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Originally posted by Deetermined
reply to post by Taunos
Do you care to share any of your own personal experiences with us?
Who are you in this life and what are you here to accomplish?
Originally posted by Deetermined
reply to post by windword
I haven't achieved my goal yet. That goal, I believe, is to remember who I am. Or, for Adjensen, let me put it in a way that would meet his expectation of what reincarnation should be:
To encompass the accumulated memory of my challenges and battles, victories and treasures of experience and the love that I gave and received, and all that I learned about myself, and therefore God.
When I have that, I'll be done with this journey, and on to another one. After all, eternity is a long, long time.
Just so I understand what you're saying, there is no greater purpose for these lives other than an eternity of experiences to discover new things about yourself and the universe around you (which is part of yourself)?
After all of the lives you've lived, what do you still consider your greatest weaknesses?
If you read the page that I cited, which apparently you didn't, you'd see that it's an atheist's argument, predicated on science, not a Christian one based on theology. When I said I'm not basing my objections on Christianity, I mean it -- no, reincarnation is not a part of Christianity, but neither is evolution, and I believe in that, and neither is the prospect of extraterrestrial life, and I think that possible.
I'm not some "cookie cutter" Christian or the modern day equivalent of your mother and whatever goofy preacher she followed that believed that a kid who thought she was reincarnated needed an exorcism (aside: I assume that wasn't a Catholic exorcism -- that requires a priest with the permission of Bishop, which wouldn't have been granted in your case, because you clearly weren't "possessed.") My views on God and Christianity are significantly different from most peoples', so please stop painting me with a brush that you reserve for fundamentalists, Pentecostals and other people that you've put into a stereotyped box in your mind.
Science can't prove the supernatural, no, that's beyond its scope. But it can disprove it by demonstrating the natural explanation for something that's claimed to be supernatural, and so far as I've seen, that's generally been the case.
Again, if reincarnation is real, there should be millions of people who experience it, and yet we have a veritable handful of claims, and those which are investigated, scientifically, rather than superficially, are shown to have, at best, the potential for cultural contamination, meaning that they are useless for scientifically demonstrating that reincarnation is real.
Your expectation that reincarnation should present accumulated memory, on demand, is YOUR expectation and not a premise of the philosophy and theology behind it.
Yes, it is, and if you go back and read through this thread, I never demanded that anyone agree with me. You believe in it, that's fine, but if you can't answer the question of how anyone is supposed to benefit, improve or grow without accumulated memory, then my objection still stands as a valid one.
I wonder if some of the Christians that are posting their belief that demons are responsible for past life memories would take their child to a preacher for some sort of exorcism too.
Originally posted by windword
Science can't prove the existence of the soul, which is believed to be supernatural. That doesn't mean that the soul doesn't exist or that it didn't pre-exist.
For the few people, in modern times, that publicly announce their memories, and trot their kids out publicly for scrutiny, there are thousands who keep their revelations privately to themselves.
Your question has been answered, but you choose to reject the answer. In the philosophy and theology of reincarnation, the veil of forgetfulness, is a necessary part of re-birth.
Originally posted by adjensen
Originally posted by windword
Science can't prove the existence of the soul, which is believed to be supernatural. That doesn't mean that the soul doesn't exist or that it didn't pre-exist.
Actually, there are those who figure that the soul is natural, not supernatural, but that isn't the point -- science can be used to prove, and disprove, something like "past life memories", because they are observable, which is what the limitation of science is -- it can only address things that are measurable and observable, and someone saying that they had these memories, and validating them is something which is observable.
However, and this is the giant "however" of the discussion, said scientific study is invalid if it cannot establish, without doubt, that there was no cultural contamination, and that's the problem with all of the studies that I've seen, why "reincarnation research" is considered pseudo-science and why none of these reports can be said to do anything other than provide anecdotal evidence.
For the few people, in modern times, that publicly announce their memories, and trot their kids out publicly for scrutiny, there are thousands who keep their revelations privately to themselves.
What is your source for this claim, or that millions have seen "glimpses" of past lives?
Your question has been answered, but you choose to reject the answer. In the philosophy and theology of reincarnation, the veil of forgetfulness, is a necessary part of re-birth.
What you are describing is a process -- do you believe that there is such a process? Who administers it, and to what end?
As to whether it addresses my question, it does not, it merely explains why almost no one has these memories. If someone lives one life and is a serial rapist, and in their next life they're a woman who is raped, how is any connection made between the two lives if the woman doesn't remember being a rapist and the rapist doesn't remember being raped?
I think possession cases are rare. I think demons mostly come and go. Probably why most children forget by a certain age.
If you want to talk about demons, well - this is the one anecdote I might use to consider it. Even so, I don't think the person was possessed, nor a demon, just incapable of reciprocating real love (let alone recognizing it), and was full of a self-destructive self-loathing that had nothing to do with me IN THIS LIFETIME...
Do you mean that you dont believe possession play any part in past life memories?
It is possible that said person was your pair, but they messed up and now they have been removed.
Why promote/believe "a person claiming to have pastlife memories" while refusing "a person claiming to get revelation from God"??
Originally posted by wildtimes
reply to post by logical7
Why promote/believe "a person claiming to have pastlife memories" while refusing "a person claiming to get revelation from God"??
Because past-life memories are personal - very individual - too personal to be generally applied to everyone...
A "revelation from God" to be held out to the whole world TELLING THEM HOW TO BEHAVE is completely different.
And yes, I did see your thread, and Starred and Flagged it!
This wasn't your typical 'we broke up "broken heart",' though. I've had those before... this was a gut-wrenching, devastating wrecking ball that slammed into my very being and almost destroyed me.
These are innocent little kids. They are not "possessed" - !!