Why Hungry Ghost Festival Doesnt Make Sense

During the 7th month of the year, following the chinese calendar, the ghosts of heaven and hell are released so they can have a feast, watch opera, and probably watch you bathe as well.

But there are a few reasons why this whole story is so implausible when you think about it.

Firstly, we are assuming that 1.) Spirits, being beings of energy, require some form of sustenance and that 2.) This sustenance can come from eating physical food.

How an intangible being can acquire nourishment from something tangible is beyond me. If you told me that they feed on energy, or vibrations like feelings, like anger or happiness then at least that makes sense. Well not really make sense in a scientific way, but at least its believable. But NO, you tell me they feed on the same things that we do. This actually does not work, and is 80% (randomly given value) improbable when you think about it.

Lets discuss this.

1.) The Food We Provide Is Physically Consumed By Them

This is obviously untrue, because the chicken left there one night is still there the next morning. Any effect like the chicken turning smelly or the usual stuff that happens to food left out for too long can be attributed to our bacterial friends.

2.) The Food Has "Souls" Too, And Each Dish Has 1 "Soul".

What the above means is that for every 1 chicken we offer as a sacrifice, the spiritual world gets 1 chicken. The physical chicken is then "spiritually depleted" and left there to rot. This theory is also impossible, because by now the dead outnumber the living maybe, 10 to 1. The offerings people normally give couldnt even feed 0.00001% the current living population, much less the entire spiritual world.

3.) The Food Has "Souls" Too, And Each Dish Has Unlimited "Souls".

What the above means is that once we offer a chicken, that chicken will keep on creating spiritual chicken to feed all the souls. Think about it as a mob in World of Warcraft where it will produce as many quest items as there are people in the party that kills it, so you dont have to kill a mob 5 times just to complete the quest for 5 people etc.
By far, this is the only plausible explanation I can think of. Although theoretically, if this were the case, I could take one orange and place it as an offering because that would equal to an infinite amount of oranges.

Give em a happy orange!

Not to mention that if I were an angmoh ghost Id have no one to feed me and Id have to fly all the way to Singapore to get some chow. Even if ghosts could teleport Im sure theyd need mana or something ;p

So in conclusion, HGF is b.s.

Thank you.
Ben Wong, PhD.