The mention of the word ghost scares many people. Mention it and people will be at the verge of breaking their bones as they escape from something that they have not even seen. Ghosts can be defined as the spirits of the dead people that are said to appear to human beings (Ibsen 17). Today, many people believe that ghosts exist and they come to cause harm in the living world.
Most of the people who hold this believe do claim that they have had encounters with ghosts and no one can dare convince them that they do not exist. There is no connection between the living and the dead and therefore these spirits cannot manifest themselves to people. The dead live in a different world from which human beings live and the two cannot be associated in any way apart from the fact that the dead were once living.
Ghosts are said to make encounters with human beings in bodily form and that contradicts the fact that once the living die they cease to exist in bodily form. Most of the things that people believe in have been proven in one way or another. Scientists have tried to provide scientific prove of many issues but no one has ever scientifically proved that ghosts exist. This is something that has just been planted in people’s minds by various influencing factors.
People cannot just believe in ghosts out of nothing; something should have driven them towards that (Buse and Andrew 21). Many factors have facilitated this and made the ghost presence in the living world look so real while in the real sense, there is nothing like that. Those who claim to have encountered ghosts cannot provide good evidence to support their argument; they want people to trust their bare words.
Provision of evidence is the only thing that can pass a certain argument to be true. There is no connection between the living and the dead neither is there strong evidence to prove that ghosts do really manifest themselves to the living world in body forms; therefore, people should not believe in their existence.
People commit various fallacies in their arguments that ghosts really exist. A fallacy can be defined as a mistake of reasoning whereby a person makes an argument based on something that is not true (Billings and White 25). One factor that has facilitated this is the ghost stories that have been told from generation to generation especially in childhood.
Whoever has never heard of such stories like those of phantom armies should perhaps be old fashioned. Believe you me that as one listens to all mysterious actions of the ghosts in the stories, he or she is forming the same picture in the mind. Such an image is thus permanently printed in the mind and that will go on reminding him or her of the ghost.
That will result to a series of such encounters with the ghosts but in dreams. By the end of it all, the whole issue will look so real and it will be so difficult to convince such a person that that does not happen in the real world. In real life, this people will definitely associate anything that can relate to such stories or dreams with ghosts (Jones and James).
Sometimes, people make conclusions on things they do not know about. They therefore indulge in the fallacy of appeal to ignorance. Some people just hear of stories about what ghosts have done and they go ahead to believe in them because they do not know anything about them.
They therefore engage in this fallacy, as they do not seek to know what is not known to them. In fact, this fallacy is committed by most people with regard to the existence of ghosts. If they had any idea about what ghosts are, they would perhaps not indulge in this. Ghosts do not exist in the living world but rather in the world of the dead; therefore, they can never harm any human being.
The fallacy of appeal to the bandwagon is associated with peer pressure (Billings and White 108). People indulge in this when they believe in something because other people whom they share some similarities do the same. A person’s action should always be based on facts and therefore people should first find out the truth of a matter before deciding to follow multitude.
However, many people fail to recognize this, as they tend to believe in ghosts because their colleagues, friends, or relatives do the same. Peer pressure is very common especially among the adolescents. That is why many of those who claim to have seen ghosts range in this age. A story about an encounter with a ghost told by any young person cannot be refuted by the others.
This is just a story that is told and there is no prove that it happened in reality but all the peers will believe in it. This teenager could even be talking about a dream or an imagination as a result of watching a similar movie.
Mention the word ghost and the people around will start imagining what it can do. They will create a series of events that will occur next and that is the reason as to why many would not like to hear anything about ghosts.
They will imagine people running in all directions, heads being cut off, blood flowing everywhere and finally death. In short, they will start smelling death and hence they engage in the fallacy of slippery slope. Creating such pictures in mind could bring about a lot of psychological trauma but only if one believes that ghosts do really exist.
There is no need of believing in ghosts if one has never actually seen one in reality. Putting in mind that ghosts are there and they can harm human beings will only make someone scared for nothing. This will always keep a person alert and especially while in darkness. A slight movement of an object will send such a person running and screaming for help.
In the process, one can get badly hurt and thus the story will go that it was the ghosts, which hurt him or her. This way, the fallacy of unsupported generalization will have been committed because the people passing the story around cannot prove that it was actually the ghost that hurt such a person. In this world, evil and bad stories spread faster than the good ones.
Therefore, before it gets dark again, everybody will have known that a certain person was attacked by ghosts in a specific place. This will instill fear on people and they will cease walking in that particular place during late hours and even perhaps in day light. Many people do not walk in the dark for fear of being attacked by ghosts, which they have actually never seen but just heard of (Holzer 29).
People who engage in the fallacy of hasty generalization jump into quick conclusions without first having to prove the reality of the matter. This is common to those people who have seen images of ghosts on the media. Seeing things that seem to resemble such images in reality, they assume that they are ghosts. They do this without taking further measures to confirm their instincts. This way, they commit the above-mentioned fallacy.
Ghost movies have contributed a lot in people’s acceptance that ghosts exists and can appear to human beings with the intention of causing harm to them. These kinds of movies are being watched across the world and they really scare people to the verge of not being able to sleep properly. The movies influence on people works just the same way as the ghost’s stories but their impacts are more powerful. This is fostered by the fact that, there are no images seen in the stories but the movie presents clear images of ghosts.
This way, people have been able to imagine how the ghosts look like. Tell people who claim to have seen a ghost to draw one and they will create an exact image of the ones they have seen in the movies (Summer 29). The same case applies to the internet where people can get all sorts of information. Google a picture of a ghost and there it will appear, staring like a real one and that will definitely instill some sort of fear.
The internet provides different sites where by one can get any information of any nature. It is through it that one of the most widely used social media network in the world was established. People and especially the youth are able to post and thus pass different information to a huge number of people through the use of Facebook. All these are contributing factors to the reasons as to why people believe in ghosts.
Ghost stories, ghost movies are not realities and therefore any person who believes in the existence of ghosts because of the two commits the fallacy of invalid analogy. The same case applies to those who conclude the same as a result of seeing related images through Facebook and the internet in general. The fallacy of invalid analogy is committed when arguments are not based on the reality (Billings and White 109).
Almost every human being fears to die and perhaps that is the reason why ghosts are feared so much. Some deaths have been associated with the actions of the ghosts but no one has ever proven the truth of that matter. Scientists support any of their argument with strong evidence and that leaves everyone contended that whatever they claim is very real and true. For example, the force of gravity is proven by the fact that everything that is throw up will definitely come down.
Therefore, those who claim that ghosts do really exist should provide tangible evidence like that. It should be something that everyone can accept without any kind of refutation. People die under unclear circumstances and the rest are left claiming that those were ghosts at work. There is also a common believe that dead people can come back for their loved ones and hence cause them to die (McCormick 48).
As said earlier, there is no connection between the living and the dead; therefore, this cannot be possible. Whoever makes such claims should go ahead and provide enough evidence to prove it. Those who believe that some deaths have been caused by ghosts and fail to provide strong evidence to support their argument, commit the fallacy of misleading evidence.
The fallacy of appeal to fear is committed when people believe in something out of fear (Billings and White 109). According to many people, ghosts do not appear in all places but they are associated with certain places. In most case, they are said to appear in cemeteries or other places where dead people have been buried.
That is the reason as to why many people would never dare to go near a cemetery. Many people believe that, the ghosts wait for the night to fall before they start roaming about. However, others are of the view that they can do it at any given time of the day. Any unusual thing at any burial place will be deemed to be the works of the ghosts while in real sense it could have been done by another living thing.
It has been claimed that ghosts of dead people have been seen sitting or standing on top of their graves but this is yet to be proven. As a result, people fear to go near such places or walk in the darkness for fear of being attacked by the ghosts and hence they engage in the fallacy of appeal for fear.
Works Cited
Billings Simone, and white Fred. The well-crafted argument. Heinle: Cengage. 2012. Print.
Buse Peter and Andrew Stott. Ghosts: Deconstruction, Psychoanalysis History. London: Macmillan, 1998. Print.
Holzer Hans. Ghosts: true encounters with the world beyond. New York: Black Dog & Leventhal, 1997. Print.
Ibsen Henrik. Ghosts. Teddington, middle sex, England: The echo library, 2006 print.
Jones Darryl and James Mathew. Collected ghost stories. Oxford; New York: Oxford university press, 2011. Print.
McCormick, Lisa W. Ghosts: The Unsolved Mystery. Mankato, Minnesota: Capstone Press, 2009. Print.
Summer Don. Horror movie freak. Lola WI: Krause publications, 2010. Print.