sorry to bring this thread back to life, i didn't realise i had comments to reply...
tetrapod said:
dh,
i'd like to know what sort of evidence you consider solid.
well, i have read of, and seen documentaries on television detailing people who 'claim' to remember past lives. to the extent where they know the way around isolated communities where only a person who was from there would know, and to the extent that they can identify people and places that they have never been or seen, one account details a person relaying their dying words (from their the past life) to the ONLY person who saw them die in that past life, and on and on... the 'evidence' is out there (ask mulder), but like anything, it takes time before the closed minds open up.
of course every word that i have read and program i have seen could be fake, but then so could the moon landings and everything in print or on screen, but i don't think it is fake. i think it is just not acceptable to talk about as a reality, the same as it didn't used to be acceptable to say the world was round.
you cannot liken a person who remembers people and events from a past life in detail, and proves it by identifying and interacting with those people and remembering events that only the dead person could know... to a schitzophrenic making up a world in their mind. since the person claiming the past life can be tested, and although a lot might be fake, as i said, there are enough that stand up to scrutiny for it to not be dismissed out of hand as most people do. with wt style reasoning... one is fake, they must all be fake!
i'm not an expert, and it's not a subject i spend a lot of time reading about so i cannot quote you loads of references, i can only say that through my life i have seen enough to be convinced that it probably does happen, i'm not out to sell the idea.
jaffacake said:
plenty of evidence out there to support some type life after death, even if it's just coming back here as someone else
Although I try to have an open mind on this subject I am amazed by this comment, if there has ever been any evidence whatsoever, then why has it never been presented. Frankly, even the tiniest scrap of evidence would be front page headlines in every newspaper in the world for months. There are plenty of claims and assertions, which some people describe as evidence. (see 120 years of watchtowers).
you might be surprised, throughout history in the scientific world, unacceptable ideas are scoffed at, and laughed at, not put easily into print for all to see. the powers that be have big ego's and reputations based on what they 'know' to be true, so they are hardly going to say 'hey, let's re-examine our entire understanding of this and undermine everything we have built our careers on'... so no, the evidence would not make any headlines, but that evidence is out there, if you look. look for life after death stories. kids who are born and track down relatives from past lives, people who remember things that only the dead person could have known.
i know (i read) there was a study conducted in the 50's by a dr. ian stevenson of the medical school in charlottesville, virginnia regarding past life recalls, the results of which were published in the us in the 60's. not sure where mind you, but i got the reference from a chapter of a book a read (ancient traces by michael baigent). the study looked at hundreds of these stories, and cut out the ones which were clearly crap, and narrowed it down to those which stood up to intense scrutiny... make of that what you will, look it up if you care to, dismiss it if you want to, i read about it.
anyway, like i said, i'm not selling the idea, only saying that the evidence and the people are out there, and to say 'hey, all of that is bs because i just don't believe it', is a normal response, but it's pretty narrow minded.
edited to add this which i just googled about the dr. i mentioned earlier: http://www.near-death.com/experiences/reincarnation01.html
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Dr. Ian Stevenson |
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The Pioneer of Reincarnation Research |
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Ian Stevenson
is the former head of the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Virginia, and now is Director of the Division of Personality Studies at the University of Virginia. He has devoted the last 40 years to the scientific documentation of past life memories of children from all over the world and has over 3000 cases in his files. Many people, including skeptics and scholars, agree that these cases offer the best evidence yet for reincarnation.
Dr. Stevenson’s research into the possibility of reincarnation began in 1960 when he heard of a case in Sri Lanka where a child claimed to remember a past life. He thoroughly questioned the child and the child's parents, as well as the people whom the child claimed were his parents from his past life. This led to Dr. Stevenson’s conviction that reincarnation was possibly a reality. The more cases he pursued, the greater became his drive to scientifically open up and conquer an unknown territory among the world's mysteries, which until now had been excluded from scientific observation. Nonetheless, he believed he could approach and possibly furnish proof of its reality with scientific means.
In 1960, Dr. Stevenson published two articles in the
Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research
about children who remembered past lives. In 1974, he published his book,
Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation
, and became well known wherever this book appeared by those people who already had a long-standing interest in this subject. They were pleased to finally be presented with such fundamental research into reincarnation from a scientific source. In 1997, Dr. Stevenson published his work entitled
Reincarnation and Biology
. In the first volume, he mainly describes birthmarks - those distinguishing marks on the skin which the newborn baby brings into the world and cannot be explained by inheritance alone. In his second volume, Dr. Stevenson focuses mainly on deformities and other anomalies that children are born with and which cannot be traced back to inheritance, prenatal or perinatal (created during birth) occurrences. This monumental piece of work contains hundreds of pictures documenting the evidence.
During his original research into various cases involving children's memories of past lives, Dr. Stevenson did note with interest the fact that these children frequently bore lasting birthmarks which supposedly related to their murder or the death they suffered in a previous life. Stevenson's research into birthmarks and congenital defects has such particular importance for the demonstration of reincarnation, since it furnishes objective and graphic proof of reincarnation, superior to the - often fragmentary - memories and reports of the children and adults questioned, which even if verified afterwards cannot be assigned the same value in scientific terms.
In many cases presented by Dr. Stevenson there are also medical documents available as further proof, which are usually compiled after the death of the person. Dr. Stevenson adds that in the cases he researched and "solved" in which birthmarks and deformities were present, he didn't suppose there was any other apposite explanation than that of reincarnation. Only 30% - 60% of these deformities can be put down to birth defects which related to genetic factors, virus infections or chemical causes (like those found in children damaged by the drug Thalidomide or alcohol). Apart from these demonstrable causes, the medical profession has no other explanation for the other 40% to 70% of cases than that of mere chance. Stevenson has now succeeded in giving us an explanation of why a person is born with these deformities and why they appear precisely in that part of their body and not in another.
