Here's a quick summary:
I don't believe that they're necessarily "ghosts."
We talk about the phenomena as "ghosts" but that's only so everyone knows what we're talking about. It's a wide range of manifestations, from the hair going up on the back of your neck, to a generally "creepy" feeling, to doors slamming when they shouldn't, to odd things appearing out of the corner of your eye, and so on.
But we should call them "anomalies," or something that indicates that we can't explain them. We do not know that they're spirits of the dead, or anything like that.
I don't believe that they're trapped here.
They're here. And, if you believe in Deity, then you must also consider that--like any loving parent--if there's a spirit stuck where he/she shouldn't be, the parent would send another spirit to help.
Therefore, the spirit must be here of his or her own free will. There may be something that the spirit wants to do, or someone they're watching over, or even a house that is being guarded. Or, in the case of many spirits, there's this irrational insistence that the clock has to be turned back so the person can complete his or her life as he/she planned.
I don't believe that ghosts can harm you.
They may startle you. They may annoy you. They may even rattle the daylights out of you. However, there is absolutely no documented proof of a ghost ever seriously harming someone, and certainly never killing anyone. The only one on record was the "Bell Witch," and research suggests that was a hoax. (The current Bell Witch seems to be a genuine entity, but it's not the same one as troubled the Bell family.)
I don't believe that ghosts rely upon every trick in the book.
For me, one of the surest signs that someone is making it up, deliberately or because fact and fiction have blurred, is when someone tells me about too many phenomena. Ghosts that moan generally don't slam doors. Ghosts that leave odors, generally don't make noises.
So, if someone tells me about a ghost that slams doors, moans, rattles glasses in the cupboard, levitates furniture, and appears as a spectral white figure, I immediately suspect fiction.
I've never seen a ghost that appeared "dead."
Ghosts generally appear as they think of themselves. The blood and deathly pallor in movies such as The Sixth Sense are not realistic. It makes a great Hollywood scene for special effects people, but ghosts don't look like that.
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