LIKE!

Amen.

Thank you so much for your experience..I was sure I couldn't be the only one...

Yeah kids have great imaginations. So does JK Rowling have to have been to Hogwarts to describe it then???
Sorry but individual stories of confused young kids means nuthin.

I prescribe some Derren Brown for you too. Perhaps he can show you how you were actually putting stuff into the kid's head without realising

That's pretty strange. Did you ask her aunt Nene about the experience? I believe that it's possible . I've heard other fascinating stories like this.

My wife and I were at a Bar-B-Que with friends at Hout Bay Western Cape, It was our Anthropological Society get together. As dusk fell our daughter who was just 18 months began to gabble. She became very agitated as the evening shadows lengthened. She was standing on a chair holding the back and pointing to the trees. A friend there went quite pale and said that what our daughter was speaking was a north American native language similar to Magwar or some tribe I had never heard of. This person had been a teacher in Canada for many years so he was familiar with the Indian languages. We dismissed this as his imagination but another friend intimated that it could be a reincarnated spirit.

You've answered all your questions excellently.

"All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain." - the replicant Roy Batty from "Blade Runner."

I think you have nicely identified the impetus for the fantasy that is reincarnation - people just cannot comprehend the logos of 'not being me' - even after death. It's natural I guess, since our entire experience of the universe is through the prism of our own individual consciousness and so we simply cannot imagine experiencing reality in any other way. Hence we invent God or reincarnation because we cannot deal with the idea of our own death.

Eliza Marie have you had children? If you do you must observe the child when he/she reaches about 6 months when the child suddenly realises he/she has a body and looks at his/her hands with wonder. At the age of 7 months a female or 9 months a male become an individual. If they could communicate at this age they would tell you of their past life.

I own all those books..actually

Ravenwolfcasey, glad to know you have those books already.

AGMT, thanks for the link to the skepdic.com entry but I’m actually very skeptical about that page itself. Yes, reincarnation can be deemed a “false idea” and “uneducated perception” by you and others, by not by many people like me who have inquisitive minds that see this as a valid subject to read about and research into. The evidence of reincarnation is presented in all three books I’ve listed here but I guess you haven’t read any one of them, have you? No, I do not recommend those books to you. That is a closed door that I do not dare or wish to open. I won’t say reincarnation is a fact that I know with certainty, but one thing I can say with absolute certainty is that I believe the authors of the three books, the three medical doctors who have spent many years investigating and researching the topic, are much more knowledgeable and creditable than you. Therefore, I value the evidence and opinions they shared in those books.

AMGT (sorry for misspelling your username last time):

First, please do not assign the ‘like a theist” label to me. You know that can get me easily targeted at on this agnostic site. That’s not fair. Although I’m not religious, I did read the bible cover to cover a few times. The evidence of case studies and research presented in these books is not comparable to the “proof of god in the bible”. I’ve read many books on the topic and can give an open-minded person a long list, but here I’m going to save my time. The authors I mentioned are unsupported by you it seems, but they are supported by their research, some of their peers and many readers like me. Just read some of the book reviews on Goodreads and Amazon and you’ll know they are not “unsupported”. Most of the evidence provided in these books are anecdotal and there is not scientific proof of reincarnation/after life. There is a reason for that: if there really is an after life, it is not in the physical form and you can’t expect our science that deals with physical world to explain and prove something that is not physical. Even Moody himself acknowledged this:

People who speak of having scientific proof of an afterlife are misguided, he explains. ''The hallmark of a scientifically testable sentence is that it is potentially falsifiable. That means that you have to be able to think of some observation that would prove or show that the sentence is false.'' ''Carl Popper, the philosopher, scientist, thinker, and logician, brought this to our attention early in the twentieth century,'' Dr. Moody says, ''that, strangely, science works by falsifying propositions. When you think of a sentence like, There is a life after death, you have to ask what observation could falsify it? It's really conceptually impossible, as far as I can tell, to think of what that could be. It's too early to bring the question of an afterlife to a scientific test.''

That’s why I didn’t say I know for certain there is reincarnation but I believe the validity of the research that has been done.

With regards to the skepdic entry of Moody, when I read the first word used to describe him “parapsychologist” I started to think it was biased (haha, just like some news sites). The article didn’t mention how he conducted his research in his book I mentioned at all, rather it just focused on some of his later research written in a tone to discredit him. The article ended with a note that the consciousness studies program he led at UNLV was terminated after five years. It’ll probably make some readers think consciousness studies is just nonsense, but there are serious consciousness studies center at various universities. In fact, just a few years ago University of Washington Bothell launched minor in consciousness program, the first of its kind in a public institution in North America.

Thanks for the suggestion of keeping digging. I am and have been. That’s why I have already moved my interest and attention away from topics like reincarnation because there are many more fascinating new things to research and explore.

@AMGT:

I think you mean well and you want me to see the “truth” you see and I thank you for that. But so far you haven't said anything that has convinced me that “it’s all guesswork, conjecture and wishful thinking”.

I think you’ll agree with me the subject of reincarnation/afterlife falls into the non-physical realm, if it does exist. So how do you expect our science, which only deals with the physical world, to provide physical "scientific proof of something that's not experimentally testable? Being able to create/simulate an "afterlife” in a lab? Sending a radio message like we did with interstellar radio messages and getting a response back? Taking a photo/video of that world? I don’t know how you think science can measure something that’s completely out of its scope. Just like the question of "are there other universes out there", scientists haven’t been able to observe any universe outside Hubble volume and provide any observable evidence (and maybe they never will), but it doesn’t mean there are definitely no other universes. In fact the majority of the cosmologists think there are.

When there’s a few or a few dozen pieces of anecdotal evidence, you can call them stories, but when there are thousands and thousands of well documented case studies, it’s both quantitative and qualitative research data. Many young children had past-life memories which had been verified by the researchers to detail (their past family member names, places they lived, etc). There are also many well documented case studies of NDE. When you look at data like that which points you to a direction you don’t’ want to go, the easiest thing you can say is the researcher lied, the people lied, it’s just all coincidences, it’s all hallucination…No, I don't think it’s just lies and coincidences and hallucination, there is a better explanation which is inconvenient for some people to accept. Just like global warming, there’s mounting data (albeit not 100% conclusive) that supports it but some people still would think it’s just a hoax.

Thank you for this discussion but I don't think continuing on will lead us anywhere. You won’t be able to convince me that the argument of reincarnation failed, nor can you assure me it’s just guesswork…When I started the discussion with you, I didn’t have any intention to convince you at all as I knew it would be futile. The reason I responded is because there’s a misconception from some hardcore atheists here that if a person has a different opinion or belief system, that person must be uneducated or lack critical thinking skills. If I hadn’t read those books and case studies and research, I would probably say reincarnation is a nice fantasy. But with all the data presented to me, I know I can't dismiss it as fantasy, heresy, or wishful thinking any more. I won't call it a fact either as I haven't conducted the research myself, nor have I had any past life memories or NDE. But if I had had, I would probably call it true. Moody said "I don't mind saying that after talking with over a thousand people who have had these experiences, and having experienced many times some of the really baffling and unusual features of these experiences, it has given me great confidence that there is a life after death. As a matter of fact, I must confess to you in all honesty, I have absolutely no doubt, on the basis of what my patients have told me, that they did get a glimpse of the beyond." I don't have the confidence to say that for said reasons but I think he reached a most reasonable conclusion based on his research.

By the way I haven't heard of the two names you mentioned but I googled one of them and their stuff sounded suspicious, but I admit I didn't spent much time reading on them. I'm sorry you had bad experience with them and think that might be the reason you shy away any paranormal stuff. I will conclude my discussion with you here but hope we both continue with our reading and research in different areas and learn and grow.

Because 'experiencing things with your own eyes ' naturally trumps the entire sum of human experience and scientific knowledge!?
No wonder we are all so screwed quite frankly!!

You definitely need to watch more Derren Brown!!

And that's exactly what I believe. We are all energy on some fundamental level and I like the idea that after death everything that we are goes back into the great melting pot and could come out as atoms of a tree or a dog or a person but that what and who you are now is not replicated.
Just think how awful it would be anyway to be condemned to be the unruly personality that I am now for eternity and beyond!!
These are all just imaginative methods of negating personal responsibility for our own actions in the here and now.

Bang on right

Where there's smoke, there's, duuuuuuhhhh, helluva of a high feeling floating above the clouds!

Why talk of your beliefs when others would consider it as nonsense?
Why spend trillions to look for the possibility of life outside our planet?
Why spend so much gray matter in the multi-verse and parallel world theories . . . and also the skewed timeline thing?

It is a fact that when we're blasted into smithereens our atoms are recycled into something else. May still be our atoms but it's definitely not 'us" anymore.

I don't know what the odds are that after being scattered all over, our atoms would find themselves and vibrate in the same frequency and gravitate and magnetize to "re-volt" into and form our same selves with the same consciousness, memory and experiences as before. Such a scary, unpleasant and unpalatable prospect to find myself sitting again on top of the fence in my side of the hill with my head spinning round.

Very interesting answer, Sonny, very interesting. And btw, what is the "skewed timeline" thing?

So what? There is plenty of talk about chimeras in eastern philosophy as well! Do they exist ???

Other than in history books, on tv, in museums etc etc. The human subconscious is a sponge mate and you are reverse engineering

I agree with this wisdom.. but disagree with considering consciousness a form of energy... consciousnesses is beyond energy... it generates and transforms energy.

Fantastic reply..thank you so much..I knew I couldn't be the only one who felt this way..

All my life I've always wanted to believe in reincarnation but I still have to find proof or evidence or the experience that will "stand in court."

I'm knda confused with your statement here:

"Human arrogance says consciousness is too precious to be recycled, but to the universe, it's just another form of energy."

Is it "arrogance" or "ignorance"? . . . they sound dangerously pretty much the same.

Really? How is that evidence based? The Flying Spaghetti Monster told me it is a myth.

When you be serious in exploring reality you will follow the scientific method of knowing truth and rebuild reality in accordance to organized mind..... chaos leads to myths..... order leads to true life..... true life is pure consciousness..... no Spaghetti monster, Yahweh or any other temporary God.

Can you define what you mean by this whole "fourth dimension" thing? A lot of people seem to think dimensions are something they're not.

To know what the 4th dimension is, we must learn and practice geometry. Explaining the fourth dimension with few simple words won't work for the curious mind.

@WilliaM8, you sounded like you know this for a fact. Can you tell me how you gained the knowledge? Unlike others here, I'm truly interested

It doesn't do that, though. I'm around people who believe in karma often, and most of them just use it as an excuse to blame people for mishaps. Oh, your car died on the highway? MUST BE KARMA stop being negative! That sort of thing. I would look into the history of karma as a concept and how it's been used throughout history. Not a good story...

You also seem to be in great need of Derren Brown mate !!

Reincarnated selves? Interesting ...could be possible who knows...energy could split...and travel...ever wonder why people have doubles or doppelgangers ....I always have PEOPLE telling they could've sworn they saw me somewhere...or say they have a friend that is my twin...who knows how the universe works...

@Ravenwolfcasey
People have doppelgangers because when you get down to the origin of the species we have a tiny gene pool and are all related. We can from the same seed.
Also have you ever heard a scientific explanation for dejas vu???
There's your 'reincarnated souls' ahead of themselves. The human brain is sorting through literally millions of pieces of info per second and sometimes gets confused by a nano second.
Faulty wiring lol nothing supernatural

@Ravenwolfcasey: Who knows how the universe works? God knows everything! LOL

@OutlawJosie: That's nice! . . . somebody here have posted something about deja vu but was kinda ignored. I'll try to backtrack and look for that post, it was I think sometime in September. Problem here is we don't have a keyword search. I'll just try "to go back in time" he-he!