# 3-Year-Old Boy Remembers Being Murdered In Past Life And Leads Adults To Proof **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [May 21, 2014, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/3-year-old-boy-remembers-being-murdered-in-past-life-and-leads-adults-to-proof/688964 "2014-05-21T21:51:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2014, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/3-year-old-boy-remembers-being-murdered-in-past-life-and-leads-adults-to-proof/688964/61 "2014-05-24T00:33:49Z")
Um, we don’t have to postulate a child who was coached to accuse a guy in another village of murder to explain the story. Rather whole story is made up. Either the guy who wrote the book made it up and attributed it to his friend, or his friend made it up and told it to the author. Trying to find rational explanations for fantastic stories goes back to ancient Greece. [Euhemerism - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euhemerism). But making up rational explanations for fantastic stories is making up stories too. The most likely explanation for a fantastic story is that somebody made it up. ---
**Author:** ![HoneyBadgerDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/honeybadgerdc/32/1033_2.png) [@HoneyBadgerDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HoneyBadgerDC)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2014, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/3-year-old-boy-remembers-being-murdered-in-past-life-and-leads-adults-to-proof/688964/62 "2014-05-24T00:54:08Z")
I can’t say I believe in reincarnation but I have to admit I enjoy some of the stories associated with it. Dreams can often feel like a window into another life. I have a little piece of me that likes to believe some kind of consiousness may be transferable. I have had two reoccuring dreams that seem to reinforce this but I admit weakly. ---
**Author:** ![cmkeller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmkeller/32/118_2.png) [@cmkeller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmkeller)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2014, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/3-year-old-boy-remembers-being-murdered-in-past-life-and-leads-adults-to-proof/688964/63 "2014-05-27T14:41:30Z")
Colibri: > [@](#): > > Since when do either Jews or Muslims believe in reincarnation? I can’t speak for Muslims, but reincarnation is not considered to be outside the mainstream of belief in Judaism. It may not be as central to the religion as it is in Hinduism, but there’s plenty of legitimate rabbinic sources for the belief that it CAN happen. ---
**Author:** ![protoboard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/fbc32d/32.png) [@protoboard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/protoboard)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2014, 8:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/3-year-old-boy-remembers-being-murdered-in-past-life-and-leads-adults-to-proof/688964/64 "2014-05-28T08:16:03Z")
Meh. Not buying it. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2014, 1:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/3-year-old-boy-remembers-being-murdered-in-past-life-and-leads-adults-to-proof/688964/65 "2014-05-28T13:19:12Z")
I have developed a simple mathematical formula for detecting bullshit like the OP’s article: For every “weaselly” word like “should”, “say”, “possible”, “allegedly”, etc (including the naming of vague sources), in a statement, I assign a 25% chance of the statement being true. Then I just multiply the odds together, then subtract the product from 1 to determine the odds of the article being complete bullshit. > [@](#): > > The boy **allegedly** told others that he had been killed by a man with an axe in his past life, and because the people in his community took claims like that very seriously, they asked him what else he knew about that life. The boy **reportedly** took a group of people to the village where he was born, identified his killer, and even led them to the murder weapon. The 3-year-old **apparently** remembered the killer’s name, and when they confronted him, the killer **reportedly** turned white. > > To make this story even stranger, the 3-year-old **allegedly** led the others to a body that he says was his past one. While that may seem a little far-fetched, **villagers say** the skeleton had a wound in the same area that the young boy had a birthmark. Odds of this being complete BS = 1-(.25\*.25\*.25\*.25\*.25\*.25) =1-(.00024414) =99.975%. 😉 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/3-year-old-boy-remembers-being-murdered-in-past-life-and-leads-adults-to-proof/688964.md?page=3)