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Bass
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Where do you stand on Reincarnation?
« on: 2006-09-21 21:26:09 »
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Hi, I'm just wondering what this religion and its members think or consider on an personal or general level about reincarnation I have not seen this discussed here yet I think. Is it resonable with the virtue here? or could it become scientifically possible to detect?
I see no way in which Reincarnation could be flawed... isn't it true that the basis of matter can not be destroy nor created? So when a body dies what happens to all the matter with our thoughts? Out of all the beliefs I think Reincarnation is the most logical.

there is also a bit of Evidence about reincarnation here -
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/14026696/

and here

http://www.unexplained-mysteries.com...s.php?id=75041

what say you on this?

cheers

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Re:Where do you stand on Reincarnation?
« Reply #1 on: 2006-09-21 22:15:33 »
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The links, like the idea of "reincarnation," are broken.

Which, means, that like all the other claims for "reincarnation", the evidence is simply missing. There is none which stands up to investigation. Not a single piece. Period. End of story. The idea that we are sentient is slowly developed in our brains as a combination of structural development and electrochemical charges. This takes time to develop, and the process of development is well understood. The charges  require energy to maintain. The structure is fragile. When the structure housing our brain is disrupted, or the charges within it dissipated, the mind also ceases to exist. No charge, no brain, no mind, no thoughts, no mechanism for passing anything on that was not created during the lifetime of the individual.

Which, in case you missed the point, means that it is ridiculous to attempt to assert that "reincarnation" has any likelihood at all. Period. Which means that if we wish to leave a legacy, we need to create it. If we want it to be meaningful, we have to give it meaning. If we wish to appreciate things, we should do it now, when we are alive. We have but one life. It is a great pity to waste it.

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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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Re:Where do you stand on Reincarnation?
« Reply #2 on: 2006-09-21 22:44:26 »
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Ok I will perhaps come back to some things you said there Hermit after I have understood it better, or just write something else out which doesnt explain or fit with what you said.

Sorry for the broken links, here is the evidence I was talking about from one of them

http://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/viewnews.php?id=75041
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Re:Where do you stand on Reincarnation?
« Reply #3 on: 2006-09-21 23:58:13 »
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Difficult to comment on something as far-fetched as this containing assertions about events which it is guaranteed nobody recorded at the time. The story presents no evidence that can withstand investigation. Quite naturally this doesn't mean that the story can't grow wings, just that those paying attention to it are showing that they are not terribly rational or don't know any better.

The story, due to the complete absense of any evidence other than statements by the apparently cognitively challenged parents, means we are dealing with recollections, almost certainly faulty, of what a little boy did or did not say a long time ago, and nobody can say for certain that he did not e.g. see a video program which triggered his statements, if he indeed made any statements worth noting. I consider it extremely unlikely that the parents can say precisely what he saw, or did not see, possibly at a friend or relative's house, on television, "five-and-a-half years ago." We do, however, know that human memories are not reliable, so unlike e.g. Cassie Bernall's supposed martyrdom, there is simply nothing about this to debunk.

This is not "evidence" for or against anything. It is a story that doesn't even rise to the standard of a supermarket tabloid.

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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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Re:Where do you stand on Reincarnation?
« Reply #4 on: 2006-09-22 03:36:37 »
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[Blunderov] Hello Bass.

Reincarnation is just another way of saying "life after death" it seems to me. Usually, reincarnation is asserted on the basis of testimony. Testimony is very unreliable unless correlated with a number of independent observations. Even then, it should not be relied upon unless corroborated in other ways.

In the case you have cited, it seems very likely that the parents have interpreted their son's dream in such a way as to suggest a conclusion which they might very much like to draw. And draw they do. The phrase "plane with a red sun on it" in the "Unexplained" article is a big tell here. Why not a "red circle"? Why not a "red rubber ball"? "Why not a "blood spot"? Minds with a knowledge of recent historical events are, it seems, far more likely to be in play here than the recollection of a 2.5 yr old boy.

Desperate defenders of reincarnation might say here "Why should the boy not have a recollection of the "Land of the Rising Sun"? "He is simply recalling a former life and reporting it.

Never mind evidence. This raises impossible semantic conflicts. What do we mean by "former" life? In what sense that can one life be considered different from another if it remembers what is characterised as "itself"? Either it is all the same life or it isn't.

I know you didn't mention the word "soul" in your post, but in order to sustain the idea of reincarnation, it always has to come down to a postulation that some force seperate from the body transfers itself to another body. Hermit has dealt with this from a physics point of view but another point does arise. Where do all the new souls come from? Why are there more more and more bodies stuffed full of souls every day? They cannot be recycled souls, they must be fresh ones. The system does not seem to be nearly as closed as one might expect from a simple recycling operation.

Which raises new difficulties. It seems to suggest that eventually an absurd situation will arise where an infinite number of souls are competing for a limited number of bodies. I suppose it might be argued that some sort of balance could eventually be achieved wherupon the production of new souls automatically ceases. But this would seem to suggest that all, or at least most, souls eventually would have to give up their quests because no more bodies, or space to put them in, would be available. A cosmic Ponziani scam. God grabs the midnight flight to Guatemala and is never seen again.

In the final analysis I do not see why one would want to entertain the the idea of reincarnation for any purpose other than passing amusement. Even if it were true, what possible difference could it make? You're going to land up all dressed up with nowhere to go anyway.

Best Regards.






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Re:Where do you stand on Reincarnation?
« Reply #5 on: 2006-09-22 08:57:26 »
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Quote from: Hermit on 2006-09-21 22:15:33   

......The idea that we are sentient is slowly developed in our brains as a combination of structural development and electrochemical charges...... The charges  require energy to maintain. The structure is fragile...... No charge, no brain, no mind, no thoughts, no mechanism for passing anything on that was not created during the lifetime of the individual.

......Which means that if we wish to leave a legacy, we need to create it. If we want it to be meaningful, we have to give it meaning. If we wish to appreciate things, we should do it now, when we are alive. We have but one life. It is a great pity to waste it.
You know that was really quite beautifully expressed.

I have not read the stories which were presented as "evidence" etc. I am merely answering the first question posed, namely: What do presumably various members of this congregation think of reincarnation?

Reincarnation has always struck me, as one of the most romantic afterlife memes. It somehow holds the promise of dieing and yet...not. That combined with the promise of staying right here, or perhaps more accurately returning to right here, and that's comforting isn't it? There is no fear of either a mysterious and hard to reach cuckoo cloud city in the sky, nor a burning lake of fire below. No or few worries of a purgatory or indeed any sense of non-being. You die, you come back, one way or another, period. All things dependent upon which faith you follow, there may be a chance of returning as an animal, or something karmically very different; but hey, lead a good life and perhaps you will be reunited with the people you love, and have loved, throughout all your various and sundry existences. Sorta nothing to lose really? Yay! Which also makes it that much more, intuitively, unbelievable for me. A story with a contrived, happy ending.

Point being there is a balance and perhaps beauty to the idea of reincarnation which has always appealed to me. But it is still an afterlife, dependent on the existence of a soul and the waves and currents of a  supernatural for lack of a better word off the top of my head universe, which I personally do not believe in.
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Re:Where do you stand on Reincarnation?
« Reply #6 on: 2006-09-22 11:29:38 »
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I would consider the possibility of reincarnation if someone is able to demonstrate knowledge that they could not have possibly acquired in this life time (for example an 8-year old child from Louisiana is able to read and accurately translate ancient Chinese). As far as I know this has never happened.
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Re:Where do you stand on Reincarnation?
« Reply #7 on: 2006-10-24 20:44:12 »
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Scientific data collected seems to suggest that reincarnation is a fact of life.

Dr Wambach, a psychologist, maintained a questioning attitude with respect to her study on reincarnation questioned those under hypnosis, during recollection of a given lifetime, the reasons for their deaths and their experiences. To protect the subjects from anguish and suffering, Dr. Wambach instructed them to suppress their negative feelings from that time. The subjects' experiences were very similar to the near death experiences reported by today's doctors and researchers. They left their bodies, looked down on their own bodies, saw light, and the relatives who had passed away earlier. They felt free from their worldly bonds and at the same time sad for those relatives still alive. Among all the subjects, 62% died of old age and illness, which the ancient Chinese called "died in his bed." Eighteen percent died violently during war, or some other manmade catastrophe and the remaining 20% died in accidents. Some subjects said that they already left their flesh bodies even before they were fatally injured. We found that in 1000 B.C. and A. D. twentieth century the ratio of people who died violently peaked. There seemed to be many localized battles among tribes during 1000 B.C. In the twentieth century, many died during an air attack when bombs were dropped on civilian areas. Usually, these people had died of smoke suffocation caused by the bomb. This information could easily be verified from recent historical records. Again we believe that the subjects' description was not an illusion, as not many people had been aware of this.

Here are some supporting pieces of evidence:

1) Scientific research has discovered many cases of prior life memory recollections among young children. These recalls were studied, categorized and confirmed through rigorous research.

2) Details that subjects recalled about their prior lives correspond to historical records. Furthermore, there was great consistency among prior life recollections of the same time periods and geographical areas.

3) Subjects recalled ancient languages and words that they did not learn during this lifetime. Furthermore, after the hypnotic state ended they no longer could speak or understand those languages.

4) Some subjects among relatives, friends, or even strangers, recalled the same people, events and details independently.

5) Recalling past lives' agonies and events were instrumental in addressing and often alleviating today's ills and problems, such as terror and long-time pain.

It is very difficult to explain these phenomena as illusions. But they may not be readily accepted by modern science as evidence for the concept of reincarnation.

II. Some readers from mainland China might ask: did these researchers cheat? I ask the indulgence and understanding of these researchers. China at this time is in denial about all data has not already been proven with modern science. Thus, a more detailed explanation for the Chinese reader is necessary.

1) These researchers are well known and respected in their academic fields. For example, Dr. Ian Stevenson, M.D., Professor of Research at the University of Virginia (UVA), Department of Psychiatric Medicine and Division of Personality Studies (DOPS) is prominent in his field of study, which includes the study of reincarnation. He is famous for studying past life recollections of children for more than 36 years.

2) These researchers gain nothing from fabricating such data. Publishing data on reincarnation will not get them promotions. On the contrary, publication on such controversial subjects may lead to being ostracized by their peers or it could have a negative effect on their careers.

3) Whether their data supports or denies reincarnation, their research breaks through into a previously taboo subject matter. Actually, since reincarnation is not accepted in western culture, denying reincarnation maybe more beneficial to them.

4) Many researchers are not religious believers; therefore, they don't have any intention of searching for evidence to support their religions or trying to spread their religions. Some of them were exposed to harassment from religious extremists; as western religions do not acknowledge reincarnation.

5) The information they obtained is consistent.

6) People who believe in reincarnation all know that good is rewarded with good and evil meets evil. No one dares to lie.

7) Books on reincarnation are less popular in western society. Some of the books may be difficult to obtain in bookstores. So, the motive for earning money is not there.
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Re:Where do you stand on Reincarnation?
« Reply #8 on: 2006-10-24 22:55:11 »
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Quote from: Bass on 2006-10-24 20:44:12   
Scientific data collected seems to suggest that reincarnation is a fact of life.

Dr Wambach, a psychologist,

<snip>


Data is just data. It cannot be qualified. Science is a methodology for the investigation of natural phenomena, and the scientific method assists in establising the truth values of propositions relating to natural phenomena. "Scientific data" does not exist; and reincarnation is not amenable to support from scientific research, because while scientific investigation tends to cause its rejection for lack of a mechanism, even more tellingly, there is no evidence supporting the idea that reincarnation exists. Only hearsay. And hearsay suggests that Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy are much better (more widely, more firmly) supported.

"Reincarnation" is most certainly not an evidence supported proposition, and wishing it so won't make it so. Doing research - even if so simple as googling for "Wambach debunked reincarnation" - is always sensible before making absolute statements.

Here is a relevent extract from one of the many hits returned by the above and related searches (note that they do not credit Wambach as a "psychologist", but as a "licensed hypnotherapist". There is a substantial difference. Those not convinced may find the balance of the following chapter helpful.

Hermit
Presenting Bass with a well earned virtual "I want to believe" poster.


Source: Past-Life Recall

Helen Wambach

Although she has engaged in past-life research only about half as long as Stevenson, Dr. Helen Wambach has attained an equal amount of public and scientific attention. A licensed hypnotherapist, Wambach claimed to have hypnotically regressed over two thousand subjects at the time she wrote her book Reliving Past Lives: The Evidence under Hypnosis in 1978. Her technique is quite similar to other past-life hypnotists. She often does her therapy in groups. After soliciting volunteers (usually people with more than a passing interest in reincarnation), she puts them into a hypnotic trance. Once the subjects are "under," she asks them to "go back to 1750" — or 900 or some other arbitrary date — and "describe your impressions." Sometimes she gets no response,

Page 54

in which case she tries another date. The great majority of her subjects come up with remarkably detailed descriptions of life in some previous place and time.

    In other instances, she uses the "world tour" technique: We're going to float back all around the world, back into past time. When I call out the name of a place, let the images come into your mind. An image for the Far East . . . an image for Central Asia . . . an image for Europe . . . an image for the Near East and Africa . . . or an image for North, Central or South America . . . Now choose your character.4

Obviously there is considerable suggestive give-and-take between Wambach and her patients. She sometimes prods them with verbal questions to elicit more detail, which usually has positive results. Wambach once stated that up to eighty per cent of her subjects "telepathically anticipated my questions . . . so I purposely 'ask' some questions mentally."5 In altered states of consciousness such as hypnosis, people seem to be susceptible to paranormal or telepathic communications from a variety of sources, including the spirit world or psychic realm, but the exact nature of the hypnotic state, including the sources of information which the subject recalls, is still very much an unsolved riddle.

  Needless to say, such techniques do yield a volume of detail, some mundane, some semiarcane and some interesting; much of it is charted and catalogued in her book. How does she explain it? On the record Wambach is scientific and cautious, claiming that her research does not prove reincarnation. In one TV interview she simply said, "People are actually reproducing the past. I don't know how they're doing it."6 On another occasion she speculated on the dynamics of the hypnotic state: "I think the brain is just like a receiver and it just tunes in on what 'is.' "7

  Concerning her personal belief and practice, Wambach is quite open. In her book she describes her early parapsychology experiments with surprising naiveté and candor.

Page 55

She and a group of students attempted to contact the spirit world through "table tipping," a form of seance in which the participants sit around a table and summon the presence of unseen spirits, not unlike the Ouija board. She claims that an entity calling himself "Ethan" arrived and began to demonstrate his prowess by tipping the table. According to Wambach, he virtually possessed one of the group, a girl named Anna, and spoke through her in a male voice. Despite persistent interrogation, Ethan never revealed his true identity, preferring to wax eloquent on matters of occult and gnostic philosophy. Later, Ethan or some other entity apparently possessed Wambach herself, and she began to produce automatic writings, which are common among spirit mediums. In a trance, she wrote very complex mathematical formulas of which she claimed to have no prior knowledge, and she also produced the following cryptic rendition of gnostic theology: "The God concept is on its way out in the hierarchical sense . . . Jesus tried to alter this concept . . . by this he [Jesus] meant that we were all co-creators of the universe."8

  While she explains her automatic writing as simply a natural phenomenon of tapping into some form of ethereal hidden knowledge, it is well known that automatic writing has long been associated with mediumship. Considering her admitted participation in seances in which she was the group leader, it is quite possible that Wambach is indeed a practicing medium — whether she knows it or not. Of course, this had deep implications for her work as a hypnotherapist. Having observed her firsthand as she lectured to a group of amateur parapsychologists and New Age spiritual dabblers, I can say that she is indeed a sympathizer with the growing movement of occultists, spiritists and psychics.9 Aside from her spiritual allegiance, it should also be noted that she draws a considerable portion of her income from her vested interest in reincarnation. In 1977 she charged twenty dollars per person per session, and she

Page 56

has regressed some two thousand people; she is also paid lecture honorariums and book royalties.10 While I do not intend to imply that she is financially unscrupulous, one can easily see that Wambach is not purely objective in her approach to the subject of reincarnation.

Various inconsistencies have appeared in her data and methods. While she claims that only 11 of 1,088 data sheets showed factual or historical discrepancies, she admits that she did not have the time and resources to trace many details. Another problem which she has not recognized concerns the dating procedure she uses with her subjects. For example, one of her clients claimed in a former life to be living in 2083 B.C.11 Since the subject was in a trance telling the story as if she were that person, how could she use such wording? People who lived at that time had no knowledge that they were living "before Christ," nor did they have a dating system that would reflect this. Her subjects frequently use this "B.C." terminology.

Many hypnotherapists such as Wambach claim that the phobias and neuroses of this life can be resolved by finding their source in such a past life. For example, a fear of water could be traced to a drowning experience in a previous incarnation. But this does not prove the historical reality of such a life. Wambach, a trained psychologist, admits that "it is true that people release symptoms much faster with this kind of explanation (being provided) for themselves. It is a pretty effective means of therapy, but it doesn't prove reincarnation" (emphasis mine).12 In assessing Wambach's personal spiritual experiences and allegiance as well as her techniques, one must conclude that her research is far from scientific; it cannot substantiate a belief in the validity of reincarnation.
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Re:Where do you stand on Reincarnation?
« Reply #9 on: 2006-10-26 16:33:46 »
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[Blunderov] Epigenetics may offer Bass some semblence of reincarnation. Actually, what follows is a stunning paradigm shift and may well have implications for memetics. Heritable memes seem just a bit more possible?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/tvradio/programmes/horizon/ghostgenes.shtml

The Ghost in Your Genes
The scientists who believe your genes are shaped in part by your ancestors' life experiences.

Biology stands on the brink of a shift in the understanding of inheritance. The discovery of epigenetics – hidden influences upon the genes – could affect every aspect of our lives.

At the heart of this new field is a simple but contentious idea – that genes have a 'memory'. That the lives of your grandparents – the air they breathed, the food they ate, even the things they saw – can directly affect you, decades later, despite your never experiencing these things yourself. And that what you do in your lifetime could in turn affect your grandchildren.

The conventional view is that DNA carries all our heritable information and that nothing an individual does in their lifetime will be biologically passed to their children. To many scientists, epigenetics amounts to a heresy, calling into question the accepted view of the DNA sequence – a cornerstone on which modern biology sits.

Epigenetics adds a whole new layer to genes beyond the DNA. It proposes a control system of 'switches' that turn genes on or off – and suggests that things people experience, like nutrition and stress, can control these switches and cause heritable effects in humans.

In a remote town in northern Sweden there is evidence for this radical idea. Lying in Överkalix's parish registries of births and deaths and its detailed harvest records is a secret that confounds traditional scientific thinking. Marcus Pembrey, a Professor of Clinical Genetics at the Institute of Child Health in London, in collaboration with Swedish researcher Lars Olov Bygren, has found evidence in these records of an environmental effect being passed down the generations. They have shown that a famine at critical times in the lives of the grandparents can affect the life expectancy of the grandchildren. This is the first evidence that an environmental effect can be inherited in humans.

In other independent groups around the world, the first hints that there is more to inheritance than just the genes are coming to light. The mechanism by which this extraordinary discovery can be explained is starting to be revealed.

Professor Wolf Reik, at the Babraham Institute in Cambridge, has spent years studying this hidden ghost world. He has found that merely manipulating mice embryos is enough to set off 'switches' that turn genes on or off.

For mothers like Stephanie Mullins, who had her first child by in vitro fertilisation, this has profound implications. It means it is possible that the IVF procedure caused her son Ciaran to be born with Beckwith-Wiedemann Syndrome – a rare disorder linked to abnormal gene expression. It has been shown that babies conceived by IVF have a three- to four-fold increased chance of developing this condition.

And Reik's work has gone further, showing that these switches themselves can be inherited. This means that a 'memory' of an event could be passed through generations. A simple environmental effect could switch genes on or off – and this change could be inherited.

His research has demonstrated that genes and the environment are not mutually exclusive but are inextricably intertwined, one affecting the other.

The idea that inheritance is not just about which genes you inherit but whether these are switched on or off is a whole new frontier in biology. It raises questions with huge implications, and means the search will be on to find what sort of environmental effects can affect these switches.

After the tragic events of September 11th 2001, Rachel Yehuda, a psychologist at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, studied the effects of stress on a group of women who were inside or near the World Trade Center and were pregnant at the time. Produced in conjunction with Jonathan Seckl, an Edinburgh doctor, her results suggest that stress effects can pass down generations. Meanwhile research at Washington State University points to toxic effects – like exposure to fungicides or pesticides – causing biological changes in rats that persist for at least four generations.

This work is at the forefront of a paradigm shift in scientific thinking. It will change the way the causes of disease are viewed, as well as the importance of lifestyles and family relationships. What people do no longer just affects themselves, but can determine the health of their children and grandchildren in decades to come. "We are," as Marcus Pembrey says, "all guardians of our genome."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epigenetics

Epigenetics is the study of epigenetic inheritance, a set of reversible heritable changes in gene function or other cell phenotype that occur without a change in DNA sequence (genotype). These changes may be induced spontaneously, in response to environmental factors, or in response to the presence of a particular allele, even if it is absent from subsequent generations.




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