Do you believe in ghosts? Paranormal stuff?

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hiccupthehuman said:

I do believe in ghosts and spirits, yeah. Wouldn't bet my life savings on it tho.

There is the argument that there is no reliable evidence for it (or when there is video footage, people do not believe it), or science can't prove it. These are all valid positions.
But I will say that just because science can't prove it yet does not mean it definitively does not exist.

Human caused global warming, for instance, was happening since the industrial revolution in the 17th century. But serious research in the global warming only started in 1950-70s.  But that doesn't mean that global warming wasn't real before that.

There really is no way to definitively prove that something does not exist with some slight exceptions for things that are logically impossible. The best reason to not believe that something exists is that there is no evidence for it. That is especially the case when it is something people have been attempting to demonstrate for centuries, and something that, by most definitions, would violate the rules of physics/biology as we know them.

I can't say anything definitively, but if there were some way to find the correct answer, I would bet my life savings that ghosts, by all definitions I've heard, do not exist.

Shadow1980 said:

Dante9 said:

Why do you need your life to have some kind of higher purpose for it not to be hopeless and bleak? I'd rather think it's quite the opposite. The fact that we have only one life makes it precious and beautiful and we should make the most of it. The point is to find our own meaning and perhaps help others find theirs.

If I found out that my life was just a part of some grand plan orchestrated from upstairs and that it would go on forever in various forms would be absolute horror for me.

I had a long, drawn-out reply to this partially written, but I was getting bummed out just writing it because it got pretty dark and depressing and I have enough anxiety over the subjects of life and death as it is, and I'd prefer to not dwell on it. Suffice it say, the philosophical implications of a totally materialistic worldview, namely its inherent nihilism, are there whether we want to truly face them or not.

I'm a methodological naturalist and not at all a nihilist. The fact that I'm almost certainly not going to exist forever does not in any way make me not want to enjoy myself while I do, and it does not make me want to help others enjoy their time here any less.