pic nicked from here

There’s quite a few things whose existence I don’t believe in:  Astrology, karma, religious people, happy endings, souls. There’s quite a few things that I don’t care enough about to have any beliefs about: God, UFOs, bigfoot etc. And there’s even a few things that I do believe in: Nihilism. But there’s also another, stranger, category of things. Things I don’t believe exist but believe in anyway.

Ghosts fall into this category.

I don’t think ghosts are real. The dead don’t wander the earth rattling chains and that strange draft you felt was just a strange draft.  There’s no such thing as a soul.  Not in your body and certainly not floating out of you at the moment of death like some cartoon cat with a harp.  It’s just not real.

Knowing all this, I still can’t trust a person who doesn’t believe in ghosts.  Be as smart as you like during daylight but in the dark, during the witching hour in the murder house, you’ll probably think ghosts are around.  And they’ll scare you.

Something will go bump in the night or some weird light will appear.  Maybe you’ll just feel something old, cold and mean standing behind you.  The next day, you’ll discover or invent some rational explanation.  But, at that very moment, glimpsing that figure in the mirror in the dead of night, you’re afraid of ghosts.

It’s a bit unseemly and intellectually dishonest to pretend you don’t believe in something when it’s convenient.  When you have the safety to not believe in it.  Reminds me of an atheist turning to prayer in the trench.  Just admit your weakness and join the human race.  At times, you believe in ghosts.

I do.

And it doesn’t matter that they’re not real.

Any twit can believe in something that’s real.

Their unreality is exactly what scares me about ghosts.  I know cats are real.  Seeing a cat hardly bothers me.  But seeing something that’s not real?  Like a talking cat-headed dog.  That’d terrify me.

Frogs frighten me for the same reason.  I’m terrified of being bit by a frog.  I know that frogs don’t bite.  That’s why being bit by one would be too much to handle.  Just gives me the shivers to think about it.  They hardy have teeth. Why would they bite?   I suppose they wouldn’t.  But if they did . . .

And I once came to similar sort of conclusion about God.  If he exists, he must be supernatural, meaning that he is not natural and therefore not part of reality.  So if God exists, he must not be real.  If he is real, he must not be God.  Asserting his existence means he is not real and saying he is real, means he is not God.  And that’s when I gave up thinking about God and decided to mind my own business.

Like bigfoot, I just can’t see how the existence or non-existence of such a creature would make any difference to my life.  Why waste another precious moment thinking about it.  I have no opinion on God.  However, I don’t believe religious people exist.  They’re all just pretending.  Seriously.

But the reason I started talking about all this was because a few nights ago in the dark of my room, an electronic toy –a bloody creepy furry baby doll thing– kept dancing and meowing.  For no reason that I know of.  It freaked me out.

I’m pretty sure that I removed its batteries long ago.  The last time it started acting like that.  My room-mate says she did too.  The last time it bothered her with its strange little dances.  I haven’t checked.  Reference frog problem to discover why.  It’s best to figure it still has batteries and leave it at that.  Because if I open that case and find out its batteries are gone, I’ll just lose my shit.

Although I might have a reputation for close-minded scepticism, a few nights ago, I was worried about some doll scurrying about my room, perhaps animated by the ghosts of one of all too many people who have died of unnatural causes in this building. I don’t believe now but then was another matter.

Astrology is still horseshit.