Ghosties

TGW and I had an excellent weekend in Gettysburg, and we'll most assuredly be returning. We took pictures, had great food, talked a lot, and got to go on a fun ghost tour. Our tour was with Miss Emily through Sleepy Hollows tours - I'd recommend it, it's a fun time, and Emily is a hoot. :)

It got me thinking, though about the decreasing belief in the supernatural in the modern world. I, admittedly, still have a strong belief that there is something out there, but like my feelings about gods, it's still a kind of agnosticism. I believe in something, but I haven't learned enough about it to say yes, I know what this is, and I trust that it is.

Agnosticism is such a prickly topic, to be true, but I think it is the best application here of my feelings on spiritual beings overall. (Wikipedia would call me a weak agnostic since I think we have the capacity to eventually determine whether such things exist, but in regards to gods, I think I'm more of a strong agnostic.)

There are a lot of things to believe or not believe in. It can get a little overwhelming to try to determine what is real, what is wishful thinking, what is a trick of light or hallucination, what is just a reaction to environmental cuases. I try to weed through it. Sometimes, I just let myself believe what feels right. In this, I'm incredibly irrational and illogical.

Bertrand Russel said:

An agnostic thinks it impossible to know the truth in matters such as God and the future life with which Christianity and other religions are concerned. Or, if not impossible, at least impossible at the present time.

But, I think Ingersoll said it best:

We can be as honest as we are ignorant. If we are, when asked what is beyond the horizon of the known, we must say that we do not know.

Regardless of what we can prove, I feel an irrational leaning towards the reality of these things. I know some of it is my own mind playing tricks, but I'm okay with it. It gives me some feeling of excitement, or some type of strength of mind that there is more than just reality.

I discussed at length with a few people recently how I believe (and have no proof) that all of these religions, spectres, myths and legends are somehow based on reality, and that the gods of Rome and Greece, prophets of Biblical times and other such human-like-super-humans are truly just humans who tapped into some sort of muchness, an energy source of transcendance, something more than what we are and is instead what we could be. A power that can be used and abused just like any other energy. It's an incomplete thought, but it's something bouncing around up there. Is there something godlike, something supernatural, anything supernatural out there? Or is it simply science and nothingness and facts and figures? Maybe it is both, or neither, but I don't think we can know, not as a whole, not as a species, what this thing can be.

Do you believe? Do you believe in God? What about ghosts? Residual energy? Angels? Demons?

I'd like to know.

/bcs