Do you have any citation or reference for this thorough investigation you mention at the University of Virginia?

"anythings possible" ? No it's not.

@Rodatheist Just tap it out on your phone.

@Rodatheist [whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com]
[skepdic.com]
[rationalwiki.org]

I am concerned that the overwhelming 'evidence' has been focused children's accounts. There is a reason why their testimonies bear less weight than adults in a court of law. They are easily influenced to provide an answer that is likely to please an adult. I'm sorry to disappoint but I suspect that only your atoms will be recycled at death.

@MsDemeanour Well, accounts compiled by competent professionals are only a few taps away on your phone: reincarnation...University of Virginia...Stevenson (or Tucker)...and you can read about it, giving you more information on which to base your suspicions! And there's a lot more, too, but that's a very credible place to start.

@Storm1752 Yes I have looked. Interesting reading. I don't even believe humans have free will, let alone a spirit or soul that can transfer to another body. I am having a similar debate with my son right now on UFOs. He believes in alien visits. Not enough evidence for me yet.

@MsDemeanour Interesting, indeed. Hard to explain.
Not enough evidence of extraterrestrials, sure. Also interesting.
I could argue UFOs either way Reincarnation? I'd need an explanation for the memories and birthmarks which plausibly accounts from them in some other way.
No free will? Do you have the freedom to decide a course of action? Don't you make decisions every day? Please explain what you mean, if you decide to take the time to respond.

@Storm1752 In regards to free will, we are conditioned by our genes and our experience. If I was born with Ted Bundy's DNA and environmental conditions, I would in be him, and would make the same choices he did. Neurologists did research asking people for their preferred answer to questions. They were able to predict what the person was going to choose BEFORE the person had made their choice just by looking at neurological patterns. I'm a big fan of Neuroscientist Sam Harris. He has a book about the illusion of Free Will. It's only 72 pages but a fascinating read.

@MsDemeanour Interesting.

Interesting. My son, around age two, recalled his birth, and some pre-birth. He used the pronoun ‘I’ for himself, and upon being born, recognized me as his mom. Very precocious child; he never said mommy etc and called most adults by their first names. Including my parents. Still does, in fact.

@CarolinaGirl60 Thats cool! The little critter was probably listening in on you a couple of months before he was born. And is a smart one! There is evidence a fetus becomes self aware by 6 months.

Or . . . do you think it means something else?

[sciencemag.org]

@Observer-Effect He was listening, at least to my voice and heartbeat.
The conversation began when he was 2 and 1/2 or so. We were in the car. Now, he was talking nearly like an adult by this time.

He says: Mom!
What, Beau?
He asks, pointing at his navel: Where’s my cord?!(as if I had it hidden somewhere )
So I explained how the baby gets fed through it inside the mom, and after being born, the cord is cut. The part left on babies, and on him, dries out and falls off in about 2 weeks.
He’s exasperated. Mom! I know all that. Where’s that cord NOW?
I said, which one?
He said, the one from inside your tummy.
—I nearly drove off the road here, but took a deep breath.
Inside my tummy?
Yeah, in the Apple juice. It was in front of me and I played with it.
Oh.
And I heard you talking. And a drum sound.
My heartbeat. -I went silent, but he wasn’t done.
Mom!
Beau?
I remember first time I saw you.
(I remember, too...I thought)
He said: there was this screaming sound (my final pushes?) then I came out and this guy with black hair was holding me(doctor had black hair, indeed) and I looked up, and there you were!

He told these stories/memories for another year or so, then stopped. It was interesting, to be sure.

Energy cannot be made or destroyed. If we have any energy within us it would disappear into the void of the Universe. I say void as I do not know what else to refer to it as. energy moves only at the speed of light and as such experiences no time at all. Matter, on the other hand, has to take a form, even if it is elemental. Individual atoms or molecules can move from a body and go into something else to be transported to somewhere else. I do not know what you want to do with this, personally I find great solace in the fact that if I have any energy it will end up somewhere, as will the matter in what was my body. I will have no experience of this nor will I remember anything of it. We are all star stuff and so it will be forever.

There are more people on the Earth, it's true. But...are there not also fewer other animals? Hypothetically, those other animals could have been "promoted" to human, keeping the net number of life forms constant.

(I have no idea whether the net number is in fact constant, by the way. Nor do I know that inclusion in humanity is necessarily a promotion. But, as long as we're just making stuff up...)

@AmyTheBruce I think the Hindus believe something like that. Probably how they can justify the abhorrent caste system. If you are born an "untouchable" you must deserve it as you have been bad in a previous life.

@AmyTheBruce That's true. We are replacing the original natural biomass with homo sapien biomass, but nature has a way of reacting to this as can be seen by the current epidemic.

@Moravian as fun as that hypothesis is, (and it IS fun!), I doubt that "nature" is acting with any sort of intent.

@AmyTheBruce No intent, but for every action there is a reaction.

The whole concept is so nonsensical that I find it incomprenhesible that anyone would believe it .

The existence of “soul” has been supported by extensive work starting in the 1940s and ‘50s. The most convincing evidence can be found in the research of James Brown, Berry Gordy, and Richard Penniman.

@The-Krzyz You threw me with the Richrd Penniman. I didnt realise he had another name.
True, you gotta have soul

It's not my theory, I copied it and pasted it here from another board for discussion as I stated in the post. I just found it interesting enough to share.

To run away from the fear of dying, which is akin to sticking the head in the sand.

That's what I pointed out as well. It seems to me if people were being recycled this way, where is overpopulation coming from? Theoretically the population numbers would be flat.

@Sgt_Spanky this puts a whole new spin on #recycling. And the problem is compounded if you follow standard recycling rules that severely polluted items cannot be recycled. So the total number of humans available for recycling is ever diminishing as pollution levels, both environmental and psychological, keep rising. Yeah, they can mix rats and other vermin to make the equation mathematically balanced but that kind of cheating is equivalent to dividing by zero which as any elementary school kid knows is not allowed.

Only your actual DNA I suppose.

@Triphid What??!! The other fetus gets also your DNA? This is getting crazier by the minute.

@Triphid Well that will cause surprises for many parents...

@Coffeo The DNA in any foetus is a combination of that derived from BOTH parents, i.e. part from the paternal side and part from the maternal side, except in the case of multiple births where the foeti have formed from the one single fertilized ovum and even then there a slight, but noticable 'nuances/differences detectable in the DNA's of each.
Not quite such a surprise since everyone carries the DNA of their 'birth' parents, the 'birth' Grandparents and so on and so forth.
Your DNA can be traced back as far as your ancestral line can be traced and probably even further than that as well.

@Rodatheist IF you father children with 2 or more different mothers each child will ONLY get a combination of your DNA and that of its 'birth' mother, NOT the same combination as each child born from different 'birth mother.'

@Triphid Our DNA comes directly from the very first DNA molecule that became combined in the primordial sea, which was full of amino acids created by chemicals in the water and the energy of lightning. And you are right, all humans do not have a exact copy of half of the DNA of their parents. Through recombination and errors of copying, each human is unique, but the percentage of change of the DNA is minimal and most changes do not have noticeable or consecuencias effects on the offspring. So, offspring with a completely different DNA than that of their parents is not in the cards, ergo, the delusional craziness of this re-birth theory.

@Rodatheist You ARE preaching to Choir in case you were unaware.

Fascinating!

[newspunch.com]

Has your son been reading about this lad maybe ?

Come on baby, belieeeeeve! Oh yeah!

@LetzGetReal The existence or non existence has no effect on my life, like religion. I have bigger issues to deal with.

But according to @Amzungu ‘a post I may not be that far off
[futurism.com] (Sharing again, Aaron Freeman’s take, as they did ).

The matter/energy we are made of doesn't disappear, but scatter and become other things. But it's not in any sense "us" or consciousness. There are particles making you up that used to be part of other creatures, rocks, plants and etc too. But its not like those carbon atoms in you that used to be part of a dinosaur are still really connected to that dinosaur at all, it's more of just a fun factoid. Connecting it to superstitions/"spirituality" or such is silly. But . . . fear and ego makes us humans act pretty silly sometimes eh?

@Observer-Effect yes, I suppose so.

@girlwithsmiles No need to suppose, you can know. We humans are always learning about lots of things, but we are very good at physics. We can look at atoms, we can blow up cities with a lump of metal the size of a golf ball. And there is no question, our atoms were born in the hearts of stars and become a part of infinite objects/creatures after that. But its not really "us" anymore than the legos we took off the boat to put on the house are still part of the boat.

@Observer-Effect yes, fear and sense of self make us act pretty silly sometimes my science teacher taught me not to know anything, that knowledge is our best hypothesis at the time, it changes as we learn more
The transient ‘we’ populating the planet at any one time, being sentient, or semi sentient in some cases, lols. Suddenly the live theory that is Buddhism seems to have science on its side, if you take away the concept of soul/ reincarnation.

No shit, Sherlock. That doesn't mean a purely speculative discussion can't be had.

@Sgt_Spanky waste of time on bullshit.

And yet, during sleep, the brain activity sometimes is higher that when awake!

@Rodatheist So? Filling the gaps?

And nothing more.