Do you believe in the Spirit World?

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Lack of evidence is sufficient cause for reasonable doubt.

Haven't seen any proof so nope, I always take the answer with most proof.

I really was this paranoid as a teen. I was sure I was being watched no matter what I did. At some point I stopped though. I don't really know why.

I'd like for there to be a spirit world (so long as I could have a fence to keep them out of my house like those electronic dog fences ), but I don't believe there is one.

I have a need, as a human, to believe in stuff like spirits but I don't believe in them. Emotionally, I'm an animist. Intellectually, I'm very atheist and materialist.

yeah I'm the same. I *want* to believe, but skepticism is my natural instinct. which is funny considering the fact that ghostly premonitions of death run in my family and I wasn't spared this trait either. still though I'm inclined to blame it on temporary insanity/uncanny coincidence than actual ghosts

one of my aunts really believes in all this. she always urges me to write and leave around the house little notes for the dead (and since my parents have both died she really found a fertile ground on which to multiply entities here) saying that I don't talk them because they are dead and not because I purposely ignore them. I did leave one of those "just in case" once but immediately felt really idiotic it is a beautiful idea and I know very well the feelings and needs that lay at the basis of such beliefs. still though I'm bound to be rational, it's just mental hygiene.

You have a need to believe, but you don't.

Doesn't that leave you with an unmet need?

No. Simply no.

Yes, but life is rife with unmet needs. It's also rife with needs that contradict one another. Believing in spirits would contradict my need to seek the truth,

Last edited by puddingmouse on 30 Jul 2011, 8:22 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Yes, I more than just believe in it... I know I'm right about it. Also, I, and others I know, have experienced many paranormal events that just cannot be explained through conventional means. Don't feel like writing about it, right now, but on another forum, someone asked me how I can claim that the existence of a spirit world, and the afterlife, follows strict logic. My answer was as follows:


"In regards to logic, I ask: How can you even live at this current point in time, if you have only ever existed at this time? I ask this because compared to the infinite, comparative timepoints in the infinite amount of multiverses and dimensions, this current time you experience is so minimally brief that if you neither existed before nor after this point, the logic of you existing at this current point in time is so unlikely that it isn't even possible. The likelihood of it is infinitely unlikely. And even if you do not believe in multiverses or dimensions (which most scientists would disagree with), the likelihood is still basically non-existent, to put it lightly. Unless you maybe would not believe that any of the stars we can see have life around them, nor in any of all the galaxies.

Furthermore, humans, as an example, have a consciousness. Since the human body is a biological machine, it logically should lack a consciousness, from a purely scientific point of view, because how did it get there? At what time in evolution did the consciousness suddenly start appearing, and from where did it come? And how would a dead human body suddenly lack a consciousness, without it existing elsewhere, meanwhile? The consciousness obviously is some sort of energy, so when the body dies, in which that energy resides, where does that energy go? Or until the body is revived, for that matter. It cannot just disappear; from the physical point of view, energy can never disappear - only change forms. The consciousness is, however, a form of energy that cannot even be explained, scientifically, with today's science.

Then there also are the near-death experiences, or even the *actual* death experiences. For example, there is a well-documented case of a woman who knew very particular details of what had been going on, during an operation, where she indeed was dead - she had been put in a particular state, for the operation to be possible to be performed, and her brainwaves were at zero, during the whole operation. She couldn't have just hallucinated as she was dead, in the scientific sense, during that time. Of course, she wasn't dead - her soul was just waiting to take over the body, again. I can't give you a source on it, as it was a long time ago, but there are other examples, anyway."

Last edited by Beauty_pact on 30 Jul 2011, 8:32 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I would suggest that to believe in spirits isn't what everyone needs, but I do think that people need meaning, whether given or self created.

Last edited by Moog on 30 Jul 2011, 8:29 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I think animism is the human default setting. You learn religion or scepticism afterwards. I go with scepticism.

Last edited by puddingmouse on 30 Jul 2011, 8:31 pm, edited 2 times in total.

I like mysticism.

@Beauty_pact I'm too tired to even begin pointing out all the flaws in your logic, but your comment will only convince the already convinced. if there was a rational argument for the spirit world, we would all believe it and we'd be learning about it in science class

just let faith be faith.

The same could be said about countless scientific theories that are treated as truth. Do you complain about those, too?

I expected replies of this sort... I know I'm right, though, and just couldn't be bothered with meeting the criticism with discussions. Those who don't want to believe, likely only will, once they "die".

Knowledge is the belief in provable things - electricity, gravity, orbital mechanics, nuclear fission, et cetera.

Faith is the belief in unprovable things - elves, fairies, ghosts, unicorns, et cetera.

Belief is a state of acceptance for an idea as fact. Some ideas are provable, others are not.

I prefer provable facts over superstitious nonsense.

maybe if you could be a bit more specific I could answer that, but you don't really want that do you?