What is your position on the existence of the supernatural and is there any difference in terminology in between the atheists who believe in the supernatural and those who don't?

Atheism is, in my estimation, the lack of belief in God or gods but is that where it stops? Are there atheists who venture outside this caged definition here on nairaland? If there are, I wonder if there is a term for such people and a different term for those people who don't believe in any supernatural existence, not just the disbelief in deities.

I have heard a number of atheists say they do believe in something mystic, albeit not any deity.

For purposes of this discussion, when I say "supernatural" I mean outside of the nature. When I say "nature" I mean Dark matter, dark energy, any other known and unknown components of nature, any possible parrallel universes and everything else that exists in the natural order.

So if as an atheist you believe in ghosts, spirits, or anything you term as supernatural but not a diety let's all have a chat.

Atheist that claim to believe in supernatural is contradicting the meaning of atheism or am I wrong?

Op
Atheists also lack belief in those beings u mentioned
They exist only in the mind

tintingz:
Atheist that claim to believe in supernatural is contradicting the meaning of atheist, or am I wrong?

There is apparently little correlation between a belief in the supernatural and a belief in deities. Each one stems from a different set of experiences or lack of.

For example It is fairly common for both religious and non religious people to describe having seen a ghost and what would constitute as personal evidence for the person having the experience

Therefore, a belief in deities is learned while a belief in ghosts may come from direct experience. But whether concrete or psychological, that it is a common phenomenon to people in all walks of life regardless of their religious inclination or lack thereof. So it's not really a contradiction. Sure, atheists can believe in anything they want to, with the single exception that if they believe in a God or gods, they're not atheists.

obinna58:
Op
Atheists also lack belief in those beings u mentioned
They exist only in the mind

Not all atheists do. Atheism is simply a lack of belief in the existence of God or gods and not everything supernatural or which their experiences prove are beyond natural occurrences.

good luck finding an atheist who believes in the supernatural to discuss with.

butterflylion:


There is apparently little correlation between a belief in the supernatural and a belief in deities. Each one stems from a different set of experiences or lack of.

For example It is fairly common for both religious and non religious people to describe having seen a ghost and what would constitute as personal evidence for the person having the experience

Therefore, a belief in deities is learned while a belief in ghosts may come from direct experience. But whether concrete or psychological, that it is a common phenomenon to people in all walks of life regardless of their religious inclination or lack thereof. So it's not really a contradiction. Sure, atheists can believe in anything they want to, with the single exception that if they believe in a God or gods, they're not atheists.

God is a spirit being so also ghost, ghost are said to come from God. This made them both supernatural.

So if an athiest said he doesn't believe in God or gods but believe in spirits or anything supernatural, that atheist will have to proof spirit exist, and the thing is at the end he/she will end up shooting himself in the foot.

Belief or believing in ghost is also learn, people also claim they experience seeing a deity.

tintingz:
God is a spirit being so also ghost, ghost are said to come from God. These made them both supernatural.

So if an athiest said he doesn't believe in God or gods but believe in spirits or anything supernatural, that atheist will have to proof spirit exist, and the thing is at the end he/she will end up shooting himself in the foot.

Belief or believing in ghost is also learn, people also claim they experience seeing a deity.

God is not a ghost. For sake of clarity to ourselves we coined the word "ghost" in reality a ghost isn't known as a ghost to a ghost (that is if they do exist)

It's like saying a dog is a dog while to a dog it does not see itself as a dog in name but something different which is at its level of reasoning.

To an atheist God does not exist so he cannot claim ghosts come from God. He simply experiences them and as long as he believes there is no attachment they have to a non existent God he is Okay with that belief in ghosts.

butterflylion:


God is not a ghost. For sake of clarity to ourselves we coined the word "ghost" in reality a ghost isn't known as a ghost to a ghost (that is if they do exist)

It's like saying a dog is a dog while to a dog it does not see itself as a dog in name but something different which is at its level of reasoning.

To an atheist God does not exist so he cannot claim ghosts come from God. He simply experiences them and as long as he believes there is no attachment they have to a non existent God he is Okay with that belief in ghosts.

# What I meant is, God is a spirit being and Ghosts are spirit beings.

# God is supernatural entity, ghost is supernatural entity, ghost are said to come from higher source which religious people call God, an atheist that claim to believe in supernatural beings excluding god(s) will have to proof ghost exist.

# Your argument is like saying I believe in electricity but I don't believe in generator.

tintingz:
# What I meant is, God is a spirit being and Ghosts are spirit beings.

# God is supernatural entity, ghost is supernatural entity, ghost are said to come from higher source which religious people call God, an atheist that claim to believe in supernatural beings excluding god(s) will have to proof ghost exist.

# Your argument is like saying I believe in electricity but I don't believe in generator.

My discussion is not from a religious point of view so you got it wrong.

If Ghosts are said to be supernatural and both religious and the irreligious have by personal experience laid claim to seeing a few then those experiences are personal to them.

As long as an atheist has settled the most important aspect of atheism which is it's core that God or gods do not exist and there is no proof available that would sufficiently prove their existence than an atheist can conclude that yes Ghosts exist but could just be another form of energy yet unexplained. Or the supernatural exists as another form of energy unexplained but both have absolutely no link to a non existent God or gods which is the core of atheism.

Do you understand it now?

Atheists can believe in fairies, unicorns, elves, aliens, UFOs, ghosts or anything outside natural occurrences but only kick against a God or gods existence.

butterflylion:



My discussion is not from a religious point of view so you got it wrong.

If Ghosts are said to be supernatural and both religious and the irreligious have by personal experience laid claim to seeing a few then those experiences are personal to them.

As long as an atheist has settled the most important aspect of atheism which is it's core that God or gods do not exist and there is no proof available that would sufficiently prove their existence than an atheist can conclude that yes Ghosts exist but could just be another form of energy yet unexplained. Or the supernatural exists as another form of energy unexplained but both have absolutely no link to a non existent God or gods which is the core of atheism.

Do you understand it now?

Atheists can believe in fairies, unicorns, elves, aliens, UFOs, ghosts or anything outside natural occurrences but only kick against a God or gods existence.

Atheism does not end in lack in belief in god/gods but also supernatural, myths, legends, superstitions.

So, the question is, those acclaimed atheist that believes in supernatural proof supernatural entities exist?

Proudgorgeousga:
good luck finding an atheist who believes in the supernatural to discuss with.

I tire.

tintingz:
Atheism does not end in lack in belief in god/gods but also supernatural, myths, legends, superstitions.

So, the question is, as an acclaimed atheist that believes in supernatural proof supernatural entities exist?

You are looking at the supernatural as always being something abstract and as something that somehow never interacts with the natural.

I just gave you an example of both religious and irreligious people who claim to have personally experienced Ghosts. Note that these are their personal experiences and they have no reason to disbelieve it when they knew they were not hallucinating when having this experience.

Another example are atheists who believe in astrology. They believe in stargazing and zodiac signs which by their personal experiences have happened as specifically predicted by these supernatural elements but to them it still would not prove God since at their foundation God or gods do not exist and there isn't sufficient proof for their existence.

I never said that an atheist who believes in the supernatural means supernatural entities exist. You said it not me. Remember I said these experiences are personal to that atheist which is why I wish to discuss based on a personal experiential basis.

butterflylion:
What is your position on the existence of the supernatural and is there any difference in terminology in between the atheists who believe in the supernatural and those who don't?

Atheism is, in my estimation, the lack of belief in God or gods but is that where it stops? Are there atheists who venture outside this caged definition here on nairaland? If there are, I wonder if there is a term for such people and a different term for those people who don't believe in any supernatural existence, not just the disbelief in deities.

I have heard a number of atheists say they do believe in something mystic, albeit not any deity.

For purposes of this discussion, when I say "supernatural" I mean outside of the nature. When I say "nature" I mean Dark matter, dark energy, any other known and unknown components of nature, any possible parrallel universes and everything else that exists in the natural order.

So if as an atheist you believe in ghosts, spirits, or anything you term as supernatural but not a diety let's all have a chat.

"Supernatural" based on individual level of knowledge. We tend to term things beyond our knowledge and expectations " Supernatural" but everything is natural. Ignorance is the only problem.

Athiesm itself is born out of rebellion against organised religion/ programmed, mis-education on the term " God". Because our human societies have been severely misinformed on topics about Gods, demons, ghosts etc , it is normal to find some people react differently to such beliefs and dissociat themselves from such and rather look for evidence. This is a typical human feature that we share with other life forms.

However, it doesn't mean people who term themselves Athiest have the right information,but at least they ain't buying an obvious rediculous interpretation from religious leaders. This is how far Athiesm has gone,but it is still a very primitive idea.......otherwise our human history and academical lessons also need to be questioned. Perhaps such people would have to come by another name/ title.

Personally I feel Athiesm will evolve from just destroying organised lying religious empires to actually rectifying,repairing and solving them. Knowledge will be gained and terms like Ghosts, God, parallel universes, energy bubbles, extradimensional beings will be fully understood. With the way people's minds have been wrongfully misinformed, any other ideas is wrong. But we must not see anything as " supernatural " because we do not understand them but natural because nature is vast.

tintingz:
Atheism does not end in lack in belief in god/gods but also supernatural, myths, legends, superstitions.

So, the question is, as an acclaimed atheist that believes in supernatural proof supernatural entities exist?

I believe you are conflating Naturalism with Atheism.

@OP, I think that your definition of natural might be circular. In fact I haven't heard of a rigorous definition of naturalism in all the long decades of my life.

Even those things you term as 'ghosts' etc are not necessarily supernatural or unnatural however you define it. Why? Because the brain, a 'natural' organ, 'naturally' works to create hallucinations all the time.

If you define natural as anything that can be explained with the knowledge we have then the fact that something seems supernatural may yet turn out to be quite natural once you've found a way to explain it.

ifenes:


"Supernatural" based on individual level of knowledge. We tend to term things beyond our knowledge and expectations " Supernatural" but everything is natural. Ignorance is the only problem.

Athiesm itself is born out of rebellion against organised religion/ programmed, mis-education on the term " God". Because our human societies have been severely misinformed on topics about Gods, demons, ghosts etc , it is normal to find some people react differently to such beliefs and dissociat themselves from such and rather look for evidence. This is a typical human feature that we share with other life forms.

However, it doesn't mean people who term themselves Athiest have the right information,but at least they ain't buying an obvious rediculous interpretation from religious leaders. This is how far Athiesm has gone,but it is still a very primitive idea.......otherwise our human history and academical lessons also need to be questioned. Perhaps such people would have to come by another name/ title.

Personally I feel Athiesm will evolve from just destroying organised lying religious empires to actually rectifying,repairing and solving them. Knowledge will be gained and terms like Ghosts, God, parallel universes, energy bubbles, extradimensional beings will be fully understood. With the way people's minds have been wrongfully misinformed, any other ideas is wrong. But we must not see anything as " supernatural " because we do not understand them but natural because nature is vast.

You have said yours also based on your personal experiences thus you believe your position. Likewise an atheist with their own personal experiences in the areas you mentioned would believe themselves because probably in that moment they first tried to rationalise these events but found no explanation for them.

We ourselves as humans live within a bubble and that bubble is called nature but can our natural observations be enough to rule out things that may be outside this bubble?

Isn't it possible that the supernatural is out there and to them the natural also does not exist.

This is a comment by Sally Ulianich an atheist based on her own experiences.


My belief is that we who are alive are all here now and life is now, angels and devils are people, heaven and hell is now, not after we die. When we die, that's it. We won't be swept away to the gates of heaven or hades.

But also, we all have energy that we can feel in each other and I think it's possible for that energy to continue on after we die. I don't know that we can physically see it, and maybe some can, but I think there is enough evidence of it for me to personally believe in it.

She isn't mad surely not. She is simply trying to rationalise her personal experiences regarding the supernatural as an atheist.

PastorAIO:


I believe you are conflating Naturalism with Atheism.

@OP, I think that your definition of natural might be circular. In fact I haven't heard of a rigorous definition of naturalism in all the long decades of my life.

Even those things you term as 'ghosts' etc are not necessarily supernatural or unnatural however you define it. Why? Because the brain, a 'natural' organ, 'naturally' works to create hallucinations all the time.

If you define natural as anything that can be explained with the knowledge we have then the fact that something seems supernatural may yet turn out to be quite natural once you've found a way to explain it.

[quote a

butterflylion:



You have said yours also based on your personal experiences thus you believe your position. Likewise an atheist with their own personal experiences in the areas you mentioned would believe themselves because probably in that moment they first tried to rationalise these events but found no explanation for them.

We ourselves as humans live within a bubble and that bubble is called nature but can our natural observations be enough to rule out things that may be outside this bubble?

Isn't it possible that the supernatural is out there and to them the natural also does not exist.

This is a comment by Sally Ulianich an atheist based on her own experiences.


My belief is that we who are alive are all here now and life is now, angels and devils are people, heaven and hell is now, not after we die. When we die, that's it. We won't be swept away to the gates of heaven or hades.

But also, we all have energy that we can feel in each other and I think it's possible for that energy to continue on after we die. I don't know that we can physically see it, and maybe some can, but I think there is enough evidence of it for me to personally believe in it.

She isn't mad surely not. She is simply trying to rationalise her personal experiences regarding the supernatural.

uthor=butterflylion post=59562884]What is your position on the existence of the supernatural and is there any difference in terminology in between the atheists who believe in the supernatural and those who don't?

Atheism is, in my estimation, the lack of belief in God or gods but is that where it stops? Are there atheists who venture outside this caged definition here on nairaland? If there are, I wonder if there is a term for such people and a different term for those people who don't believe in any supernatural existence, not just the disbelief in deities.

I have heard a number of atheists say they do believe in something mystic, albeit not any deity.

For purposes of this discussion, when I say "supernatural" I mean outside of the nature. When I say "nature" I mean Dark matter, dark energy, any other known and unknown components of nature, any possible parrallel universes and everything else that exists in the natural order.

So if as an atheist you believe in ghosts, spirits, or anything you term as supernatural but not a diety let's all have a chat. [/quote]


https://www.nairaland.com/3992671/tithing-truth-history-origin-catholic

PastorAIO:


I believe you are conflating Naturalism with Atheism.

@OP, I think that your definition of natural might be circular. In fact I haven't heard of a rigorous definition of naturalism in all the long decades of my life.

Even those things you term as 'ghosts' etc are not necessarily supernatural or unnatural however you define it. Why? Because the brain, a 'natural' organ, 'naturally' works to create hallucinations all the time.

If you define natural as anything that can be explained with the knowledge we have then the fact that something seems supernatural may yet turn out to be quite natural once you've found a way to explain it.

Super in supernatural creates a gulf of separation from what natural is. Super is a higher form of natural which could be in non tangible spirit form to us but a perfectly tangible natural form to those in the supernatural.

Explaining anything does not erase what personal experiences explain themselves because the build up to these experiences are never the same and the experiences themselves are also never the same.

Atheists have declared houses haunted by ghosts because of their personal experiences and what others have truthfully witnessed about the same houses.

Atheists have submitted themselves to mediums who say they can communicate with spirits and these mediums have revealed deep dark secrets to them only known by them and also passed on messages from dead relatives which turned out to be true, etc.

Like I said, these are personal experiences but as long as God is not in the mix, an atheist is free to believe in anything.

Believe me, before the airplane was invented, the sight of metal flying in mid-air was considered supernatural. But now it is understood as a reality made possible by the application of scientific principles.
Therefore anything supernatural is nothing but an aspect of nature yet to be scienifically understood. And when that happens it seizes to be supernatural. Trust me, science will get there!

#Men made the idea of a God!

obisco4u:
Believe me, before the airplane was invented, the sight of metal flying in mid-air was considered supernatural. But now it is understood as a reality made possible by the application of scientific principles.
Therefore anything supernatural is nothing but an aspect of nature yet to be scienifically understood. And when that happens it seizes to be supernatural. Trust me, science will get there!

#Men made the idea of a God!

Please my thread is about atheists who believe in ghosts or the supernatural and not God being an idea made by men.

The supernatural does not have to be God does it?

Let me help focus your thought. In Nigeria and other white nations there have been multiple accounts of people who died and their deaths were unknown to certain people but the same dead person would pay a visit to this close person and spend some time with them before they found out about their death. A lot of these accounts have been witnessed by multiple people who could testify of seeing what the main person also saw.

Are you focused now please?

butterflylion:


You are looking at the supernatural as always being something abstract and as something that somehow never interacts with the natural.

Supernatural can interacts with natural which can be magic, hallucinations etc.

I just gave you an example of both religious and irreligious people who claim to have personally experienced Ghosts. Note that these are their personal experiences and they have no reason to disbelieve it when they knew they were not hallucinating when having this experience.

How do these people know they were not hallucinating when they see ghost?

Another example are atheists who believe in astrology. They believe in stargazing and zodiac signs which by their personal experiences have happened as specifically predicted by these supernatural elements but to them it still would not prove God since at their foundation God or gods do not exist and there isn't sufficient proof for their existence.

So where are these atheists?

I never said that an atheist who believes in the supernatural means supernatural entities exist. You said it not me. Remember I said these experiences are personal to that atheist which is why I wish to discuss based on a personal experiential basis.

I'm very sure, your goal here is to proof god/gods exist.

PastorAIO:


I believe you are conflating Naturalism with Atheism.

Was just giving the OP example.

tintingz:
Supernatural can interacts with natural which can be magic, hallucinations etc.

How do these people know they were not hallucinating when they see ghost?

So where are these atheists?

I'm very sure, your goal here is to proof god/gods exist.

You still do not get it. Your opinion says the supernatural interacting with the natural is simply hallucinations but the atheists who experienced same say otherwise and I already gave a quote from one of such atheists and said her name is Sally Ulianich. Let me post one of her full experiences here.

I've had multiple experiences in which a ghost or energy seemed to be the most rational explanation, including a series of events that happened all in one night:

I was babysitting an 8 year old girl. The mother was a singer so she and her husband would be out til all hours of the night, sometimes getting home by 1am, other times not until almost 4am, depending on where her gig was.

The first time I ever babysat for them, I had put the girl to bed and was sitting in the living room watching TV. The papasan chair I was facing down the hallway so I could see the bedroom doors. The parents had left a lamp on in their room and the daughter had a nightlight in hers.

All of a sudden, the light in the parents' room turned off. I figured maybe it was bothering the girl, but I hadn't seen her walk across the hallway. I went to check on her and she was sound asleep in her bed (and that girl couldn't be sneaky if she tried - I babysat her almost every week for 5 years after that). I went into the parents' room to fix the lamp. It had been unplugged from the wall behind a very heavy dresser that I had to pull out from the wall in order to plug the lamp back in. I hadn't seen or heard anything that could have unplugged the lamp.

Right after I plugged the lamp in, I heard a crash in the living room. The girl was still sound asleep and again, I hadn't seen or heard anything to indicate a person had done it. As I entered the hallway, I saw that the papasan chair I had been sitting on had been completely knocked over, even the base and cushion had been spread out across the room.

I decided to sit on the couch instead and not long after, I heard a loud noise in the kitchen. I went in to check (I would totally die first in a horror movie, wouldn't I?) and the cupboard doors were open and a bunch of stuff was on the counters and floor, Tupperware, cups, etc; The cupboard doors had magnetic closures and I had been in there earlier, so I know that wasn't how it had been. I tried to rationalize it - maybe the stuff had just been stacked awkwardly and tipped over in the cupboard, pushing the doors open somehow.

As I was finishing cleaning the kitchen, I heard a noise around the corner. I walked through the laundry room toward the bathroom and turned on the light. The water was running on full blast, hot and cold. I had used the bathroom earlier, so I know I hadn't left it that way. But maybe there was pressure built up in the pipes that forced itself out the faucet. Who knows?
By itself, each event could have had some explanation and I might have been able to dismiss it. I didn't actually see anything or anyone do anything, and there probably is a rational explanation. But whatever it was, did not want me in that house for some reason.

Nothing that extreme happened after that, but I always felt negative energy in that house. The family moved a couple blocks away a year or so after that. Over the 5 years I babysat for that family, both the parents and the daughter told me separately that the house was haunted. I told the girl what I had experienced the first night babysitting her and she shared her stories with me as well. I still live by the house and would love to talk to the current owners to see if they've experienced anything. I know that no one lives in that house more than a year or two

.


She knows this house and she as well as others have a history of experiences in this house which defy explanation plus even new residents run away after a couple of years.

You desperately wish to move this discussion to proof or no proof of God don't you? Surely you can have a rational discussion without always ending up in God or no God argument can you not?

I can say in this world there are Dingdongs and then there are superdingdongs.
I bet you'll be none the wiser though because I haven't defined a dingdong. If I say a superdingdong is something over and beyond a dingdong that will not help you because I haven't defined a dingdong as yet.

Ultimately we are discussions the mechanism of the universe. How things work? Many people believe that there is only one single principle underpinning the way all the universe works. We haven't discovered it yet but the search is on for the ToE, the Theory of Everything.
At the moment there are two known principles by which phenomena can be explained. Einsteins relativity theories and secondly quantum mechanics. These are both classified as 'natural' principles.

Even your example of atheists going to mediums doesn't suggest any other principles at work other than what we are commonly used to. Have you heard of cold reading? There are many techniques that seem like magic to those who are not in the know but they are all very common phenomena.

butterflylion:


Super in supernatural creates a gulf of separation from what natural is. Super is a higher form of natural which could be in non tangible spirit form to us but a perfectly tangible natural form to those in the supernatural.

Explaining anything does not erase what personal experiences explain themselves because the build up to these experiences are never the same and the experiences themselves are also never the same.

Atheists have declared houses haunted by ghosts because of their personal experiences and what others have truthfully witnessed about the same houses.

Atheists have submitted themselves to mediums who say they can communicate with spirits and these mediums have revealed deep dark secrets to them only known by them and also passed on messages from dead relatives which turned out to be true, etc.

Like I said, these are personal experiences but as long as God is not in the mix, an atheist is free to believe in anything.

This sounds like poltergeists phenomena and it's more likely that the cause is the young lady rather than any entity in the house. From what little I know about such phenomena they are strongest around kids that are going through puberty.

butterflylion:


You still do not get it. Your opinion says the supernatural interacting with the natural is simply hallucinations but the atheists who experienced same say otherwise and I already gave a quote from one of such atheists and said her name is Sally Ulianich. Let me post one of her full experiences here.

.


She knows this house and she as well as others have a history of experiences in this house which defy explanation plus even new residents run away after a couple of years.

You desperately wish to move this discussion to proof or no proof of God don't you? Surely you can have a rational discussion without always ending up in God or no God argument can you not?

PastorAIO:
I can say in this world there are Dingdongs and then there are superdingdongs.
I bet you'll be none the wiser though because I haven't defined a dingdong. If I say a superdingdong is something over and beyond a dingdong that will not help you because I haven't defined a dingdong as yet.

Ultimately we are discussions the mechanism of the universe. How things work? Many people believe that there is only one single principle underpinning the way all the universe works. We haven't discovered it yet but the search is on for the ToE, the Theory of Everything.
At the moment there are two known principles by which phenomena can be explained. Einsteins relativity theories and secondly quantum mechanics. These are both classified as 'natural' principles.

Even your example of atheists going to mediums doesn't suggest any other principles at work other than what we are commonly used to. Have you heard of cold reading? There are many techniques that seem like magic to those who are not in the know but they are all very common phenomena.

Yes I know about cold reading and hot reading and warm reading but they are also limited.

I doubt if there can ever be a Theory of everything and even Eisteins relativity or quantum mechanics which though applicable to this natural world may be obsolete if there was a world which does not subscribe to its laws.

That was why I said we are in a bubble named nature and that is all we know until something breaks through what we know and forces us to begin to think that perhaps there is something beyond nature.

Here is another personal experience by an atheist. Maybe you can try and explain away her personal experience after studying her experience. Her name is Daisy.

So, here's my story. It's not all that scary, but it's not something I talk about a lot. Because honestly, it's hard to say outloud without questioning myself. It just sounds so ridiculous. I accepted a while ago, that, no, I'm not exaggerating or making things up. I know my truth, even if my truth seems impossible or no one else believes me.

Since I was little, I've seen shadows, or at least that's what I called them until recently. One of my earliest memories is seeing them in my bedroom at night, crawling over my walls and ceilings. They lived behind my headboard and came out in the dark and stole words from my mouth when I was sleeping. I tried to tell my parents but the only word I really understood for swoopy crawling night things was 'moth'. And they thought I was saying 'mops'. I was maybe 4. At that point, I decided I couldn't have any light in my bedroom when I slept anymore. My reasoning was, if I couldn't see them, they weren't there. So, before bed I'd make them hang blankets over the windows and door so no light could come in. I couldn't see the shadows anymore.

But shutting light out of my room, didn't keep them out of my dreams. I've always had really horrific dreams. I don't mean nightmares, everybody has those sometimes. These aren't nightmares. They're horrific images that happen during otherwise normal dreams. I'll be walking thru a park going to a picnic talking to a giant sloth in a top hat, and to my right a shadow will be playing with the entrails of a corpse. I'm not frightened, but the horrific image is still there in an otherwise normal dream. I guess, to a lot of people, horrific scenes of death might be nightmares. But they're so common for me they don't bother me. I am not afraid and they don't keep me awake, so I don't really consider them anything other than dreams. Since they aren't nightmares, I've never really bothered to figure why I was having these images in my dreams. I sort of just figured I had some unprocessed trauma from my youth. It wasn't until more recently that I finally connected the figures in my dreams to the shadows I'd seen when I was younger.

A few years ago I was contemplating a career change. I had a unique opportunity to go to school on a full scholarship. I was looking into mortuary school and had gotten an application from a local school. I worked in a funeral home in high school, and as depressing as some people would find it, I really enjoyed my work. I'm not afraid of dead things and I'm good at helping people while keeping them focused. My family was encouraging and agreed that it was a good fit for me. Not because I'm dark, morbid or depressive, but because despite being a painfully optimistic cheerful person, I'm still the 'dark' person of my family. My mom says I just have a dark aura, something that despite my cheerful happiness, tells her in different life I'd have been an assassin or a sniper. I've always agreed. Some people are more comfortable with death than others. And I've always been very very comfortable.

Monday night, I filled out the application for mortuary school and went to bed an atheist. By Tuesday morning, I was trashing my application and was no longer an atheist.
It was a few hours after I'd gone to sleep. I was having the best dream. It was Sandwich Holiday and all the shops were giving out free sandwiches. I was in line, waiting for mine in a shop, and they'd set up those bins that they throw cheap DVDs into. I was rummaging thru the bin looking for a DVD for my son or niece when I saw one about Tinkerbell. I opened up the case and there was a booklet inside. I started reading the booklet and everything around me grew very dark. The booklet described different types of fairies...but the pictures where moving. Some of the fairies where just smoke and shadow, others were grotesque with out of proportion limbs and heads that moved as if they were attached to their bodies by a loosely coiled spring.

Terrified, I woke up relieved it had been a dream turned nightmare. I stared for a few minutes into the blackness at my ceiling, letting my heart rate and breathing get back to normal. I was confused why something so unscary, could leave me breathless and with a lingering fear. A few minutes passed, and I fell back asleep and began dreaming again.

You know how sometimes, if you fall asleep with the tv on, what's on the television can infect your dream? And even though you're sleeping, you know there are pieces of your dream that aren't coming from you, but from the tv? This new dream was like that. I could tell this dream wasn't from me. In my dream, I was asleep in my bed. A large, salamander sort of...person was waking me up. Finally I opened my eyes enough to see him, but I couldn't speak, because I was sleeping. He said that he was a death fairy. I could feel him reaching into my mind, and fairy wasn't the right word, but it was the closest he could find in my vocabulary. He told me that I couldn't go to mortuary school. That, for whatever reason, I attracted a lot of death spirits to me and that they liked being around me. But, if I worked around death, he couldn't promise safety for me or my loved ones. Then he showed images of me working in a funeral home, with shadows made real that bit and cut and followed me from room to room before following me home. He said it was my choice, but it would be a dangerous one. The entire time he was speaking, I could feel his breath on my face and I was struggling to wake up convinced that if I could just wake up enough to move I would be safe. Finally, I was able to break thru my nightmare and wake up. But I didn't feel safer.

Terrified from my most recent nightmare, I called for my cat, because she's the best nightmare remedy and rolled over to my side as I felt her jump onto the bed. I felt her walk up behind me from the foot of my bed to my pillow. Then, I felt her walk up from the foot of my bed to my back, again. As I lay, paralyzed in fear I tried to use logic to explain why I felt her move the length of the bed twice without me feeling her move in the opposite direction. I figure I must have dozed for a moment and she was just making circles getting comfortable. As I felt her finally lay down against my back, I felt her headbutting my knee. I looked down at my cat walking towards me as I felt her curled up against my back. Frozen in fear I watch her coming closer and closer to my face. As she gets to my chest, she looks behind me over my shoulder. She immediately begins to growl, her fur stands on end and she hisses. My sweet kitty, who I've never heard growl lets lose with an unearthly sound that makes every hair on my body stand on end. I am terrified to move. Completely paralyzed, I lay like that for hours, with her watching over my shoulder at something behind me I can't see. Eventually, I doze off again.

I awake, some time later. I can see from the light coming from the window, it's closer to daylight than it was before. I lay there in bed, remembering my crazy dreams and thanking the heavens that's all they were. Because they had to be, right? It has to be. I sit up in bed and try to recall everything that happened that night. I turn on the bedside lamp and just sit in my room on my bed. I don't want to go back to sleep, because clearly it's crazy nightmare night. I consider reading, but my book is in the living room and I don't want to leave the safety of my bed because I'm still spooked. So, I sat quietly. It was in that quiet, contemplative state that i heard it.

You know the sound that cheap carpet makes when you walk on it? The soft crunchy sound that even a cat's footfall makes? That's what I was hearing. My cat's footsteps on my cheap wall to wall carpet. The problem? My cat was curled up at the foot of my bed. I could just barely make out the almost silent footsteps. I was straining to hear them, too afraid to move or speak. What happened next, was so fast, it's difficult to describe. As I sit at the head of my bed, I'm looking at my cat at the foot of the bed when I feel something jump up onto the bed near her. I watch as she wakes up and looks in the direction I felt something land. As she's waking up, something pushes her towards the edge of the bed. I see her eyes grow big and her fur stand on end, her claws are ripping at the sheet as she tries not to be pushed off the bed totally. She gives an unearthly howl as she finally loses the battle to whatever unknown entity and falls off the bed. And now I'm alone and awake, with something I can't see at the foot of my bed.

I sat there motionless for another 2 hours until my alarm goes off for morning. It's been light outside for a while, but I didn't work up the courage until the sound of my alarm broke the silence. I threw away my application to mortuary school before going to work that day. It took my cat several days before she calmed down and started acting normal. As an atheist, I either had to accept I had some sort of mutual mental breakdown with my cat, or I had to accept maybe there was something else.The problem with accepting that one thing is real? Logic will dictate that if one thing can be real, all things have the possibility of being real.

I told my friend Artemis about what happened that night. She is my only friend who truly believes in things otherwordly. She's always insisted that I was a witch or prophet or a healer or something. I've always insisted she was a little cray cray. When I told what happened that night, she said that my world would be different now. That things would happen more often because now that I'd seen, I was seen in return

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butterflylion:


You still do not get it. Your opinion says the supernatural interacting with the natural is simply hallucinations but the atheists who experienced same say otherwise and I already gave a quote from one of such atheists and said her name is Sally Ulianich. Let me post one of her full experiences here.

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She knows this house and she as well as others have a history of experiences in this house which defy explanation plus even new residents run away after a couple of years.

You desperately wish to move this discussion to proof or no proof of God don't you? Surely you can have a rational discussion without always ending up in God or no God argument can you not?

Where did she said she's an atheist?

Anybody can cook up fictional stories.

ifenes:


"Supernatural" based on individual level of knowledge. We tend to term things beyond our knowledge and expectations " Supernatural" but everything is natural. Ignorance is the only problem.

Athiesm itself is born out of rebellion against organised religion/ programmed, mis-education on the term " God". Because our human societies have been severely misinformed on topics about Gods, demons, ghosts etc , it is normal to find some people react differently to such beliefs and dissociat themselves from such and rather look for evidence. This is a typical human feature that we share with other life forms.

However, it doesn't mean people who term themselves Athiest have the right information,but at least they ain't buying an obvious rediculous interpretation from religious leaders. This is how far Athiesm has gone,but it is still a very primitive idea.......otherwise our human history and academical lessons also need to be questioned. Perhaps such people would have to come by another name/ title.

Personally I feel Athiesm will evolve from just destroying organised lying religious empires to actually rectifying,repairing and solving them. Knowledge will be gained and terms like Ghosts, God, parallel universes, energy bubbles, extradimensional beings will be fully understood. With the way people's minds have been wrongfully misinformed, any other ideas is wrong. But we must not see anything as " supernatural " because we do not understand them but natural because nature is vast.

I agree with this

tintingz:
Where did she said she's an atheist?

Anybody can cook up fictional stories.

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butterflylion:


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Where is the link to her story?

tintingz:
Where is the link to her story?

Are you serious? I am sure you think I made it all up.