Reincarnation

[Guest]

12 hours ago, Homer said:

Yes, but again... why? You're still alive.

People fear the unknown. Its like people have the fear of the dark.

[Howard]

I wished there was a ''no but..'' answer to the first two questions. I don't believe in a literal afterlife. I do believe them to be metaphoricaly true. I think it's a good incentive to think something good will happen to you if you lived your life well and something bad if you haven't. It's an incentive not just for the individual but also for the specy; that is, if you contributed to your specy in a beneficial way, humanity wins. On the other hand, if you went against the interest of of your community, it is fair you are metaphoricaly punished.

I hope I make sense...

[Cheshire-Cat]

I've done a bit of reading around this type of thing and although the scientific evidence isn't there there is a lot of experiential evidence that is hard to ignore in other ways. I don't know exactly what I believe but I'm open to the idea of some kind of spirit energy, afterlife and reincarnation. Some peoples experiences of near death is very interesting  and Penny Satori has written some good work on this. I've also heard some interesting stories about reincarnation, especially regarding young children knowing intricate details about things they couldn't possibly have knowledge of. I have to say if there is some kind of afterlife then reincarnation would make sense as I'm pretty sure there's only so many spirits could be there at once!

 

In this same vein I had a very strange experience last night that fits in this area. I work for the ambulance service and we went to an expected death. The gentleman was on the floor and the family wanted him to stay home until the rest of the family had arrived in the morning so we offered to put him back to bed. We did our various paperwork first before we started to get him back into bed. To do this we used a board that splits in half and then goes under the person to lift them up. When we walked into the room the only light that was on was a bedside lamp. This light was totally static with no issues. However, once we started moving his body the light started flicking  on and off, slowly at first and then getting faster. When we went to roll him the light went crazy and then went out until I turned the main lights on at which point it started flickering on and off again. The more movement we did to him the more the light flickered. Once we had got him comfortable my colleague opened the window and she he could leave now and the light instantly went out and didn't turn on again. The whole time there was a strange feeling in the room, spine tingling type thing. Now yes this could explained as a dodgy light and as a coincidence, but it it was just weird as to how it happened.

[Gatto]

I would like one day to be reborn as a mushroom.

[N8ty L3asT]

Your never going to see me use an Ouji board. ~Nope Nope Nope.~

[Phantasmal Fingers]

In academia the debate over reincarnation largely centres over the evidence in Ian Stevenson's work, starting with Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation (1974) The philosopher Paul Edwards - see Reincarnation (1996) - takes a sceptical stance whereas another philosopher, Robert Almeder - see Death And Personal Survival (1992) - accepts Stevenson's evidence. As transpersonal psychologist Christopher Bache points out in Dark Night, Early Dawn (2000) the key point from Edwards's side is that "consciousness can't exist without a brain.Time and again at critical points Edwards claims that the fatal objection to reincarnation is the fact that there is simply no conceivable way that one life can influence another in the absence of a physical link. This is what Edwards calls the modus operandi problem. But this assumption is precisely what Stevenson's evidence calls into question... Because he is convinced that science has proved beyond question that mind is reducible to brain, Edwards believes we are safe in assuming that Stevenson's cases must be flawed in some way and is quick to exploit any opinion which supports his position, no matter how unsubstantiated it may be." So what Edwards sees as a his refutation of Stevenson's evidence is - from Stevenson's side - just a question begging evasion that allows him to sidestep conclusions that accepting the evidence would force Edwards to come to.

 

Bache goes on to say that "there is a saying in legal circles, 'When the law is against you, argue the evidence; when the evidence is against, you argue the law.' What Almeder demonstrates is that Edwards is really arguing the law, not the evidence, and in this case the "law" is simply the network of epistemological, metaphysical and scientific assumptions that comprise the materialist world view". It's a fairly common stance. Materialists like Richard Dawkins, for example, only appeal to the evidence when it happens to suit their arguments, and have consistently failed to refute or address the evidence for psi phenomena such as telepathy found by Rupert Sheldrake and others.

 

I have recovered past life memories so for me this is not a matter of belief. But even if you've not done this yourself and have a sceptical viewpoint I think you would find the debate around Ian Stevenson's evidence very interesting if you've not yet investigated it. 

[Guest]

6 hours ago, Gatto said:

I would like one day to be reborn as a mushroom.

An ordinary mushroom or a 'special' mushroom?

[Gatto]

A thinking cap.