BS: The Reincarnation Game

Subject: RE: BS: The Reincarnation Game
From: Bill D
Date: 11 Mar 17 - 09:46 AM

I asked several questions in my post... I'd love to ask Wayne Dyer & Dee Garnes those questions.

"It seems that infants and toddlers often arrive here with memories of their lifetimes in the spirit world ..."

and

"They tell of dialogues with God, give evidence that they themselves had a hand in picking their own parents, .."

These assume that reincarnation is a fact... as if anecdotes of children somehow prove that. There are a number of other factors which might just as easily explain why people... children and adults.... have these experiences. We are very far from understanding how the brain/mind works and how it processes & interprets its own internal functions, but it IS very tempting to tell the most 'interesting' story, rather than some mundane thing about interpreting and/or embellishing dreams.

Subject: RE: BS: The Reincarnation Game
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 11 Mar 17 - 04:42 AM

I don't believe in reincarnation. I didn't believe in it last time, either.

DC

Subject: RE: BS: The Reincarnation Game
From: rich-joy
Date: 11 Mar 17 - 12:23 AM

The very interesting : "Memories of Heaven"
(Children's Astounding Recollections of the Time Before They Came to Earth)
by Wayne Dyer and Dee Garnes, published Oct 2015, can now be added to Amos's List in the 1st post!

Cheers,
R-J
Down Under

" Nineteenth-century British poet William Wordsworth expressed the idea that we gradually lose our intimate knowledge of heaven as we grow up, observing that "our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting" of our previous heavenly existence.

Dr. Wayne W. Dyer and co-author Dee Garnes had often talked about how the ones who know the most about God are those who have just recently been wrapped in the arms of the Divine, our infants and toddlers. In fact, Dee had an interaction with her own young son that convinced her of this. Curious about this phenomenon, Wayne and Dee decided to issue an invitation to parents all over the world to share their experiences. The overwhelming response they received prompted them to put together this book, which includes the most interesting and illuminating of these stories in which very young children speak about their remembrances before they were born.

It seems that infants and toddlers often arrive here with memories of their lifetimes in the spirit world and frequently provide evidence of this to their immediate families. They tell of dialogues with God, give evidence that they themselves had a hand in picking their own parents, speak about long-deceased family members they knew while in the dimension of Spirit, verify past-life recollections, and speak eloquently and accurately of a kind of Divine love that exists beyond this physical realm—and even of times when telepathic communication took place, as well as the ability to decide just when they would come here to Earth.

This fascinating book encourages parents and grandparents to take a much more active role in communicating with their new arrivals . . . and to realize that there is far more to this earthly experience than what we perceive with our five senses. "   

from the HAY HOUSE website.

Subject: RE: BS: The Reincarnation Game
From: Bill D
Date: 10 Mar 17 - 08:54 PM

I always ask, in discussions of this nature..... how many of 'us' are there? If some of us 'remember' past lives, why do the others not? Are the lucky ones using up all the available 'meat units'? And how does it work that people had past lives in 1663...or 1797... when there were far fewer around, but there are 7.5 Billion now, all of whom 'may' have lived before and *been* 5 or 7 or 14.... of the few millions 'before'?

Is the supply of.... ummm... 'souls', for want of a better word, limited or infinite? And is some sort of *karma* the determining factor for whether we stay on The Wheel of Samsara, or are some folks just not wired correctly? Do we count miscarriages & abortions? Or is that just too sad to muse about?

So many questions about so many anecdotes.... inquiring minds want to know...

Subject: RE: BS: The Reincarnation Game
From: Donuel
Date: 10 Mar 17 - 01:08 PM

Saul

Your association with song is an amazing one.

Subject: RE: BS: The Reincarnation Game
From: keberoxu
Date: 10 Mar 17 - 11:44 AM

Oh. duhhhh.

Subject: RE: BS: The Reincarnation Game
From: saulgoldie
Date: 10 Mar 17 - 11:42 AM

I will read this whole thread a bit later. But for right now, I scanned it and I did not see any mention of this song. (Sorry to be musical below the line. :-/ )
Here's the song from the modern Limeliters:


Regression Therapy

A while ago I felt so strange, I went to see a shrink.
He listened and he said your case is stranger than you think.
I feel a spirit from your past is trying to get through,
You'll need regression therapy to cure what's wrong with you!
And as he probed into my mind, I felt myself go back in time,
And friends I was amazed to find that what he said was true...

In 1474 I was born, Timothy Yancy,
A son of a peasant farmer, and the peasant farmer's fancy
I held a plow beneath each arm, and one more in between,
I caught the plague, and bought the farm in 1517.

In 1532 I was born, Frederick Blumer,
The son of a high-born gentleman, at least that was the rumor,
I lived a pure and Christian life, until my concubine
Came at me with a butcher knife in 1599.

In 1671 I was born, Abigail Neville,
The daughter of a Salem goodwife who was dealing with the Devil,
And at her trial the council frowned suspiciously at me,
But I proved innocent, and drowned, in 1693.

(cho.)
Singing: Hey, Ho, Oh Well, don't ask for whom tolls the bell,
Even if we go to hell, we're back tomorrow night.
I'm here, you're here, soon we're gone, but never fear,
We'll reappear upon this sphere, until we get it right.

In 1732, I was born, Reginald Baker,
I slipped through the doctor's fingers, and went straight back to my maker!
But I returned at five o'clock, an executioner's son.
And I was one chip off his block in 1761.

cho

In 18 hundred and 9 I was born, Abraham Lincoln.
Well, I guess you know the rest of that one...

cho

In nineteen recently, we were born of our mothers
And we've had a good time in this life, compared with all the others
Some day we'll all be back on cue, and if the fates allow,
We'll be each other's deja vu, 100 years from now.

Subject: RE: BS: The Reincarnation Game
From: frogprince
Date: 10 Mar 17 - 11:27 AM

Keberoxu, my apology; all I intended was to play around with the theme of the thread, as in Amos having been reincarnated.

Subject: RE: BS: The Reincarnation Game
From: Donuel
Date: 10 Mar 17 - 10:36 AM

Keb my linear friend, do not feel foolish. There is but one Amos. In fact he stated his reasons for the thread. IN THIS CASE by way of links to a plethora of research references, I see him demonstrating that nonsense has deep roots in Pseudo academia.

Some of these links are still valuable to those writing a realistic Twilight Zone screen play.

Captain Obvious.

Remember that for one brief shining moment Mudcat BS , like the Trump White House , there was Camelot.

Not the Broadway Camelot but the Monty Python version in the 'Holy Grail'.

Subject: RE: BS: The Reincarnation Game
From: keberoxu
Date: 09 Mar 17 - 08:55 PM

You mean there's more than one Amos.

Does that make me feel foolish. Yes it does.

Subject: RE: BS: The Reincarnation Game
From: frogprince
Date: 09 Mar 17 - 03:30 PM

He was Amos when he started this, but he's someone else now.

Subject: RE: BS: The Reincarnation Game
From: keberoxu
Date: 09 Mar 17 - 01:32 PM

Amos? You recall starting this?

Subject: RE: BS: The Reincarnation Game
From: Donuel
Date: 08 Mar 17 - 09:58 PM

Dr. Steven Stephenson who has been furiously engaged in replicating reincarnation effects has been arrested in Seattle Washington for a record number of serial killings. He claims all his victims are still alive but under different names.

Subject: RE: BS: The Reincarnation Game
From: keberoxu
Date: 08 Mar 17 - 02:18 PM

Nervous Norvis had a novelty hit record titled "Transfusion." Because the lyrics hit that kind of funny-bone place that makes you say OUCH there's something true to life in there!, I had to give the words my undivided attention. I know the song is meant to sound really dumb and comical. But it's the sort of comedy that reminds one of the foibles of genuine human nature.

A light bulb went on over my head,
when I asked myself,
What if "Transfusion" were a crude metaphor for something really tricky to contemplate, say, a belief or a concept that people argue about but the concept persists through the centuries regardless?

Mudcat has a thread with the "Transfusion" lyrics on it; the words are not at the Digital Traditions thingie. But the thread is about "banned songs" and it's an oldie-but-goodie Mudcat thread.

Let's see if I can put this conceptual question across. About metaphors, reincarnation, and transfusion.

So, the dumb cluck who goes through auto after auto, and collision after collision, in "Transfusion." Each time, the auto is "totalled."
Each time, his sorry body is Jaws-Of-Lifed out of the wrecked auto. He gets ambulanced to the emergency room. His physical body is not destroyed but it is very much the worse for wear. He, and his person, the body with which he is conscious of life and the world around him, have to kept out of circulation long enough to recover.
And the recovery and treatment include evaluating how much blood he has lost, and putting someone's drawn blood in him, so that he can start over.

He gets his treatment and transfusion. Release from the hospital. Manages to get himself behind the wheel of a new and different auto. Eats and sleeps.
Then wakes up and repeats the whole sorry scenario.

This is not, reincarnation as a transformational, onward-and-upward, religious, inspired-by-the-divine experience.
This is reincarnation as a soul enrolled in Schoolhouse Earthly Life who keeps flunking this one particular test, and so he never makes the grade or earns the credit for which he studied. He gets so far, gets that same old test, and CRASH, he flunks again. So he is admitted back into the same old class level and goes through the whole thing again, and again.

Multiply this by I don't know what. You have a whole percentage of the human race who take that test, and take that test, and they just never learn the lesson well enough to change their performance. In fact they get themselves stuck in a rut. The sum of their learning experience is that they learn that when their earthly vehicle is wrecked, they will still regain consciousness in some place where they don't have a vehicle, and they will be looked after until such time as they recover and there is a different opportunity to have a fresh vehicle.

No wonder the lyrics are so dumb-funny that they smart.

Subject: RE: BS: The Reincarnation Game
From: Little Hawk
Date: 27 Jun 08 - 11:07 PM

Sorry, Amos...I was in a big hurry and I probably skipped over those posts entirely. Maybe I'll catch up on them in a bit, okay? Kinda pressed for time tonight.

Subject: RE: BS: The Reincarnation Game
From: Amos
Date: 27 Jun 08 - 09:31 PM

I just gave you a ream of scientific procedure, LH. Too much to take in?



A

Subject: RE: BS: The Reincarnation Game
From: Little Hawk
Date: 27 Jun 08 - 08:45 PM

Ha! ;-D Hey, Amos, I had that very same hypothetical Brad Pitt & Angelina Jolie scene pass through my mind, sort of...man, would it EVER be inconvenient to have Brad around at a time like that. Sheesh! Not that I'm objecting to Brad...I like some of the movie roles he's done. But he would just really be in the way as far as I was concerned if I got to try out being Angelina for a bit... (grin)

Naemanson, I'm all for scientific procedure, believe me. My comments that Wolfgang was objecting to so strenuously way, way back there were never aimed at scientists at all. They were aimed at common lay people, ordinary average Joe Blows that you meet in every town, who delight in mouthing off and disparaging anything spiritual or the least bit unusual to them, despite the fact that they are usually ignorant regarding both science and spirituality, and mysticism, and anything else along that line. Yet they seem utterly sure of the omnipotence of their dumbass opinions which aren't usually based on much more than the repetitious habits of a conventional dumbass lifetime. In other words, like Polly the Parrot they are repeating a bunch of things they've heard other people say and maintaining a firm grip on the past.

Wolfgang took it personally for some reason (or so I would assume), but I do not regard Wolfgang as the type of person I was talking about.

Subject: RE: BS: The Reincarnation Game
From: Amos
Date: 27 Jun 08 - 08:01 PM

One highly memorable case history excerpted from one of Dr Stevenson's studies on children.

This is the kind of story that shows perfectly well a body of high-probability data which could not be subjected to rigorous laboratory replication; instead it is gathered the way sociologists collect their data, or anthropologists. It is fairly clear from the narrative that (assuming it is a truthful report) the correlations leave mere coincidence in the dust as an explanation.

That makes it no less persuasive, as a single story; the presence of a large number (I think over 3000) of similar stories in various variant patterns certainly adds to that persuasiveness.

A

Subject: RE: BS: The Reincarnation Game
From: Amos
Date: 27 Jun 08 - 07:54 PM

" "Were I asked" William James wrote "to point to a scientific journal where hard-headedness and never-sleeping suspicion of sources of error might be seen in their full bloom, I think I should have to fall back on the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research. The common run of papers, say on physiological subjects, are apt to show a far lower level of critical consciousness."" (Ibid)

Subject: RE: BS: The Reincarnation Game
From: Amos
Date: 27 Jun 08 - 07:50 PM

Here's a lecture by Stevenson himself describing his intellectual development and how and why he came to be interested in the subject. Most interesting and articulate.

A

Subject: RE: BS: The Reincarnation Game
From: Amos
Date: 27 Jun 08 - 07:47 PM

More on Stevenson:

"3000 Cases of Past Life Memories
A prestigious scholar at the University of Virginia, Dr. Stevenson devoted forty years of his life to the scientific documentation of past life memories of children. He amassed over 3000 cases in his files from all over the world. Many people, including scholars and fellow scientists, agree that these cases offer the best evidence yet for reincarnation.

Dr. Stevenson's cases focus on children who spontaneously (without hypnosis) remember a past life. In each case, he methodically documents the child's statements and behaviors. Then he attempts to identify the deceased person the child remembers being, and verifies the facts of the deceased person's life that match the child's memory. He pays special attention to any birthmarks and birth defects the child may have that match wounds and scars on the deceased (verified by medical records). His strict methods applied so systematically to thousands of cases rule out, one by one, all possible "normal" explanations for the childÕs memories.

Impeccable Credentials
Dr. Stevenson's credentials are impeccable. He is a medical doctor and had many scholarly papers to his credit before he began paranormal research. He is the former head of the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Virginia and for many years before his retirement at the age of 82, he was Director of the Division of Personality Studies at the University of Virginia."    (For more see http://www.childpastlives.org/library_articles/stevenson.htm)

Subject: RE: BS: The Reincarnation Game
From: Amos
Date: 27 Jun 08 - 07:34 PM

From the American Journal of Psychiatry, in the review linked in the first post of this thread:

"StevensonÕs approach to the question of reincarnation was to evaluate the evidence for it and devise a protocol for the gathering of further evidence to delineate the phenomena of human behaviors, which suggested that some aspects of human personality might survive apparent death and manifest themselves in the living. Stevenson described his general approach (for which the book under review provides a specific example) as follows:

In the study of spontaneous paranormal phenomena we must usually interview and cross-question informants about events that have happened before we arrive on the scene. In principle, the methods are those that lawyers use in reconstructing a crime and historians use in understanding the past. Once we have the best account possible of the events in question, we consider one by one the alternative explanations and try to eliminate them until only the single most probable one remains. Then we try with further observations to confirm or reject the initially preferred explanation. In addition, we search through series of apparently similar phenomena for recurrent features that may provide clues to causative conditions and processes of occurrence. (1)
After careful review of available phenomena that had suggested the possibility of reincarnation, Stevenson, following the methodology of early psychic researchers (Gurney et al. in 1886 and Myers in 1903), devised a protocol for recovery and evaluation of memories of apparent previous lives, a process Stevenson described in 1977 (2). This paradigm for investigation focused on spontaneous cases suggestive of reincarnation that were described in young children. Why young children? Because young children should be less likely to be exposed to information about life details of a dead individual who is reincarnated.

A brief description of a typical case of the reincarnation type would show the following features: 1) Starting in years 2Ð4, the child spontaneously narrates details of a previous life. 2) Volume and clarity of statements from the child increase until ages 5Ð6, when the child talks less about them. 3) By age 8, remarks about previous life generally cease. 4) Unexpected behavior unusual for child but concordant with behavior of deceased person occur, e.g., phobias for guns or special interests and appetites. 5) In many cases the child has a birthmark or congenital deformity that corresponds in location and appearance to fatal wounds on the body of the previous personality. A high number of reincarnated personalities report violent death, which the child alludes to. 6) In some cultures the individual who "reincarnates" predicts his or her next incarnation and may appear in a dream to the expectant mother of the child to announce an intention to reincarnate in the baby. 7) After the age of 10 these child subjects usually develop normally...."

Subject: RE: BS: The Reincarnation Game
From: bankley
Date: 27 Jun 08 - 07:34 PM

for L.H.... all in fun...

pan to: Brad Pitt after a couple of bottles of good wine, entering the bedroom with a bulge in his pants...

Brad: "Angie, darlin' come here and wrap those big lips around this"

Angie: " Oh no, Brad it's not really me!"

Brad: "C'mon, quit foolin' around"

Angie: "I'm telling you, I'm not really me...I'm not feeling myself!"

Brad: "Well baby, you were a minute ago.. getting started without me again ? Here, let me help sweetie,   J'taime, donne moi un bec..."

Fade to black.....

Subject: RE: BS: The Reincarnation Game
From: Naemanson
Date: 27 Jun 08 - 07:22 PM

"And that's my theory. Don't like it? Well, bite your pillow!"

Ucky-poo! I know where that pillow's been!

This is the kind of discussion that has been going on for many years if not generations. I doubt we are going to settle it here.

As for scientific studies, well, as we know, people see what they want to see, even scientists. That's why the scientific method relies on replicability. If it cannot be replicated then there are two possible explanations. Either the second effort is not following the original methods or the original experiment is flawed.

Paul Burke - I did not post the list. Amos generated it and I did not think I had that right. I sent the list to the JREF research group for their "take" on the researchers and the current state regarding the studies/experiments.

Subject: RE: BS: The Reincarnation Game
From: Little Hawk
Date: 27 Jun 08 - 02:27 PM

Oh....you mean a "walk-in" kind of thing, Amos? Well, I wouldn't want to steal anyone else's body from them. It would be kind of interesting to experience being in certain bodies, though, (inhabiting them, I mean) for an hour or two to see what it was like. Like Angelina Jolie's, for example...   Hmmm.

Subject: RE: BS: The Reincarnation Game
From: bankley
Date: 27 Jun 08 - 01:38 PM

A White Sport Coat and a Pink reinCarnation
I'm all dressed up for the Dance

Subject: RE: BS: The Reincarnation Game
From: Amos
Date: 27 Jun 08 - 01:13 PM

Well, you can do it, LH, but you will have a glare-fight on your hands, and you'll have to live with the guilt if you win the battle of displacement. Strong, young, fully-operational bodies don't just sit on the shelf for eighteen years to get that way, you know. :D


A

Subject: RE: BS: The Reincarnation Game
From: Ebbie
Date: 27 Jun 08 - 12:43 PM

If you did that, Little Hawk, the chances are good that you would be born into a time and culture where life expectancy is 30. :)

Subject: RE: BS: The Reincarnation Game
From: Little Hawk
Date: 27 Jun 08 - 12:35 PM

That might be exactly what is going through every newborn baby's mind when it starts wailing and carrying on... ;-D

Man, I would not want to go through that particular stage again. No sir! I would rather skip right past the helpless period of babyhood...maybe incarnate right at the fresh age of 18, with a strong, young body and a full adult life ahead of me.

Subject: RE: BS: The Reincarnation Game
From: Amos
Date: 27 Jun 08 - 12:32 PM

Jock:

I am afraid so. Try to get it right this time, will ya?



A

Subject: RE: BS: The Reincarnation Game
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 27 Jun 08 - 11:49 AM

Oh no, not again!

Subject: RE: BS: The Reincarnation Game
From: Amos
Date: 27 Jun 08 - 11:41 AM

Well, you do get a large number of impressions of being Cleopatra, or Jesus Christ, or some king or other when people start approaching the subject; these sort out into actual memories pretty easily once people get into it and discover they were a chambermaid or a passing mendicant or a foot soldier. It's easy to grab an impressive identity and use ti as a comforter, but it doesn't hunt for very long.


A

Subject: RE: BS: The Reincarnation Game
From: Ebbie
Date: 27 Jun 08 - 11:34 AM

How about the "memory" of being the child of a 'scullery maid', a child who at the age of 10 was raped and killed?

There are strange things out there, Horatio.

Subject: RE: BS: The Reincarnation Game
From: Little Hawk
Date: 27 Jun 08 - 10:26 AM

It's true that most people who lived in the past were peasants, workers, and rather simple people. I don't think it's necessarily true that they lived "brutish lives", though.

And So? So what? The same basic challenges are found in simple lives...challenges such as maturing, dealing with personal relationships in family and community, falling in love, marrying, having and raising children, working, surviving, facing tests of character, developing courage, dealing with adversity, learning the ways of love and forgiveness, and so on.

There is much nobility in simple lives, and they are not all "brutish" by any means. I doubt that the average Indian or Chinese or Egyptian in ancient times was a "brute" or thought of himself as such. I bet you'd find they were just as smart as we are...but they were dealing with a different outer situation, that's all.

The vast number of past lives that people appear to recall in past life regression work are the lives of ordinary people....workers, soldiers, farmers, peasants, shopkeepers, sailors, whatever. It's only in some entertaining literature here and there that one finds the impression given that everyone who remembers a past life was somebody rich and famous in it such as Cleopatra or Napoleon's wife Josephine.

Well, entertaining literature is meant to sell copies, right? ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: The Reincarnation Game
From: Little Hawk
Date: 27 Jun 08 - 10:15 AM

If a "ghost" is seen, it is an image built through consciousness. The consciousness will create the appropriate clothes along with the rest of the image, if it is so inclined to...which it usually would be.

No particular reason the ghost couldn't appear nude, in other words, but if the consciousness that creates the ghost is inclined to imagine itself clothed, then it will build its image in that fashion. It has nothing to do with a mechanistic progression of clothing into the afterlife through some sort of osmosis. ;-)

It's pure consciousness...just like the images seen in a dream. People in dreams are usually clothed too, but not always. The consciousness of the dreamer decides whether or not to clothe them.

And that's my theory. Don't like it? Well, bite your pillow! ;-)

We all would very much like to know the reality of the situation, Naemanson, and that's what keeps us all curious and investigating the unknown all our lives. We all hunger for the evidence. If evidence to prove or disprove a particular matter can't be found, we still remain very interested, right? That's natural, because we want to know.

Subject: RE: BS: The Reincarnation Game
From: Paul Burke
Date: 27 Jun 08 - 04:11 AM

Naemanson: can you tell me where you posted the list? Was it on the JREF forum?

Subject: RE: BS: The Reincarnation Game
From: Amos
Date: 27 Jun 08 - 03:07 AM

Unfortunately all those tested so far have not been able to do any better than the rules of chance.

Read Ingo Swann's report of the Puthoff series at Stanford (SRI).

why do his clothes come with him? The clothes aren't capable of being ghostly.


Because a being is putting out a scary picture or projection, in order to create some kind of effect or other, and he uses what he remembers, I suppose.


A

Subject: RE: BS: The Reincarnation Game
From: Naemanson
Date: 27 Jun 08 - 01:38 AM

I ain't gonna die, at least, I'm gonna live forever or die tryin'.

I love every one of the spiritual ideas that are pushed by the supernaturalists. I would love for them to be true. Unfortunately I have this ornery side of me that insists on knowing the reality of the situation.

Consider, people believe they see ghosts. I grew up in a haunted house surrounded by mysterious noises and movements. The stories are so much fun to repeat. However, when a person dies and comes back as a ghost, why do his clothes come with him? The clothes aren't capable of being ghostly.

Past lives? What a kick! I would love to know I had lived before and experienced an earlier age. Unfortunately 95% (this number is my guess, nothing more) of all humans who ever lived were simple peasants whose lives were short, brutish, and miserable. I already did that. It was called a career.

Distant reading? Being psychic. Sign me up! Gimme, gimme! Unfortunately all those tested so far have not been able to do any better than the rules of chance. I'm still waiting for the real one to show up.

And then you have the charlatans, the vultures who prey on the unsuspecting. A prime example is Sylvia Brown who reopens the wounds of victims in order to get paid to use her psychic powers to bring some resolution to their cases. So far her record is no wins, all losses, but she doesn't quit. Uri Gellar was trying to get paid to use his "talents" to find valuable mineral resources without even suffering the discomfort of flying over the land in question. He would look at a map or photograph and point out where to dig. Once more, no wins, all losses.

But don't give up hope. I won't. However, I will not believe everything I hear. I will wait for proof.

Subject: RE: BS: The Reincarnation Game
From: Little Hawk
Date: 26 Jun 08 - 07:34 PM

Whichever way it (death) goes is fine with me. (as I've said repeatedly) Continued existence? Great. No continued existence? Great. Reincarnation? Fine. No reincarnation? Equally fine.

I don't object to people having different beliefs or expectations from my own, not any more than I would object to finding a large variety of plants growing in one area of land.

I likewise don't object to people belonging to a variety of different religions...or to no religion at all. I simply don't care. That's entirely up to them.

Nor do I object to science and the scientific approach. In fact, I have been a natural proponent of science and the scientific approach ever since I was about 7 years old. And I grew up in an atheist family too. We believed in nothing but science and law and social morality. In that respect...my strong interest in science I mean...I was fairly unusual among the youngsters I knew up till maybe age 12 or 13...but I found more people who thought that way by the time we reached our teens.

I have never found my interests in spirituality (which came later in life) to conflict in any way with my interests in science. They can be mutually complementary, and indeed they ought to be, but they are rather different forms of discipline for most people, and most people therefore mistakenly assume that they are diametrically opposed to one another. They're not...no more so than men and women, for instance, are diametrically opposed to one another.

And that's why I don't believe in the so-called "war between the sexes" either. ;-) I see natural partners there, not opponents.

Subject: RE: BS: The Reincarnation Game
From: Amos
Date: 26 Jun 08 - 07:21 PM

What is this, pigs-fly week? I didn't know they served mints.

Wolfgang, I have nothing but respect for a person who can abandon a fond conviction in the face of evidence. It is a noble act, of great integrity, to be so true to what you see, that you are willing to let go of something important that you thought.

Little Hawk, however, does not deserve quite as much vehemence as you offer him, I would suggest, because he is discussing things that simply don't fall on the same table, or at least do so from a different spectrum. I would be interested to discover evidence so compelling of the absolute materiality of all things that it would somehow outweigh all the evidence I have encountered of things being otherwise.

But I promise you this. As you may have surmised I have a fond conviction that in addition to having a reasonably good body (for its age) which I can be one with at will, I also have a mode of existence which is completely whole, aware, intentional, perceptive, and independent of the body.

I do not believe that dying is a simple and final blackout where all consciousness terminates.

But when I die, if it turns out that that IS what I experience, I promise you I will willingly change my mind about my cherished, but fallacious, convictions,, and will accept the evidence I encounter.

A

Subject: RE: BS: The Reincarnation Game
From: Little Hawk
Date: 26 Jun 08 - 05:35 PM

Oh, goody! Pass the mints.

Subject: RE: BS: The Reincarnation Game
From: katlaughing
Date: 26 Jun 08 - 05:07 PM

But we're not in-flight yet!:-)

Subject: RE: BS: The Reincarnation Game
From: bobad
Date: 26 Jun 08 - 04:53 PM

I think I'm gonna be sick.

Subject: RE: BS: The Reincarnation Game
From: Little Hawk
Date: 26 Jun 08 - 03:53 PM

You betcha, Kat. Thank you also (just for being who you are).

Subject: RE: BS: The Reincarnation Game
From: katlaughing
Date: 26 Jun 08 - 02:48 PM

I have no interest in exposing certain things that are very precious to me in my own life history to the utterly uncomprehending blank stare of various opinionated people who have no respect for or interest in such things, and who would only use my story as a target for attack.

My thoughts exactly. Well said, as always, LH. Thank you, Sir.

Subject: RE: BS: The Reincarnation Game
From: Little Hawk
Date: 26 Jun 08 - 12:56 PM

Well, I pity you too, Wolfgang, but I'm much too nice and polite a person to ever say so... ;-)

(That was a joke. In fact, I do not pity you. But do you get my point?)

You don't really know me at all. I probably don't really know you at all either. I certainly wouldn't assume that I do. If we were able to meet in real life and talk at some length over a period of time, with respect, then we might get to know each other.

I'm very interested in evidence whenever and wherever I can find it. But it's not my job to prove or disprove the existence of the soul, is it? Nor do I have a laboratory means of doing so. I have changed my mind about numerous things due to coming across evidence of one sort or another. I don't know if there is a soul or if there is reincarnation, I merely think it probable, that's all.

I have seen a couple of miracles in my life...certainly not when I expected to...but I can't reproduce them in a lab for you because I wasn't in control of them.

Will I describe them for you? No. Not a chance. What would be the point? It wouldn't accomplish anything good, pleasant or useful. I have no interest in exposing certain things that are very precious to me in my own life history to the utterly uncomprehending blank stare of various opinionated people who have no respect for or interest in such things, and who would only use my story as a target for attack.

Remember, Wolfgang, as Ali G always says..."Respec'" Respect is the key to good relations.

And I respect you.

Subject: RE: BS: The Reincarnation Game
From: Bill D
Date: 26 Jun 08 - 12:53 PM

Durn, Amos...you have penetrated my darkest secrets!

I would claim to be the reincarnation of Martin Gardner, but he ain't dead yet.

(there sure are a lot of folks tossing around linguistic constructions and then presuming that this 'naming' conveys some sort of validity or reality to the concepts thus 'described'.)

Subject: RE: BS: The Reincarnation Game
From: Ebbie
Date: 26 Jun 08 - 12:33 PM

Bee-dubya-ell (see? I use your full name.:), thank you for a fresh look, another view. I don't think we know much at all- and that's the charm of it. Our view- Wolfgang, Bill D and all those other lovely folks notwithstanding - may be much closer than we like to the perspective of the goldfish in the bowl.

Subject: RE: BS: The Reincarnation Game
From: Wolfgang
Date: 26 Jun 08 - 12:04 PM

People love saying that there's "no evidence" for stuff they don't want to believe in in the first place. And they confirm it for themselves by completely avoiding all the available evidence or else refusing to allot any time to studying it or giving it serious and unbiased consideration... ;-) Thus is their chosen form of ignorance constantly re-affirmed to their own satisfaction. (Little Hawk)

This is your usual entrance sentence to these discussions which I have read at least ten times. Now was once too often. I think it is time to say how little you know about scientists and skeptics. I really pity you, Little Hawk, if that is your approach if you do not want to believe in the first place. You have been missing a humbling, embarrassing but altogether healthy experience in your life: to be forced to change your mind about something by evidence.

That's one of the main idea in science: to ask questions in a way that you can be shown to be wrong about something. I have in my life been completely wrong about something major at least three times and I have found out by looking at the evidence. Yes, all three times it was something that meant a lot to me personally (in one case it was even a theory linked to my name among German colleagues). But I was wrong though I would have loved to be right. In the one case, the evidence in a new experiment performed by one of my students was simply not as my (pet) theory on that field said it should be.

What you describe is a fine description of the approach of the believer, but not of the skeptic (there might be some, but I despise them). To find out to be completely wrong about something is one of the noblest experiences one can have (though not necessarily in the very moment one finds out, and surely also not in the moment one has to tell the colleagues at the next congress, forget my theory, I was wrong). But these are experiences I would not like to have missed in my life.

Sorry for you if it is so different for yourself and you do not approach evidence with an open mind. But please, do not assume that all people are like you.

Let me finish with a quote from a very prominent skeptic, Basava Premanand, chairman of the Indian skeptics, who is know for being able to recreate what Indian fakirs and gurus claim to be able due to supernatural forces:

At the end of the lengthy discussions we had with Premanand on the mysteries of the East, which no longer appeared as mysteries, there was one more thing that Basava Premanand told us. "You know, I told you I had one desire: to create a research center in India for the investigation of psychic phenomena. Well, to tell you the truth I also have one other wish."

"And what is it?" we asked.

"It's simple, I'd like to witness a real miracle before dying."

I think that could be a wish that many of us would subscribe to... (from Notes on a strange world)

These are skeptics to my taste and not the caricature you try to shoot down but only end shooting yourself in the foot.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: The Reincarnation Game
From: Little Hawk
Date: 26 Jun 08 - 11:35 AM

Paul, you keep making the error of seeing your own psychological problems, hostilities, blind spots, and unpleasant negativities reflected in other people...

And so does Leon Rosselson.