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bjones
Skeptic Friend
Australia
82 Posts |
 Posted - 08/24/2001 : 16:36:47
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I can never be absolutely sure if reincarnation is true or not as science has yet never proved not nor disproved it and I think there will always be a mutual burden of proof amongst believers and disbelievers alike. Maybe if we learn enough about life we may discover that we can only live one possible life. Or maybe we emerge from protein or genetic data and when we die those information processes that booted out sense of self into existence will become emulated by another brain. who knows information has no boundaries???
I do find it a total nonsense that anyone can possibly remember anything of a previous life, and usually when they do it is more like to be a member a the British royal family than a Welsh coal miner. Or even a Russian Tsar rather than say a private in the Russian army, and when they make these claims they cannot speak a word of Russian. Surely they can remember the language of the previous life.
If the name everyone that ever lived or will live was written on a token any put in a giant barrel and the barrel was turned many times then you put you arm in to pull one token out. Then if your very very lucky you could pull the very one out the Napoleon Bonaparte's name written on it, but you are much more likely to one of his thousands of underlings who died on the battle field.
 Bob
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@tomic
Administrator
USA
4607 Posts |
Posted - 08/24/2001 : 16:49:14 [Permalink]
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Reincarnation? I won't believe a word of it until I see [i[anything[/i] proofwise that supports it.
I have heard claims of people going into hypnosis and back to the personality of a previous life and speaking the language that that person spoke. But these reports always turn out to be claims with no proof like, say, a tape recording. How fricken hard should a tape be to produce
 @tomic
Gravity, not just a good idea...it's the law! |
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bjones
Skeptic Friend
Australia
82 Posts |
Posted - 08/24/2001 : 17:22:03 [Permalink]
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quote:
Reincarnation? I won't believe a word of it until I see [i[anything[/i] proofwise that supports it.
I have heard claims of people going into hypnosis and back to the personality of a previous life and speaking the language that that person spoke. But these reports always turn out to be claims with no proof like, say, a tape recording. How fricken hard should a tape be to produce
@tomic
Gravity, not just a good idea...it's the law!
I feel the best argument for reincarnation is the fact that we were born at all in the first place. If you wound the clock back say 200 years then what are the chances you being born at all? Very Very slim I should think. I do not believe in God and as such I do not believe in Divine intervention, so I simply cannot use Divine intervention as an explanation for why we were born at all in the first place as the church does. I believe we happened naturally and if it can happen naturally it can happen again. Even if those chances are very very slim.
Being born again in successive lifetimes is of course less credible belief there is another form that done not require that. I may be drawing a long bow here, but there is one for of reincarnation that may well have some credence. Like have a certain head of hair, then is that the same head of hair I had five years ago even my bones are under a continuous state of flux and are totally replaced every 2 years. Now neural stem cells have been identified to replace the tired old neurons in our brains in the hippocampus and even the frontal lobe so it may seem as though we are totally “reincarnated” every two years or so, with only your tattoos (if you are silly enough to have any) remaining.
Bob
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Slater
SFN Regular
USA
1668 Posts |
Posted - 08/24/2001 : 18:16:40 [Permalink]
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Okay Bob--A.K.A.- Gwydion of Astolat, I've been waiting for you to show up. Where are those fifty ducets I lent you on Saint Elmos day in 1123?
Wait a minute while I figure out the compound intrest and exchange rates...
Oh yeah, and what ever happen to my pig?
(Glad to see you finally got over the Black Death)
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The brain that was stolen from my laboratory was a criminal brain. Only evil will come from it. |
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bjones
Skeptic Friend
Australia
82 Posts |
Posted - 08/24/2001 : 18:29:14 [Permalink]
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quote:
Okay Bob--A.K.A.- Gwydion of Astolat, I've been waiting for you to show up. Where are those fifty ducets I lent you on Saint Elmos day in 1123?
Wait a minute while I figure out the compound intrest and exchange rates...
Oh yeah, and what ever happen to my pig?
(Glad to see you finally got over the Black Death)
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The brain that was stolen from my laboratory was a criminal brain. Only evil will come from it.
Unfortuneatly the money markets have really dumped the ducet and ducets are not worth a red cent now
Bob 
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@tomic
Administrator
USA
4607 Posts |
Posted - 08/24/2001 : 18:40:12 [Permalink]
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You are going to have to explain to me just what you mean by being replaced. Did it ever occur to you that the raplacement is not all at once and is not a perfect replacement in any case. You may have noticed that people get old? At least where i am from they do....
@tomic
Gravity, not just a good idea...it's the law! |
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bjones
Skeptic Friend
Australia
82 Posts |
Posted - 08/24/2001 : 20:25:27 [Permalink]
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quote:
You are going to have to explain to me just what you mean by being replaced. Did it ever occur to you that the raplacement is not all at once and is not a perfect replacement in any case. You may have noticed that people get old? At least where i am from they do....
@tomic
Gravity, not just a good idea...it's the law!
Imagine a busy bricklayer or carpenter replacing the earliest brick or board in you house with a new one more or less the same. Eventually your house's original material replaced and you would be living in to totally different house.
As you mentioned old people actually their bones are replaced in the space of just a year not the usual two years for a twenty year old, so the atomic material in their bodies is actually paradoxically younger than a young person's.
Bob
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James
SFN Regular
USA
754 Posts |
Posted - 08/24/2001 : 20:30:00 [Permalink]
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quote:
As you mentioned old people actually their bones are replaced in the space of just a year not the usual two years for a twenty year old, so the atomic material in their bodies is actually paradoxically younger than a young person's.
This sounds about as bad as a time travel paradox. IOW, a very easy headache.
The way I see it, christians are godless too...they just don't know it yet. |
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rickm
Skeptic Friend
Canada
109 Posts |
Posted - 08/24/2001 : 20:42:29 [Permalink]
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Reincarnation much like christianity, in that, the belief that life will continue after death, shows that most humans place an importance upon themselves that would warrant them, eternal existence, because they can not accept their deaths as being final.
"Yesterday someone broke into my house and replaced everything with an exact replica."
(Steven Wright)
"What would chairs look like if our knees bent the other way" |
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bjones
Skeptic Friend
Australia
82 Posts |
Posted - 08/24/2001 : 21:03:38 [Permalink]
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I find in my experience that those who believe that they were someone famous in a previous life are more often than not someone rather humble in this life. In short just only believe they somebody in a previous life because they are a nobody in this one. Usually it a hero and I have never heard anyone being claiming they were mass murderer or drug trafficker in a previous life.
Are the believers of past live memories just filling in the failures of their life just to make them feel good.
BobI find in my experience that those who believe that they were someone famous in a previous life are more often than not someone rather humble in this life. In short just only believe they somebody in a previous life because they are a nobody in this one. Usually it a hero and I have never heard anyone being claiming they were mass murderer or drug trafficker in a previous life.
Are the believers of past live memories just filling in the failures of their life just to make them feel good.
BobI find in my experience that those who believe that they were someone famous in a previous life are more often than not someone rather humble in this life. In short just only believe they somebody in a previous life because they are a nobody in this one. Usually it a hero and I have never heard anyone being claiming they were mass murderer or drug trafficker in a previous life.
Are the believers of past live memories just filling in the failures of their life just to make them feel good.
Bob
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bjones
Skeptic Friend
Australia
82 Posts |
Posted - 08/24/2001 : 21:15:14 [Permalink]
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quote:
"What would chairs look like if our knees bent the other way"
Well, that would make it very difficult to watch TV.
Bob
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Dog_Ed
Skeptic Friend
USA
126 Posts |
Posted - 08/24/2001 : 22:05:03 [Permalink]
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In order to make reincarnation plausible you have to preserve the personality and memories of people after they have died, and pass these on to other people before they are born. How could that be done without resorting to supernatural means--ie ghosts and spirits?
We know that personality and memory reside in the brain. People who suffer brain damage often exhibit personality changes and memory loss or dysfunction--stroke victims often have trouble with memory, as do those whose brains are afflicted with the hardened plaque characterizing Alzheimer's Disease.
Conversely, a human's brain begins as a few cells in an embryo. What physical mechanism could possibly preserve a mind after it's host brain has died and disintegrated, and then insert it into a brain residing in the womb of a woman?
Can't do it with light rays. Can't do it with electrons. Can't do it with magnetism, or neutrinos, or the weak force, or gravity. There is no known force or material which preserves the mind after death. That is why I dismiss reincarnation as superstition--it can only happen with smoke and mirrors!
"Even Einstein put his foot in it sometimes" |
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comradebillyboy
Skeptic Friend
USA
188 Posts |
Posted - 08/24/2001 : 22:52:53 [Permalink]
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past life regression? how come no one ever admits to being a pesant or serf or slave, that is the 90+% of the population in the good old days? are only upper class types reincarnated?
the whole idea of reincarnation seems absurd. but if shirly mclain says its true, it must be so. if you can't believe a celebrity, who can you believe.
comrade billyboy |
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Antie
Skeptic Friend
USA
101 Posts |
Posted - 08/25/2001 : 07:24:21 [Permalink]
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I can never be absolutely sure if reincarnation is true or not as science has yet never proved not nor disproved it and I think there will always be a mutual burden of proof amongst believers and disbelievers alike.
If one doesn't make a claim, the burden of proof doesn't rest on him or her. All he or she has to do is smile, question, and listen.
Ian Andreas Miller. My site. |
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13477 Posts |
Posted - 08/25/2001 : 11:21:27 [Permalink]
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I doubt that there are odds on being born at all. Being born a human, however, is like hitting the jackpot as far as life on earth goes. Given the number and variety of species on this planet, and, well, let me put it this way. I'm sure the chances of being born a nematode are far greater than those of being born human. (Actually, once born the chance for either is probably100%.)
Since we have already hit the jackpot we should make the best of what time we have. Spending that time wondering if we, by way of reincarnation, get more time, is a waste of time in my opinion. Since I strongly doubt reincarnation, and it resides in an area that can't be falsified, even spending time looking for reasons to not rule it out is probably giving it more time than it deserves.
My metaphysics professor really didn't like me.
The Evil Skeptic
Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous. |
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Tokyodreamer
SFN Regular
USA
1447 Posts |
Posted - 08/25/2001 : 12:29:17 [Permalink]
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This whole "chance of being born" concept really feels wrong to me.
Is there really any meaning at all in talking about "the chances of being born human"? This seems to assume that our "personality", "soul", "spirit", "ethereal self", etc., somehow exists before being born, and there is some big cosmis Wheel of Fortune that gets spun, to determine what physical vehicle our "souls" get born into. Does anyone here really think there is a one-and-however-many-species-of-living-organic-forms-there-are chance at being born as a certain species?
That's real kooky... 
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Hope springs eternal but there's no conviction
Actions mistaken for lip service paid
All this concern is the true contradiction
The world is insane... |
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