Reincarnation

I promised myself I wouldn't get involved on this thread and I won't. I just want to say this last post from Bob is getting dangerously close to the evil underbelly of an idea like reincarnation. If someone is a criminal it is in their nature, they can't change it and they therefore don't deserve the same treatment as those whose nature is to be kind. This is the disgusting idea behind the caste system. If someone is poor it is because they must have been a bad person in a previous life and therefore we should treat them as such. One can even justify their mistreatment by saying they deserve this punishment and if they behave and accept it then in the next life they will rise in the caste system. If someone begins to argue that a person is born with the nature to crumble when adversity comes we treat them like that and never give the person a chance. That is a poor way to treat someone and the same mentality can be used to treat any group of people you don't like as incorrigible and to assume they will never change because it is in their nature.

Quote: FrGamble

If someone is a criminal it is in their nature, they can't change it .

Poppycock, of course they can change it.
How do you think it got there in the first
place. History is full of people who not
only changed, they went on to become
monks and priests and holy men, doing
nothing but helping other people.

The caste system is just another religious
idea to keep the people who have power, in power.
It works well, just like the Catholics
institutionalizing guilt to keep it's members
in line. Every individual is different, with
a different path. We at all times can choose what
our actions will be, and the kind of person
we'll become. God or rebirth or Jesus has nothing
to do with it.

Why are you so afraid of this thread, that you had
to promise yourself to stay out of it. Do you ever
wonder what compelled you to become a priest?
What were you like in a previous life that made
you choose this path. I know, I know, god told you
to do it. I mean the real reason, not the one
that blames god for everything.

I was Pope John XXIII in a previous life.

Quote: FrGamble

I was Pope John XXIII in a previous life.

I'd say I was Cleopatra in a previous life, but that presents two problems:

1) Many contemporaries would claim the same thing; and that's a lot of phonies ;)

2) Cleopatra claimed to be the (re)incarnation of the Goddess Ist (Isis to some). Since there's no way my past self lied about something like that, then that should mean I really am a powerful deity. That's a problem because that would mean I don't exist ;)

If people are getting their nature from past lives, or reincarnating, and the world population is growing, where are the extra personalities coming from?

Quote: Dalex64

If people are getting their nature from past lives, or reincarnating, and the world population is growing, where are the extra personalities coming from?

Clonincarnation?

Quote: FrGamble

I was Pope John XXIII in a previous life.

In all the research so far, they've never
run across anybody who was famous
in a previous life. I would say your claim
is not true, you would have a had an
urge to join the Church at a much earlier
age if it was.

This new knowledge about reincarnation
is just a sign of the times. Kids have told
parents they remember things since time
began, but they don't do it for long and
the parents had better things to do than
listen to the babblings of a 3 yr old. As
time went on, more people got connected
with mail and phones, and now the internet.

It's much easier to find people who have
these kids now, and far far easier to prove
that the kids are correct. I predict this will
become a well accepted fact as time goes
on, just like most scientific discoveries do.
If you were to show a priest from 1500 an MRI
machine, he would think it was the best
example of evil witchcraft he'd ever seen.
Yet today's priest accepts modern medicine
completely because it's validity has been
shown to be undeniable.

This will happen with reincarnation research,
it's inevitable.

I first started hearing bout this in studying
Eastern religions in the early 70's. It always
bothered me that life seemed so unfair.
People born with devastating abnormalities
or fatal diseases, what was fair about that.
Reincarnation would go a long way in
explaining why life seemed unfair, because
it really wasn't. That was just the luck of
the draw this time for some people.
Rockefellers son or a leper with no fingers.

I always considered reincarnation a possibility,
and now that there is strong evidence pointing
in that direction, there's a good chance of it
being a reality.

Reincarnation is no more than a pleasant fantasy, like heaven, people like to believe. But it can be made interesting.

I highly recommend a story by H. Beam Piper, a much underrated writer of the Golden age of Science Fiction era (ie the Campbell era). it's called "The Last Enemy," it can be found for sure in Piper's collected "The Complete Paratime" which has other interesting stories.

"The Last Enemy" deals with an alternate timeline where reincarnation is proven to be real. It starts with an experiment (not a rigorous one) to prove an aspect of reincarnation. It ends with a, well, that would be a spoiler. This has all kinds of interesting implications, surprisingly, but logically, so, in politics. Piper tends towards what today we'd call the Libertarian view, which gives him license to soundly thrash left and right.

I also recommend Piper's other stories and two novellas (novels? It's hard to say when reading in e-book form) about the "Little Fuzzies."

Quote: Nareed

Reincarnation is no more than a pleasant fantasy,

So you can debunk all of Dr Stevensons, and others,
work of the last 50 years. Of course you can't, you
just dismiss it because it doesn't fit your worldview.