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Don't worry, ghosts still love you ~ Dear Abby

Susan Gerbic

Graduate Poster
Joined
Jan 23, 2007
Messages
1,527
http://montereycountyskeptics.blogspot.com/2010/06/dont-worry-ghosts-still-love-you-dear.html

Do I sound a bit upset here? I'm so sick of those stupid "I found a penny that means my dead loved one is thinking of me" stories. This article was the last straw.

Some days you start off you day with a smile, other days you start off with a face palm. Today was one of those dent in the forehead days.

Jeanne Phillips daughter of the original writer of Dear Abby has got my vote for the JREF Pigasus award as a spreader of woo. Here is the article...

DEAR ABBY: I am in my 40s and have never lost anyone close to me. Unfortunately, my darling mother-in-law has terminal cancer. I am now preoccupied that people’s spirits are near us after they die.

Please don’t laugh, but it gives me the creeps. I don’t want to think my mother-in-law will watch me making love with my husband, that my father will watch me in the bathroom.

Am I crazy to think I might not have any privacy after my loved ones die? — Spooked


DEAR SPOOKED: The departed sometimes “visit” those with whom their souls were intertwined, but usually it’s to offer strength, solace and reassurance during difficult times. If your mother-in-law’s spirit visits you while you’re intimate with her son, it will be only to wish you and her son many more years of happiness in your marriage.

Many happy returns


Read more: http://www.kansascity.com/2010/06/03/1988656/dear-abby-woman-fears-being-watched.html#ixzz0pwjgvTXJ

I'm not sure how to respond to this nonsense but will try.

Dear Abby, you are a wooster. That means you spread misinformation in a well meaning fashion with a smile. Because you have grown up in the world of advice giving does not mean that you can do no harm with your folksy writings. This is a woman who clearly is upset over the nonsense of ghosts, she raises a valid point, if ghosts exist and visit their loved ones how can you ever have privacy again? Your senseless answer....don't worry about it, spirits don't work that way. WHAT?

Who died and left you this tiny bit of knowledge? You have evidence of life after death? Does the science community know about this? Have you notified CNN yet? Have all the laws of nature just been overthrown and I missed it?

I understand it is possible that you don't have evidence in ghostly visits, maybe you don't even believe in them. Maybe you thought you were just acting to calm this woman down. Maybe just maybe you missed an opportunity to educate your readers to the fact that there has never NEVER ever been one case of the dead contacting the living. If you have evidence otherwise then the JREF (James Randi Educational Foundation) might just have ONE MILLION dollars waiting for you.

The halls of academia are waiting to hear from you. Scientists all over the world have put down their slide rules and pencils to await the news that, sorry, everything we know about the psychical world is wrong. All that testing and retesting were all in vain, Jeanne Phillips who writes the Dear Abby column knows more than you all do. Throw your degrees in the trash, go back to selling carpet and grooming dogs cause everything you knew was wrong.
 
Dear Abby,

What the hell?

I mean, seriously, what the hell?

You are an adult.

Even if one entertains the amazingly remote possibility that ghosts could be real, which they are not, your answer is so stupid and silly. You are speaking about this like an authority? You know something about this? How?! Who are you?

Signed,

Me
 
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Her husband's mother has terminal cancer and all she can think about is sh***ing him?

Dear Spooked
At least wait til you're out of the cemetery before you start.

Stray Cat
 
It sounds to me like this woman is developing an obsession and probably needs grief counseling. Which renders the advice even more meaningless.
 
Is this advice by 4chan? "Ceiling ghost is watching you masturbate."
 
DEAR SPOOKED: The departed sometimes “visit” those with whom their souls were intertwined, but usually it’s to offer strength, solace and reassurance during difficult times. If your mother-in-law’s spirit visits you while you’re intimate with her son, it will be only to wish you and her son many more years of happiness in your marriage.

On the other hand, she may wish to curse you, from beyond the grave, to a life of unremitting suffering and pain... could be either really.
 
It's not such bad advice; after all, we all know that baby Jeebus watches us all the time, and cries as we masturbate.
 
I honestly don't think this is grief. I think it's guilt.
 
If there's an afterlife, I really hope there's something better to do than hang around watching the living.
 
http://montereycountyskeptics.blogspot.com/2010/06/dont-worry-ghosts-still-love-you-dear.html

Do I sound a bit upset here? I'm so sick of those stupid "I found a penny that means my dead loved one is thinking of me" stories. This article was the last straw.

Some days you start off you day with a smile, other days you start off with a face palm. Today was one of those dent in the forehead days.

Jeanne Phillips daughter of the original writer of Dear Abby has got my vote for the JREF Pigasus award as a spreader of woo. Here is the article...

DEAR ABBY: I am in my 40s and have never lost anyone close to me. Unfortunately, my darling mother-in-law has terminal cancer. I am now preoccupied that people’s spirits are near us after they die.

Please don’t laugh, but it gives me the creeps. I don’t want to think my mother-in-law will watch me making love with my husband, that my father will watch me in the bathroom.

Am I crazy to think I might not have any privacy after my loved ones die? — Spooked


DEAR SPOOKED: The departed sometimes “visit” those with whom their souls were intertwined, but usually it’s to offer strength, solace and reassurance during difficult times. If your mother-in-law’s spirit visits you while you’re intimate with her son, it will be only to wish you and her son many more years of happiness in your marriage.

Many happy returns


Read more: http://www.kansascity.com/2010/06/03/1988656/dear-abby-woman-fears-being-watched.html#ixzz0pwjgvTXJ

I'm not sure how to respond to this nonsense but will try.

Dear Abby, you are a wooster. That means you spread misinformation in a well meaning fashion with a smile. Because you have grown up in the world of advice giving does not mean that you can do no harm with your folksy writings. This is a woman who clearly is upset over the nonsense of ghosts, she raises a valid point, if ghosts exist and visit their loved ones how can you ever have privacy again? Your senseless answer....don't worry about it, spirits don't work that way. WHAT?

Who died and left you this tiny bit of knowledge? You have evidence of life after death? Does the science community know about this? Have you notified CNN yet? Have all the laws of nature just been overthrown and I missed it?

I understand it is possible that you don't have evidence in ghostly visits, maybe you don't even believe in them. Maybe you thought you were just acting to calm this woman down. Maybe just maybe you missed an opportunity to educate your readers to the fact that there has never NEVER ever been one case of the dead contacting the living. If you have evidence otherwise then the JREF (James Randi Educational Foundation) might just have ONE MILLION dollars waiting for you.

The halls of academia are waiting to hear from you. Scientists all over the world have put down their slide rules and pencils to await the news that, sorry, everything we know about the psychical world is wrong. All that testing and retesting were all in vain, Jeanne Phillips who writes the Dear Abby column knows more than you all do. Throw your degrees in the trash, go back to selling carpet and grooming dogs cause everything you knew was wrong.

Are you going to send it? I think you should.
 
You're right, that is unbelievably inane. I think you should send your response, too.

Recently MSN ran an article titled "Astrology: Fact or Fiction?" I took time to read it, anticipating an at least somewhat balanced review of the ideas of believers versus skeptics. Nope. Instead it was a silly one-sided interview with an astrologer addressing criticisms and reassuring readers that yep, astrology is fact. I was so disgusted by the misleading title of the article versus the content that I wrote a letter to complain.

I don't know if it helps, but it can't hurt to let them know that there ARE intelligent readers who don't appreciate this kind of thing.
 
You're right, that is unbelievably inane. I think you should send your response, too.

Recently MSN ran an article titled "Astrology: Fact or Fiction?" I took time to read it, anticipating an at least somewhat balanced review of the ideas of believers versus skeptics. Nope. Instead it was a silly one-sided interview with an astrologer addressing criticisms and reassuring readers that yep, astrology is fact. I was so disgusted by the misleading title of the article versus the content that I wrote a letter to complain.

I don't know if it helps, but it can't hurt to let them know that there ARE intelligent readers who don't appreciate this kind of thing.

Now that I think of it, it couldn't hurt to copy the editor of the local paper that runs her column.
 
I think the hardline atheist/skeptic response is misplaced here. To talk some sense into this paranoid letter-writer, "Abby" used the word "spirit" in an ambiguous way; she did not state that the ectoplasmic remnant of her dead relative's soul would be visiting, but rather her "spirit" -- a term which can include the memories and lingering emotional "sense" of a person, without an appeal to supernatural forces.

"Abby" wisely, IMO, employed the letter-writer's own delusional belief system to calm her down, and to shed these silly notions about voyeuristic dead persons haunting her every waking moment. The purpose of imagining a loved one's spirit is to give us peace of mind, to think that they're safe in the afterlife, and to assuage our own fear of death -- not to plague ourselves with imaginary peep shows going on at all hours of the day and night.

Instead of trying to talk the woman out of believing in "ghosts", which would have been impossible in two paragraphs, "Abby" chose to point out the calming purpose of that belief system. As an agnostic and non-ghost-believer myself, I think she chose the right wording and did the right thing. YMMV.
 
I think the hardline atheist/skeptic response is misplaced here. To talk some sense into this paranoid letter-writer, "Abby" used the word "spirit" in an ambiguous way; she did not state that the ectoplasmic remnant of her dead relative's soul would be visiting, but rather her "spirit" -- a term which can include the memories and lingering emotional "sense" of a person, without an appeal to supernatural forces.

.........

I don't read "Abby's" response that way at all. The response reads to me like a clear and unambiguous statement endorsing the existence of well-meaning, helpful ghosts. "Abby" overtly implies that she has absolute knowledge concerning the existence and nature of the spirit world, which, like some other posters, I find reprehensible.
 
DEAR SPOOKED: The departed sometimes “visit” those with whom their souls were intertwined, but usually it’s to offer strength, solace and reassurance during difficult times. If your mother-in-law’s spirit visits you while you’re intimate with her son, it will be only to wish you and her son many more years of happiness in your marriage.

Many happy returnshttp://

LOL! Gotta love how Dear Abby responses are so 50s.
Always cracks me up.

So just so I have it right in my head.
Son has got the wife strapped into the sex swing it took him a week to install in their bedroom. He's got a baa baa up his waa waa and she's spinning around howling like a wolf to the moon with her no vacancy sign lit up and dear ol' Mom is a lookin' down from the pearly gates wishin' them many more years of vibrating gyrating baby oiled marital bliss?

Gotta love it!
 
I read this today, too, but I gave Abby a small bit of leaway since she put the word "visits" in quotes. To me that says that she meant this figuratively rather than literally.

It's funny, when I read this in today's paper I immediately thought of the JREF.

Where's JoetheJuggler to complain about the lack of definition of "ghost" or "spirit" when you need him?
 
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