Great Advice on Having Conversations with the Un-Skeptical

[thesummerqueen]

http://www.skepticnorth.com/2011/09/talk...ut-ghosts/

[The Grand Nudger]

I'm going to make an experiment of this. I'm going to attempt to stick to this method entirely for a week, starting now, and we'll see if the results of any conversation are different than my usual methods of mocking ignorance. I may have to hide my sword somewhere far far out of sight to accomplish this.

(I saw an interview with the author of that book a few nights back, can't remember where)

[thesummerqueen]

That might work better, sugar, if you hadn't already established a reputation as a curmudgeon.

[The Grand Nudger]

Hahaha, a well deserved and much cherished reputation (at least within the confines of most of the discussions I'm involved in here).

[fr0d0]

Does this mean you're going to try to not get your ass whooped so much Rhythm?

Nah... impossible!

[The Grand Nudger]

You feel that I get my ass whooped often? Tell me more.

[fr0d0]

Some people would call that wonderful innocence

[thesummerqueen]

I call that you having a critical eye on Rhythm's ass

[fr0d0]

[BethK]

http://www.skepticnorth.com/2011/09/talk...ut-ghosts/

The Socratic Method works nicely when you are having a discussion with someone who wants a conversation. What I've noticed with believers in ghosts, as well as "true believers" in anything, is "I know what I know, and don't bother me with the facts".

I can think of one who insists that there is a ghost in her hall. She says she "knows" it's there because she gets a "creepy feeling" every time she goes through there. And, she claims to know (its) name and what (it) looks like. How does she know this? Because someone told her that (a particular person) committed suicide (at that location in the house) in (date in the 1940s)! Now, I haven't been able to locate a newspaper article describing it, but that does not mean that such an article does not exist. It might have happened.

When I ask her how she knows, "I know what I know." How do you know it? "(Name) committed suicide there!" That's not an answer to my question, but the conversation is with someone who does not want to give explanations or have anything of a discussion on the topic. I find lots of believers (in most unprovable things, really) are that way. Another person is just expected to believe as they do, or accept their beliefs as "true" and talk about them as if they were real and proven. That's just the recipe for someone just mirroring them, and a way to avoid meaningful conversation... It's become my opinion that "true believers" really do not want any meaningful conversation.

Given the event the benefit of the doubt, and assuming the existence of souls or ghosts, why then would someone committing suicide, presumably because he did NOT want to spend any more time in that place or under those conditions, why would the "soul" of such a person choose to spend a long period of time haunting the place where they died? Wouldn't it make more sense for the spirit of such a person to return to somewhere that they were happy?

Somehow, the "Why do you think someone would choose to stay (where they committed suicide/where they were murdered/where they lived at the time of their death)?" question remains unanswered.... just more "proof by assertion".