Yeah, yeah. Sure, sure.
But all in all, Halloween rocks. We need more holidays that are pretty much just about the holiday rather than celebrating some other thing besides celebrating.
Scumpup, I think you just need to adjust your tinfoil-covered pyramid shaped hat and have your chakras realigned.
I am one of those believers in “supernatural horseshit” as you so eloquently stated. Actually, “believer” is too strong a word. Intriqued would be a better word. I am as skeptical as it’s possible to be without dismissing the possibilty that there are a few things in this world that are really and truly unexplainable.
How do you decide that something is inexplicable, and that it’s time to abandon the scientific approach, and chalk it up to “energy vortices,” or some such unmeasurable entity?
It’s not so much that I decide something is inexplicable, it’s more that I think it would be impossible to scientifically prove that some aspects of the paranormal, ghosts for example, do not exist. You can cite examples that explain ghostly activity all day long, but can it actually be proven conclusively that ghosts don’t exist? If someday science does come up with a rational explanation to explain away all instances of ghosts, then I would cease to call them inexplicable.
I just never get to that point. I don’t need to prove that ghosts don’t exist. I don’t need to explain ghostly activity. Why? Because I’ve never seen any evidence that “ghostly activity” ever actually occurs. No need to explain a phenomenon that doesn’t exist in the first place. If you’re going to skip over that threshold, you’re in no-man’s land, and are likely to buy into almost anything.
During Halloween, the supernatural is real.
I have. Therefore, ghosts exist.
Null statement. You cannot prove that nuclear ninja death sponges do not exist, either.
Give me a list of all the cases in which we are to abandon Occam’s razor, please.
Another null statement: If you can reliably explain something, it cannot be inexplicable.
There’s nothing unexplainable, there’s just stuff that hasn’t been explained yet.
That’s because they do. My mother’s cousin’s boyfriend’s hairdresser saw one once.
Yeah, but then how do you explain all the nuclear ninja death sponge activity? 
There are more things on Mars and in the Earth than can be explained by your skepticism, dear Watson. Ghosts and such are so passe. Psionic alien ninja ghosts come to restructure the goverment and steal your souls are the real fear this year.
D&R
I think that 99.99% of all instances of paranormal activity are explainable but it’s that tiny fraction of percent that I think remains unexplainable after all rational possibilities are exhausted.
Plus, I personally find life more interesting if I accept the possibility there are things out there that we can’t readily explain. Like nuclear ninja death sponges. 
Woo-woos?
For a moment there I thought you were talking about my girl dogs, one of whom we call “Woo” (she’s a malamute).
Um, never mind. Carry on.
When the movie Signs came out, NBC’s The Today Show did a 20 minute expose about the “mysterious” signs and symbols found in the nation’s corn fields.
Gack.
There are things that we can’t fully explain because we will never have enough data to rule out all possible and likely explanations, or that we will never spend the amount of time and money needed to rule them out. There are things we can’t fully explain because we don’t yet have the understanding of the natural world to think of even one likely explanation.
But to posit things like ghosts is simply dishonest intellectually. It makes unnecessary work for those who really and honestly want to prune the number of working hypotheses. Ghosts can be applied to literally any situation and be equally likely as the cause for all of them, so it’s impossible to rule them out once you’ve accepted them. Ghosts can’t be studied, so once you accept ghosts as the cause your chain of inquiry ceases and you are left no better off than before. Finally, ghosts cannot be controlled, so saying something is caused by ghosts is saying it is firmly beyond the comprehension and actions of humans.
There are things that we can’t readily explain. Like, how do you rectify gravity with the quantum effects we have observed? Or how does the human brain, a couple pounds of electrical cholesterol, manage to think and become self-aware? We don’t have all the answers. We don’t claim to. But we can still keep looking, instead of sticking our heads in the sand and positing the existence of beings without evidence or end.
1920’s style nuclear ninja death sponges?
I’m all for finding a rational explanation of ghosts (or any aspect of the paranormal that remains unexplained) and there may well be a rational explanation for all of it, but until there is I prefer to keep the paranormal within my realm of explanations. Like I said above, it just keeps life interesting.
Epimetheus–Well, of course they were 1920s style nuclear ninja death sponges. Is there any other kind?
Why would anyone feel the need to find a rational explanation of ghosts? How about finding a rational explanation for leprechauns? How about finding a rational explanation for nuclear ninja…?
You just don’t get it, do you? You’re starting with the assumption that there is something that requires an explanation. You call it “ghosts.” In short, you’ve already decided that there are ghosts, and now you’re looking for an explanation for them. What has led you to conclude that there are ghosts?
You say, “…there may well be a rational explanation for all of it…” What is “all of it?”
I tried to join the nuclear ninja death sponges, but they said I wasn’t nuclear ninja death sponge-worthy.
Of course, it was all Newman’s fault.
Incidentally, Daffy Duck said “Woo-hoo!” , not “Woo-woo!”
[sub]You keep out of this! He does not have to shoot you now![/sub]