I never really believed in reincarnation, but this is one odd story that in my humble opinion sounds true: http://www.opposingviews.com/i/society/3-year-old-boy-remembers-being-murdered-past-life-and-leads-adults-proof
It’s a story told by a man who claims that a man who is now deceased told him the story which supposedly was witnessed by the dead man to some degree, yet somehow there are no names. You’d think you’d remember the name of a 3 year old boy who led you to his previous life’s murderer; I know I would. Hell, I 'd remember the supposed murderer’s name and the name of the guy he supposedly murdered, you know, the guy the 3 year old was supposed to have been?
If this was on that show Bullshit Or Not?, I’d have to vote for “bullshit”.
Turning white is common proof of guilt in most jurisdictions.
Wow, that story is weak sauce. I was expecting something a little more credible or persuasive given the OP.
I dunno. Like the Boy Who Came Back From The Dead, my bullshit meter spikes when I read of stories like this. This story appears really attenuated - there’s no real record of any of this happening. And villagers can be wrong.
And as everyone knows, “turning white with fear” is a thing that happens in real life!
That’s why I trusted you dopers to figure it out 
On the contrary: that’s exactly the kind of thing I expect to read when I hear that someone is sharing a story about reincarnation. They’re always like this.
I suppose I mean something more with the illusion of credibility. That is, the OP presented himself as not believing in reincarnation, and this story seemed to give him some doubt as to that belief, so I assumed the story linked to was going to be something a bit more persuasive than several levels of hearsay and nothing else.
Goog grief.
The English translation page of wiki pretty much confirms that Hardo was not only a nutjob, but a Nazi nutjob.
It is not rocket science. All you need is some common sense, critical thinking abilities and google. Sheesh.
And exactly how well can 3-year-olds communicate, reason, and lead people?
A question to those of you who have recently lived with a 3-year-old: can you imagine this person saying “Respected elder, I am now having memories from my previous incarnation. The memories are of a man killing my former self in another village. Come follow me and I will lead you to this man”?
Am I underestimating the cognitive abilities of 3-year-olds?
“Here’s a link to an article about a book an author wrote that included an anecdote about a guy who told him a story one time about some kid.”
I admit I’ve always been a skeptic about reincarnation, but now I don’t know what to think.
Yeah… very, very weak.
First off, others have pointed out that there’s no way to verify the truth of this story. It’s a friend-of-a-friend story and we just have to take it on faith that this happened.
Secondly, even if it did happen, does that prove reincarnation? We’d have to do more analysis. How many kids believe they had a past life? (Remembering that the story says this village takes these things seriously, so the kid had exposure to the idea.) Of those kids, how many try to offer proof? If a billion kids are pointing to random bits of scenery, eventually one of them will be pointing be to a dead murder victim. Perhaps even more importantly, how many times had this particular kid tried to point out evidence? If you give someone 100 chances and then confirm their miraculous ability when they get it right once, that’s hardly proof.
Finally, even if this kid got it all right on his one try… we STILL don’t know it was a past life. Maybe the murderer was talking about his crime in the presence of a toddler, assuming the kid wasn’t listening. Maybe some acquaintance of the child planted the idea in the hopes that a reincarnation story could get the cold case reopened.
There’s just too many possibilities to accept this at all.
Bull-You put it out there as bait to see if any of us would say something like “Gee Mr. Quatro, it looks like you found some real evidence there!” Hence, the opening line of your OP. If you actually never really believed in reincarnation, why in the world would this baseless “odd story” “sound true” to you? What part of it stood out to you in a way all the other unverifiable stories didn’t?
I’m a skeptic and all this silly story does is reinforce my skepticism.
What is it that makes some people believe every story they read? Just because it’s online, it must be true? WTF. Are we not more evolved than that? Do some people really need a handheld guide to the internet to know what to believe? In 2014? (Apparently…but still.)
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Rule of thumb, if there’s more screen space devoted to ads than the story, it’s not much o a story.
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The cited story from the epochtimes.com says that reincarnation isn’t just part of the culture, it’s customary for elders to lead 3 year olds to their previous life villages. Customary. I guess you don’t go very far after you die. Usually just a village or two up the road.
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The article switches from Druze to Druse.
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Whenever someone/something says “The truth? That’s for you to decide.” It’s wrong. You don’t decide a truth. Truth just is.
Did you use to guess the weight of people at the carnival … you know the big guy that had the wooden sledge hammer to hit the scale to ring the bell?
Maybe I just wanted to amuse you … it could’ve been true if the kid died and his spirit got into another kid to get even with the person who killed him, but that wouldn’t be reincarnation now would it?
That would be an evil, get even spirit, the kind that horror movies get made from.
So you actually believe this story?
Yikes.
I’d polish up your critical thinking skills were I you. Hey, I know this one weird trick I bet you will love…!
Go ahead make fun of an old man on dial up … still it would make a good movie, “Kid gets even with Murderer”
Aside from the total lack of meaningful documentation, it’s a very convincing story.
What really gets the bullshit meter going is when an anecdote is prefaced by “I’ve always been a skeptic about X, but…”
We’re supposed to think the story is so amazing and incontrovertible that even a hardened skeptic was convinced. It just means that the “skeptic” was always a credulous bozo waiting to believe some utter nonsense.
No disrespect to the OP, of course.