as if it were a major theological issue. Same with Popes claiming 3 Marys in the New Testament were one and the same person, including Mary of Martha & Mary and Mary Magdalene. Differences resolve around how important an issue is, and how you define terms, which mask possibly an agreement not easily recognized.
It's said that you share the beliefs that's an ammalgamation of the 5 people closest to you. If they're all atheists, you're highly likely to be an atheist. If they're all theists, you're probably a theist.
Major reason some or many people believe is answered prayer. You have a fatal incurable painful medical problem. You pray and you're miraculously cured. Or just other answered prayers of seemingly less miraculous and you're likely to be grateful to the Deity you prayed to. There's a joke about an atheist fishing where the fabled Loch Ness Monster has been sighted. Suddenly the Monster appears, grabs the atheist and is about to eat him. Instantly, the atheist prays and cries to God to save him. Time freezes, the clouds part, a brigh ray of sunshine lights up the lake, as God looks down disapprovingly and says "You? You of all people, a lifetime confirmed atheist want Me to help you?" The atheist responds, "Well, Sir, until now I didn't believe in the Loch Ness Monster either.".
