atheist ghosts believers: Del Roady

Here's another "pretty well an" atheist who has come to the conclusion that ghosts are real. His name is Del Roady and he blogs here, at "Another helping of sanity, please".

Roady is Flimsy's good friend.

1. What do you think ghosts are?

I've struggled with this for some time.  The best way I can describe my take on conventional ghosts is that they are like... electrical beings.  I figure that since our bodies and minds run off a bit of electricity, why couldn't a ghost be like some sort of static charge?  It's pretty common to hear about batteries being drained, cold spots, and even lights dimming before some sort of paranormal activity, so I take that as the electrical entity absorbing whatever energy it can before it makes itself known. 

2. What ghostly experiences have you had?

Personally, I only have a couple.  I'll hit the one that I've had confirmed by someone else in the house.

I get up one day and go over to my computer and am checking emails and whatnot and I hear my now ex-roomie (we'll call him Bird) going into the basement.  The basement steps used to just be the stringers with no kind of reinforcement and a bit bouncy, and the both of us are at least 300+ pounds, so they made some noticeable noise if you went up/down them with any speed.  So, I hear Bird going downstairs to mess with his clothes.  The place he was working at didn't really have him on a set schedule, so I figure he's off or getting ready to head to work.  I hear him come upstairs and then I head down to talk to him.  I don't find him anywhere in the house and I would have seen him leave since my door ultimately opens into the only exit we use in the house, plus 300+ pound people aren't usually quiet unless they're really trying to be, lol.  I don't think too much of it and go back upstairs and sit at the computer.  A short while later I can hear footsteps coming up from the basement again.  Then I hear footsteps coming up the stairway leading upstairs that's all of 5 foot away from me and then they slow to a stop.  I refused to look over and just sat there trying to mind my business.  Never did hear them descend.  I brought this up to Bird later that week and he had noticed the same thing later that day.

At the last place I lived, Bird had heard a couple thuds and then something fall over upstairs when we had moved in, investigated it, and couldn't find anything knocked over.  We had a room that had a light that worked randomly for one person that stayed in there, but not for Bird when he moved in there.  I had, on several occasions, heard a noise of what sounded like a plastic BB bouncing across my room.  I could hear where it started, hear where it was hitting, hear it bouncing less (more quickly tapping), and hear where it stopped, but never could see it.  This usually would happen 3-4 times, one after another, and never happened on any consistent basis.

At this house, Bird's cat used to get startled randomly at nothing we could see.  She'd also just stare at places and that would unnerve me every time.  Bird tells me she never does this at his new place. 

Bird said he'd had the bottom of his shirt tugged a few times in the kitchen.  

I've seen what I believe to be an orb come through the wall behind the tv in the back room, come in front of the tv, do a vertical loop, then speed back out where it came in.

After changing ceiling fans in back room, I got the "hair standing up on the back of your neck" feeling and a cold spot that stayed stationary, fan on and off, for a good 5 minutes or so.  I decided to explain what had been done and why I did it and the weirdness went away.  Then as I was walking into the kitchen a few minutes later I caught something out of the corner of my eye and when I turned I think I saw a glimpse of an old man in a plaid shirt stretched out trying to grab at, what looked like, the bottom of my shirt.  When I turned around, of course, there wasn't anything there, but I could hear the instructions for the fan I had laying on a table in the corner rustle slightly and I had the fan all sorts of OFF.

3. Do you think atheism and ghost-belief is incompatible?  Why or why not?

I believe there are many things that fall in the ghost category and I'm pretty well an atheist.  It works for me, but I can't seem to explain it any other way than "replace soul with electrical energy".  I really have been trying hard to look at ghosts as just another part of the Paranormal category.  We have "UFO" for things in the sky we can't explain, so why not have "GHOST" for things on the ground that have similarities to human life that we can't explain?  I guess I feel better with the subject if I can think of it outside of religion.  I suppose if you think of it that way it makes it compatible for both theists and atheists, but the moment you look at it with any religious aspect, to me, it becomes incompatible.

 I think some of Roady's experiences are interesting because I have had (sort of) similar ones.

In the apartment I live now, I sometimes get this feeling of a "presence" in the hall. It only happens at night. Often, I will have a cat fast asleep on me and when I feel this "presence", the cat will suddenly sit bolt upright and stare into the hall. The dog and the other cat continue to sleep away.

Just the other day, I was painting a house and I went out to my car to plug my MP3 player into the cigarette lighter. While I was in there, I heard a very distinct male voice say, "No". The voice sounded like a person telling a dog not to sniff or run or something, so I turned to look for a guy walking a dog. No one was anywhere in sight.

All this creepy-feeling talk reminds me that when I was a kid, my cousin and I used to play a game when we were home alone at my house - we'd close all the curtains, turn off all the lights, and then pretend we were hiding from aliens/murders/ghosts. We would both talk about how fun it was to scare ourselves-  and we both genuinely felt creeped out and scared. Whenever I get creeped out by something, I am inclined to believe that it's not due to an outside force creeping me out - it's on my head.

Photography: cute cats

I've updated the site, and posted some more photography. This time, it's several pictures of my cats, for those of you who like cute things

Cats are here!