Fear is basically an instinct that's there to protect us from harm. Many things frighten humans instinctively. The fear is natural, and does not need to be reinforced in order to terrify. Humans are afraid of the dark because predators/animals might hide in it. We are afraid of heights because, well, we might fall and die. We are afraid of dead things/skeletons because they mean that something deadly is near, or the corpse might carry disease. These are all instincts that remain from the days of living in the african savanna, eating berries and plants.
But then, I've started thinking about fear. Scary creatures in movies, stories, and pictures mostly have these things in common: Pale white, long faces, messed up/no hair, black empty eyes or none at all, long teeth, and claws. To help you know what I'm talking about, I'll post these 3 images (yes they are creepy, you don't have to click on them if you don't want to. Just remember that it's an ancient instinct pumping adrenaline through your body, and that they're photoshopped. )
Can't get the images to work. I'll fix'em later.
Same thing with ghosts. Why do they scare people? They're just transparent humanoids who float around and moan.
What happened, deep in the hidden eras before history began, that could effect the entire human race so evenly as to give the entire species a deep, instinctual, and lasting fear of pale beings with dark, sunken eyes, razor sharp teeth, and elongated faces?

Fear of the unknown. The setting people see ghosts in helps a lot too, its always when someone is vulnerable. As for movie ghosts and the types in your pictures are only for shock value, they are only scary at first glance.

Like Wyatt said, people are scared of things they can't control.

you need to read HP lovecraft's novels for that answer...

Formless creatures of the spirit realm that can somehow cross the void to the earthly realm, that can go "bump" in the night, causing all sorts of havok, (which makes no sense whatsoever) can kill you with physical objects, but they have no substance so you can't fight back? I have no idea why people would be afraid of such creatures.

:P

I'm a serious sceptic when it comes to ghosts, demons, and all that. I'm open to being proven wrong, obviously there has to be something to all that.
My real question is this: If a ghost/demons can make a picture fall off of a wall, chairs rock, throw stuff across rooms, etc. Why don't they just kill people? I would think scaring people for eternity would get really boring, and if their reason is we're disturbing their home why not just kill us? That would get people out of that house quick and I doubt anyone would move back in anytime soon. :shrug:

How do you know they haven't? And you would get those really crazy people that feed off this crap, willing to pay a [censored] ton of money to live in a haunted house

http://www.digitaldreammachine.com/blogimages/ddm/RayParkerJrGhostbusters.jpg

Why does there have to be some basis for the paranormal?

Think about it: Classic demons tend to stay very close to exaggerations and mishmashes of people and animals from the physical world and tend to be associated with an arbitrary set of rules (think Faust). Honestly they're just the kind of things I'd tell children about too stop them wandering off at night 'You're safe in side but if you leave the house the demons will come get you!'

Ghosts stem from the idea of what happens to people when they die, people like to think that there's more to life than birth -> death so they came up with the concept of spirit. A ghost is the concept of a spirit mixed in with guilt and vengeance

Obviously as time goes on and people become more and more used to these original ideas they get abstracted further, just like the animals, ideas that they were originally based upon. If you're going to talk about sightings it is verrry easy for people to make mistakes/ see things that aren't really there... there's a picture of 'jesus' in the skies during the Korean war (I think) coincidences like this are bound to happen somewhere eventually I have yet to see any real evidence for the paranormal that I haven't been able to explain away in some fashion.

I'm not, i don't believe they are real.

Assuming they are real, I never said they haven't killed people. You would just think you would hear more stories of mysterious deaths instead of "Well, my dry-erase board flew off the wall! So I moved out of my house." That's not a made up example either. One of my best friends moved out of his house for that exact reason. He thought it was haunted and his dry-erase board falling off the wall made him deicide he should leave.

And Don't people already pay a ton of money to live in and just visit "haunted" houses?


I understand the theory and logical /illogical reasons for why people believe in them. That's what I'm saying. If they are real why should they have ridiculous rules? If they can interact with physical objects why can't they just open the door and come inside? To me they are just that; Old wives tales to keep children in line. Like I said in my first post, If one day they are proven to exist to me I would be fine with that. I know there is always a chance certain views can be incorrect no matter how much proof they have.

First of all, don't confuse caution with fear. While I neither fear dead bodies, the dark, or empty houses and cemetaries, I can be cautious when in such proximity to places.
I also wouldn't say, wade into a pit full of hungry alligators without a really big stick doesnt mean I fear them, it means I have the common sense not to become dinner.

I don't fear heights because I may fall, I dislike heights because I have the sudden, irrational urge to jump, to just run headlong as fast as possible, and fling myself, arms spread wide over the edge. I was the kid who climbed to the tops of the trees, the one who went rock climbing, the kid who climbed on the house/ garage roof and jumped down, just to get the rush. I know the fall would kill me, I get a sick twisted feeling in my stomach, and I avoid heights not because I am afraid I will fall, but because I don't trust myself not to do something self destructive. I won't skydive because I know I will delay pulling the cord until it's too late, reveling in the adrenaline rush, and enjoying the sensation of at the last minute, being yanked back from the brink of death. I fear I may miscalculate.


As for ghosts, "I ain't afraid of no ghosts!"

Because they like to sneak up behind you and go "OOGABOOGABOOGA!"

Fear of the unknown.
I've got a fantastic book called "The Buried Soul: How humans Invented Death" which details how funerals have evolved through time, and goes into how folk tales/myths/whatever you want to call them are developed. I find it amazing that when we developed the ability to communicate on a level beyond that which we see in animals (can't think of any other way to describe it sorry), one of the first things we did was create funerals, and some sort of notion of a soul and what it was capable of.
I'm a skeptic myself, and don't currently believe in ghosts or anything like that (although good ghost stories still scare me!), but it is interesting to read about how people have viewed the dead throughout the ages.

The house I grew up in was a structure that had been added on to over a period of about 75-100 years.

The core of the house was the lobby and loft of an old passenger train station. The depot where the station originally stood was the scene of a fire where quite a few people died (10 or so).
Before a steam engine would pull in to the station, it would dump the coals from it's furnace so that the boiler would cool off and they could open the water tank for re-filling. The passenger cars were built out of wood. Supposedly, some of the hot coals had got caught on the bottom of one of the passenger cars when the engine purged it's furnace, and the whole train burned. (I don't know if that has anything to do with my story, but it is just an interesting fact.)

The house also had a full basemant, laid out like a labrynith... (it was a lot like the basemant of Jame's house, where the climix of "Silence of the Lambs" takes place, without the oubliette, of course). The washing machine was in one of the rooms in the basemant, and my mom often talked about hearing people walking around upstairs when no one else was home, while she did laundry. Doors often opened and closed on their own. Things often got moved from where they had been left to someplace they didn't belong.

My most memorable personal experience in that house was when I was about 12 or 13 years old. I had a "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton%27s_cradle" that I had been given as a gift (yes, I was a science geek) sitting on a book shelf in my bed room. I was up late, everyone else was asleep, and I went to the bathroom to get ready to go to bed. I was in there for 5-10 minutes, and when I returned to my room, the steel balls were going full tilt, like they had just been set in motion.

The floors were hardwood floors, and the house was old... I would have heard anyone moving around. It was impossible to sneak in that house... the floors creaked whenever the wind blew outside. No one had gone in to my room while I was in the bathroom, and no one was hiding in my room... I stopped the balls, listened for a few seconds for any movement... there was none... and said to the empty space, "quit [censored] with my stuff", turned off the lights, and went to bed.

Not all poltergeist are malicious, but they are mischievous. The one I grew up with just liked to remind us that it was there every once in a while.

The only phobias I have are fear of heights, and of swift moving water.
My fear of heights only started in the past 10 or so years. I had a job doing commercial sheet metal work for a couple years, and I could walk on the 10 inch wide facade of a 5 story building carrying a seven pound bucket of tools in one hand and smoking a cigarette with the other, without a second thought. Heights never bothered me, until just recently.
And if I even see video of a flooded river or a large waterfalls, I get vertigo to the point of nausea.

Because stuff that is unknown is most scary of them all because you have not the slightest idea how to react to the situation which is why people are scared .

Pretty much this. If I can't bash its head in, it's a serious issue. Ask my friend HP about stuff that you can't even grasp with your mind, that's the really bad stuff.

:shrug: ghost six... As seen in Ghostbusters.

Wouldn't you be scared if you heard footsteps other than your own and you're either;

a) the only one in the house and not walking
b) in your bed, along with your parents, they are sleep

?

b) relates to me from personal experience.

Why are my parents in my bed? :unsure:

Your links take me to the Bethblog? :mellow:

Nothing scary about that.

No I'm not scared of ghosts because they don't freakin fracken exist! Honestly you Americans, you fear ghosts way too much. If you think about it everywhere should be haunted, not just a house that is quite old. There should be dinosaur ghosts, Paleozoic ghosts there should be ghosts of everything on earth that has ever lived. If I believed in ghosts I wouldn't be scared of some person who died in the Victorian era as much as say a Tyrannosaurus Rex ghost.

Obviously only dinosaurs can see tyrannosaurus rex ghosts.

I'm a skeptic as well and for good reasons. I've asked people who claim to see ghosts the question "what is a ghost?"
And the answer is typically that it's the "soul" of a person that died.

Ok, skeptic mind charging in here! What is a "soul" ? Does that make the ghost conscious? Are ghosts conscious? If so, HOW is that possible? Really?

I mean, why do we even have a brain? Our consciousness is created by the brain by various brain cells that together for the feeling of "self"
When the brain dies, so does the consciousness. Therefore, it's impossible for ghosts to exists. It's a easy as that!

*lol*
Maybe because they were afraid?

To the topic: Why are people afraid of things they don't understand and which are looking dangerous?
Easy answer: self preservation