I've got a question about something:
My dad told me a story about his childhood recently that coming from a Christian standpoint, kind of confused me a bit. He claimed that he vividly remembers as clear as day seeing a ghost in his room one night when he was a child. He told me that it resembled your typical depiction of a ghostly being, so a transparent human basically. He even claims that he knew it wasn't a dream or sleep paralysis because he used the age old "pinching yourself technique" to determine whether he was dreaming or not and sure enough, he was awake alright.
Keep in mind that my dad is NOT schizophrenic and he doesn't lie. He's a completely healthy person (mentally speaking) who believes that lying is nothing short of a nasty sin. In regards to his level of honesty and trustworthiness, I'd put my dad on the same level as good old honest Abraham Lincoln. So I can almost safely guarantee 100 percent that my dad wasn't just hallucinating or making up stories for the heck of it.
Ever since he told me that. I've been kind of questioning things to be honest. I just don't see where ghosts fit in with The Bible. I was raised to believe that when you die, you go to either Heaven or The Bad Place (I'm calling it that for censorship reasons). You don't come back to Earth as a ghost. Nowhere in The Bible (at least to my knowledge) does it state such a thing. The only time I've seen ghosts mentioned in The Bible is when Jesus walked on water and one of the disciples assumed Jesus was a ghost at first glance. But that was just a brief mention of them that didn't at all support the notion that they are actually real beings that exist.
As much as I hate to say this, I've been having some thoughts I kind of regret after that. For the first time in my life, I've actually questioned the existence of God once or twice admittedly. I'm NOT proud of that whatsoever and feel completely dirty for even thinking such thoughts for a second. I've even prayed for forgiveness a couple times for thinking such blasphemous thoughts.
Do ghosts fit anywhere into The Bible? If not, what do you think my dad actually saw? Was it perhaps some sort of angel or demon? Maybe just a false memory akin to the common Mandela Effect phenomenon that's been popular online for the past couple years?
What do you all think? I'm just all around confused at the moment. This is the first time in my life that I've even considered believing something that as far as I know, is contrary to Scripture. So naturally I'm not sure what to make of Dad's allegedly true childhood memory
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