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I am interested in hearing some of the ideas this forum might have on the existence or non existence of ghosts and othe unexplained phenonemon. Are they real or just an effort by demonic and evil forces to confuse and install fear in the human heart?

Christians would have to believe in ghosts if they believe that food falls from heaven, seas part, people walk on water, frogs fall from the sky and the dead are raised etc. Perhaps we “spiritualize” ghosts too much, however, just as we “mystificize” the aforementioned phenomena.

“mystificize”?
Sorry Grant.
I guess the way I look at it is that there is so much more to reality than I am capable of understanding or explaining, I don’t see why there wouldn’t be ghost-like creatures (angelic or demonic) in the same way that I guess I’m not opposed to saying there may be life on other planets—different post topic.
I guess my biggest question is the possible difference between the angel/fallen angel grouping and ghosts that may be less spiritual based. Is that even possible though? If ghosts are disembodied soul (oh boy. the word “nephesh” is popping into my mind now. crap.) could they be non-spiritual?
Ya’ know. I probably should have thought about this awhile before dribbling cognitive spittle all over this post. Maybe somebody feeling more together could clean me up with their proverbial motherly spit and napkin of organizational thought.

Yeah, aliens from other planets are real too. What I mean when I say we think too mystically about events in the Bible is that we think of them as other-worldly instead of this-worldly. Obviously, if God made the seas part in order to lead the Israelites to freedom, then the parting of seas is the reality of our world.

I was reading the story of Saul and the witch of Endor, and the commentary was saying that there really wasn’t a ghost of Samuel to conjure up, but that God himself allowed for the spirit of Samuel to speak to Saul. I don’t know where they got that from, and I don’t know if I necessarialy believe that.

I think that there are things that we do not understand, and thus it becomes easy to lump them all into the same category. I was brought up to believe (but do not) that all ghosts are evil and demonic. They are all just a ploy of the Devil to disturb and thrown the church off course.

any other ideas out there?

JaBird

I think the Bible is very clear that their are Angles and Demons on Earth with us. We are told of many instances where people were able to see angles when they chose to reveal themselves. I think that Satan or demons can do the same thing. They can play mind games with you if they do chose. Just remember that as Christians we do have the power to command Satan away from us.
However the Bible also tells us that we are going to heaven or hell once we die. If that is the case then the belief in a ghost just as someone who is dead walking around in some kind of spiritual form is ludicrous. Unless God chooses to do something special like we are shown in the New Testament I don’t believe that I will see any relative of mine as a ghost.

What are “ghosts”? Let’s start with what they are not. In this world there in a natural or physical realm which we see and a spiritual realm which we do not see. In the spiritual realm, there is God, Satan, angels and demons.

There are NOT some neutral (that is to say, neither from heaven nor from hell) fluffy Caspar-like beings wandering about aimlessly, “hanging out” with us, sneaking under the radar of God.

Fear is one of Satan’s favorite tools (he only has a limited playbook, he just recycles it over the ages). If he can’t make us afraid of ghosts, he’ll try to make us afraid of sharing our faith with others. He doesn’t care what we’re afraid of, he just wants to cripple the church from walking in God’s authority.

But there’s a problem. Satan has to go through God to get to us (ie. story of Job). But we can also give Satan a “foothold” (“Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold” Eph 4:26-27). The greek word for “foothold” is topos and it means “jurisdiction” or legal rights. In other words, by sinning (and no, I don’t exactly understand how) we can give Satan legal rights to tempt us, afflict us, harass us, etc. Thank the Lord, Jesus died for our sins and we can repent of our sins and claim the blood of Jesus and rebuke the Enemy in Jesus’ name.

So people who seek “spirits” or “witchcraft” many times without knowing it are inviting Satan to have jurisdiction in their life and permission to manifest themselves.

Do I care whether they look like Caspar or Freddy Kruger? No. The only thing I know is that Satan hates me and I hate him. What do we do about demons or ghosts? The same thing Jesus did. Command them to leave in Jesus’ Name.

And JaBird’s also right about the angels and our relatives in heaven. I guess it would be cool to talk to my grandmother again, but I’d rather talk to Jesus. And He does give us his Holy Spirit.

Not to deviate from the topic of ghosts too much I’d like to talk about Satan a little more.

I believe Satan and his minions are very real, but I’m not sure I buy all the traditional thoughts about him. For one Satan is not omnipresent like God, I don’t believe he can be everywhere at once, I’m not sure he has even made his rounds with me. You could say that his demons are the one’s doing the dirty work, but I don’t beleive these creatures can read or influence a persons thoughts, especially a person indwelled by the Spirit.

Blaming negative thoughts or emotions on Satan seems to discount human depravity and our own falleness. We don’t need Satan to be evil.

If you put the percentage of Christian writings and sermons dealing with Satan or demons against the small percentage of the Bible that talks about it you can’t help but think we may be prioritizing the importance of it too highly.