Reincarnation

[jarofthoughts]

I don't necessarily think we're in complete disagreement, here. I just don't necessarily think that all people who make claims about reality MUST adhere to the scientific method. (After all, sometimes such people make for GREAT entertainment. ^_^) After all, sometimes things just need to be taken with a grain of salt before the truth can be found, at least for now. The scientific method is great for determining reality because its cautious, which is great 99% of the time(I'm talking about caution, not the method). However, there is that 1% of the time where caution can be detrimental to progress, and a leap of faith must be made to go forward. For the individual on a spiritual journey, that leap must be taken.

Skipping ahead a bit (and thus not answering all parts of your post individually) I agree that we probably are more in agreement than in disagreement.
There are, however, two issues on which we diverge, issues that are related, at least for me.
I am rather adamant in that I only accept as a part of reality those things that we have empirical, objective and scientific evidence for.
That, of course, extends to my own subjective perceptions, at least as far as possible. Thus I have, in previous discussions with theists, been asked the question of how I would handle it if I had a personal religious experience, say, an angelic visitation or the witnessing of a miracle, to which I've submitted that the logical conclusion is that I've been hallucinating or gone mad, considering that what I've experienced contradicts what we know reality to be.

Thus it is, in fact, my opinion that every claim that aims to define reality and our view of it must adhere to the scientific method or, again in my opinion, be considered void and invalid. I appreciate that not everyone agrees with me on this, but then again, what a boring place the world would be if everyone agreed on everything.
Still, I hope this goes some way to explain my constant request for evidence and sources for each and every claim people make. Hopefully my choice of title can act as a fair warning in that regard.

And so we come to the other issue on which we disagree, the matter of the spirit. Being consistent in my approach I cannot accept that 'sages' are wise in the ways of the spirit seeing as there is no evidence that anything like the spirit even exists. Consequently I do not accept their authority on the matter since, for me, the matter is in and of itself non-existent.

I hope this does not offend anyone, as that is not my intention, but rather to clarify my views on the matter, and to make things easier for those engaging in discussions with me, by firmly and adamantly state that unless they have solid empirical, objective or scientific evidence for their claims, said claims will be dismissed out of hand.

 

[Riverwolf]

Skipping ahead a bit (and thus not answering all parts of your post individually) I agree that we probably are more in agreement than in disagreement.
There are, however, two issues on which we diverge, issues that are related, at least for me.
I am rather adamant in that I only accept as a part of reality those things that we have empirical, objective and scientific evidence for.
That, of course, extends to my own subjective perceptions, at least as far as possible. Thus I have, in previous discussions with theists, been asked the question of how I would handle it if I had a personal religious experience, say, an angelic visitation or the witnessing of a miracle, to which I've submitted that the logical conclusion is that I've been hallucinating or gone mad, considering that what I've experienced contradicts what we know reality to be.

Thus it is, in fact, my opinion that every claim that aims to define reality and our view of it must adhere to the scientific method or, again in my opinion, be considered void and invalid. I appreciate that not everyone agrees with me on this, but then again, what a boring place the world would be if everyone agreed on everything.
Still, I hope this goes some way to explain my constant request for evidence and sources for each and every claim people make. Hopefully my choice of title can act as a fair warning in that regard.

And so we come to the other issue on which we disagree, the matter of the spirit. Being consistent in my approach I cannot accept that 'sages' are wise in the ways of the spirit seeing as there is no evidence that anything like the spirit even exists. Consequently I do not accept their authority on the matter since, for me, the matter is in and of itself non-existent.

Clarification: by "spirit", I don't necessarily mean what is often referred to as the soul. I mean "spirit" as the synonym of "attitude", "viewpoint", "resolve", etc.

I hope this does not offend anyone, as that is not my intention, but rather to clarify my views on the matter, and to make things easier for those engaging in discussions with me, by firmly and adamantly state that unless they have solid empirical, objective or scientific evidence for their claims, said claims will be dismissed out of hand.

As they should be by people who think in such a way. ^_^

 

[jarofthoughts]

Clarification: by "spirit", I don't necessarily mean what is often referred to as the soul. I mean "spirit" as the synonym of "attitude", "viewpoint", "resolve", etc.

Ah! I misunderstood you then.
My apologies.
That is an understanding of the word 'spirit' I can relate to, as well as the definition of spirituality that encompasses 'awe and admiration for the beauty of nature', a notion I very much share.

 

[atanu]

Really?
About 18 months ago I nearly died, ending up in a coma for about a week.
When I emerged from that coma I had some really vivid hallucinations that I KNOW logically was hallucinations. And yet, they were vivid enough at the time that they were, to me, completely indistinguishable from reality.

Trust me, I know both first hand, and from the scientific literature, that the mind is VERY capable of fooling us.

Very true. Unfortunately that is why one set of representation, through sensual apparatus seems to be reality, and another representation an illusion.

The reality is different from both types of representations.

 

[Otherright]

I'd like to do an unofficial poll of my fellow believers in reincarnation.

Do you believe that
1) The personality is simply transported to a new body, or
2) the personality is at least in part mortal?

Follow up questions, based on your answer to the above:
1) If that's the case, why doesn't everyone remember their past lives in detail?
2) What precisely goes on to the new life?

Will answer myself once I've gotten a few responses.

No, the personality dies with the body, as does the memories of the brain that belonged to that body. Why some children have some memories that carry on is unknown, but they forget by the age of 5-7. Adults are incapable of remembering. Past life regression in adults is a farce.

What continues on is the "stream of consciousness", the egoless self.

 

[Otherright]

I believe the personality is the ego and is transported from physical body to astral body and back until the ego is merged with the omnipresent divine consciousness. Once that happens we express God in our own way, just as Jesus and the many other saints do in their own way. Personality is immortal because it is ever changing. The ego is never really lost, it just becomes purified and expands.


This was God's plan because he allows everyone the free will to live how they desire. If everyone saw that their soul lives a string of lives they would immediately go into depression and wouldn't be able to live with their past actions and constant repetitive mistakes. We would become drossy knowing that our soul is very old and has lived this very same life the same way over and over again. Therefore God allows us to have a clean slate.



Everything but the physical body. The astral body is the next sheath below the physical body. This astral body carries the 30 cross currents of ego. Where we get our personality and karma from. The difference in the astral world and this physical world is everything is composed of free flowing light. It is less confined and not stagnant light. Therefore we are disease free and can materialize anything we want with light. We can also talk telepathically and travel on waves light from one astral sphere to the next. This astral life is much longer than a physical life, but eventually if we are not God realized and have desires we must reincarnate to a physical body that runs in line with our karma. Our memory is then wiped clean and we start over hoping to finally figure out this riddle of life, death and rebirth. Through soul intuition and God guidance we will eventually figure out that the goal of life is not to feed into our earthly desires but to merge once again with the divine consciousness which is God. This bliss within ourselves is the heaven we all must find eventually. Then and only then will we absorb all of our desires in the sea of bliss that is in God's presence and never have to reincarnate to a disease riddled and suffering causing planet. Your soul will be free at last.

This is a more Kabbalistic view of reincarnation, isn't it? Where there are 613 problems, each based on the Mitzvah found in the Old Testament.

 

[Otherright]

In order for reincarnation to be even worth considering, you'd have to be able to support dualism in some way. AFAIK, there is no evidence for such an idea, automatically ruling reincarnation out.

"During the classical era of Buddhist philosophy in India, philosophers such as Dharmakirti argue for a dualism between states of consciousness and Buddhist atoms (the basic building blocks that make up reality), according to "the standard interpretation" of Dharmakirti's Buddhist metaphysics.[8] Typically in Western philosophy, dualism is considered to be a dualism between mind (nonphysical) and brain (physical), which ultimately involves mind interacting with the physical brain, and therefore also interacting with the micro-particles (basic building blocks) that make up the brain tissue. Buddhist dualism, in Dharmakirti’s sense, is different in that it is not a dualism between the mind and brain, but rather between states of consciousness (nonphysical) and basic building blocks (according to the Buddhist atomism of Dharmakirti, Buddhist atoms are also nonphysical: they are unstructured points of energy). Like so many Buddhists from 600-1000 CE, Dharmakirti’s philosophy involved mereological nihilism, meaning that other than states of consciousness, the only things that exist are momentary quantum particles, much like the particles of quantum physics (quarks, electrons, etc.)."

 

[Otherright]

I'm afraid science can't take these into account, because the only indications of these things are anecdotal, which science can't accept as evidence.

Sucks, yes, but that's how science must operate.

Two points here. First, science is way too presumptive in what it thinks is going on in most cases. You have to remember, science once told us frogs came from mud, or the 19th century very heated debates over meteorites. "Stones don't fall from the sky, as there are no stones in the sky."

Putting too much stock in the science of the now is very much faith-based as science is in constant revision of its self. If your now known truth is under the scrutiny of revision, well, do you really know the truth?

The Peltzgeld experiment and a few others like it can facilitate an OBE. One variation, utilizing electromagnetism, is very successful in doing so.

I think the most scientifically controlled example of an OBE is the case of Pam Reynolds.

 

[arun]

A Scientist's views on paranormal phenomena:

[youtube]frJpThIims8[/youtube]

 

[jarofthoughts]

Very true. Unfortunately that is why one set of representation, through sensual apparatus seems to be reality, and another representation an illusion.

The reality is different from both types of representations.

I don't have any particular problem with any of the above.
We know full well that the world is more than we can see with our bare eyes.
Which is why we have invented various instruments and types of technology to remedy that problem.

 

[jarofthoughts]

A Scientist's views on paranormal phenomena:

[youtube]frJpThIims8[/youtube]

You should read this: http://www.imprint.co.uk/Editorial12_6.pdf
Sheldrake's notions of 'morphic fields has no basis in evidence and is widely considered pseudoscience, whether he used to be respected biologist or not.

 

[jarofthoughts]

Two points here. First, science is way too presumptive in what it thinks is going on in most cases. You have to remember, science once told us frogs came from mud, or the 19th century very heated debates over meteorites. "Stones don't fall from the sky, as there are no stones in the sky."

Putting too much stock in the science of the now is very much faith-based as science is in constant revision of its self. If your now known truth is under the scrutiny of revision, well, do you really know the truth?

Science does not deal in absolute truths, Only religion does that, and oh has it ever been wrong.
All conclusions in science are, to one degree or another, provisional and conditional.
Sure, the degree might be very small, but it will never reach a full 0%.
We know this. This is not news. We are well aware that we don't know everything, and that today's facts and open to change.
This is, in fact, not a weakness, but rather one of science's greatest strengths, making sure that we continually improve our knowledge about the universe.
As for the various religions, well, they are still struggling to find evidence for their central claims, and they have shown themselves to be rather useless when it comes to describing the universe.

 

[PolyHedral]

You should read this: http://www.imprint.co.uk/Editorial12_6.pdf
Sheldrake's notions of 'morphic fields has no basis in evidence and is widely considered pseudoscience, whether he used to be respected biologist or not.

Wait, morphic fields are a serious concept? I thought Pratchett invented it for a fantasy magic system.

 

[jarofthoughts]

Wait, morphic fields are a serious concept? I thought Pratchett invented it for a fantasy magic system.

Well, yes.
I'm sorry.

 

[arun]

You should read this: http://www.imprint.co.uk/Editorial12_6.pdf
Sheldrake's notions of 'morphic fields has no basis in evidence and is widely considered pseudoscience, whether he used to be respected biologist or not.

I don't think he is lying.
anyway you should watch the video from 30:05 mark where he talks about 'Scole experiment'

 

[jarofthoughts]

I don't think he is lying.
anyway you should watch the video from 30:05 mark where he talks about 'Scole experiment'

The experiment he himself admits had severe limitations and produced nothing in the form of evidence, but rather that the floating lights baffled him because, and I quote, "he couldn't understand where was coming from"?

Please...

James Randi eats guys like this for breakfast...

He may well believe what he is saying himself, thus ruling out lying, but that hardly means that he is right.

 

[Riverwolf]

Two points here. First, science is way too presumptive in what it thinks is going on in most cases. You have to remember, science once told us frogs came from mud, or the 19th century very heated debates over meteorites. "Stones don't fall from the sky, as there are no stones in the sky."

Putting too much stock in the science of the now is very much faith-based as science is in constant revision of its self. If your now known truth is under the scrutiny of revision, well, do you really know the truth?

Nope, and science does not claim to, either. Science is not about knowing truth; it's about searching for truth.

 

[Riverwolf]

This is a more Kabbalistic view of reincarnation, isn't it? Where there are 613 problems, each based on the Mitzvah found in the Old Testament.

It's Yoga, actually.

 

[LuisDantas]

I don't think he is lying.

I don't either. But that falls way short of actually finding his claims believable or well-demonstrated. Many people make absurd, unrealistic claims and swear, even sincerely, to have scientific proof of them despite not really having them. Particularly in this field. Brazil has a dime a dozen of them.

 

[arun]

The experiment he himself admits had severe limitations and produced nothing in the form of evidence, but rather that the floating lights baffled him because, and I quote, "he couldn't understand where was coming from"?

Please...

James Randi eats guys like this for breakfast...

He may well believe what he is saying himself, thus ruling out lying, but that hardly means that he is right.

The experiment had limitations because it was conducted in darkness. but he didn't say that it produced no evidence.He admits that what he saw was difficult to be called as magic tricks.

excerpt from VICTOR ZAMMIT -- The Book - 3. My sensational materialization Experiences :

" The séance experiment

The séance experiment took place in total darkness. This is because ectoplasm--a whitish gaseous substance which is taken from the medium and used by the spirits to make themselves visible--is extremely sensitive to light and to other forms of physical energy such as electricity . "


excerpt from VICTOR ZAMMIT -- The Book - 8. Scole Experiment proves the afterlife :

" Scole Experiment proves the afterlife

“ For the open-minded skeptic, the evidence collected over a period of six years and with more than five hundred sittings by the Scole experimenters and the afterlife team is absolute, definitive, irrefutable and irretrievably proven. Many regard the Scole experiment as the greatest recent afterlife experiment conducted in the Western world.”
Victor Zammit

​

The Scole Experiment was a recent example of physical mediumship and materialization which are dealt with in more detail later in the book in Chap. 10. It is a very well documented current experiment, witnessed by a number of people of the highest credibility many of who are still very much alive.

When Skeptics attack the evidence for the afterlife you will find that they are all strangely silent about the Scole experiments. While they theorise about how physical mediums could have cheated not one of them has offered to conduct even one demonstration to produce even a fraction of the phenomena that these wonderful experiments produced on a weekly basis for over six years in several different countries under the strictest scrutiny in premises that were often assigned to the group on short notice.

Six years of experiments
Scole is a village in Norfolk, England. Using it as a base, several experimenters of the Scole Group, including mediums Robin and Sandra Foy and Alan and Diana Bennett, (pictured below) produced brilliant evidence for the afterlife in experiments conducted in England, the United States, Ireland and in Spain

Senior scientists and investigators who participated in the Scole Experiment included Professors David Fontana and Arthur Ellison and Montague Keen. Of course, over the six years there were many others who attended as senior scientists and guests in the actual experiments: Dr Hans Schaer, a lawyer; Dr Ernst Senkowski; Piers Eggett; Keith McQuin Roberts; Dr Rupert Sheldrake; Professor Ivor Grattan-Guiness all with scientific or other relevant background and host of other highly credible witnesses who have had years of experience in dealing with the paranormal.

NASA scientists involved
In the United States sessions were also attended by a number of scientists including a number of senior scientists from the space agency NASA and others from the Institute of Noetic Sciences near San Francisco as well as representatives from Stanford University. Grant and Jane Solomon who wrote a book on the experiments report that after the experiments some fifteen scientists from the NASA group formed their own psychic group to continue to communicate with the afterlife entities (Solomon 1999:73 and 189).

A master magician’s testimony
Skeptics may argue that such effects could be produced by stage magicians using long hollow strands of fibreglass with laser lights projected through them. This option was certainly considered by James Webster, a professional stage-magician and former member of the Magic Circle, who has more than fifty years experience in psychic research. On three occasions he attended sittings with the Scole group and published reports.

His conclusion was clearly set out in a recent letter to the English newspaper, Psychic World (June 2001):

I discovered no signs of trickery, and in my opinion such conjuring tricks were not possible, for the type of phenomena witnessed, under the conditions applied…. "