At the time, one reason that I had some belief in the subject was that I had been taught in school that people cannot lie under hypnosis. This of course is rubbish: while it may not be deliberate, they can fabricate more fancifully than in their waking state.
The other thing that derailed it was a headline made in Birmingham by a verdict against a psychotherapist. The psychotherapist had helped a patient “recover” memories of her father’s sexual abuse; she even recalled the miscarriage she suffered of the child she conceived when raped by her own father. Her father, a professional and religious and respected member of his community, was arrested and convicted and imprisoned on this “evidence”.
The patient later suffered a gynecological malady later and was hospitalized. At this time it was discovered she was still a virgin- her hymen was intact. Her father couldn’t possibly have raped, let alone impregnated, her as a child. The conviction was overturned and though the father’s life had been ruined he was awarded millions in a malpractice suit. (This was a very famous case.)
In any case, these things made me “unbelieve” in reincarnation. OTOH, every atom in our body has been around since the Big Bang, and the brain emits energy, so who knows. Maybe we all had this same argument before in 2nd century Alexandria.
After giving this some thought, I have some questions about reincarnation/regression that I hope someone can answer for me.
If we are reincarnated souls but can’t remember our past lives, what is the point? How are we supposed to know that we are reincarnated? How are we supposed to know that our past lives weren’t ‘good enough’ to break the cycle? How are we supposed to ‘improve’ ourselves if we have no idea what we were doing wrong the last time? I’m sorry, maybe Buddhism has these answers, but I have no more than a glancing acquaintance with that belief system.
If we do carry the memories of our past lives, that means that the soul has a memory, doesn’t it? After all, if this is an old soul in a new body, the past-life memories couldn’t be contained in our actual organic brains. So . . . hypnosis, then, accesses our souls?
That’s a rather disturbing thought (at least it seems it would be for those of you who believe in souls).
Is there no limit to your disingenuousness? That sarcastic blathering in no way paraphrases what she said. So what exactly is the point, in this forum, in composing it?
Lekatt wrote:
Don’t let bullies and those who skirt at the edges of the rules drive you away. Their senseless blustering is designed to intimidate you, and their insistence otherwise is an obvious mere pretense to anyone lurking.
They do not understand the nature of subjective evidence versus objective evidence. They believe in the most mystical religion in the history of man: materialism. They blow their horns about science without even realizing that the very foundation of science — falsifiability — is not testable scientifically.
They bellow like irritated gizzly bears because they are frustrated at their inability to discount your evidence with sound reasoning. So they resort to statistical samples and then present them complete with converse accident fallacies, purporting that the exceptions prove the rule.
Don’t let them get to you. They don’t fool any thinking person.
Libertarian, I applaud your attempts to reassure those with some tendency towards the belief in psychic powers regarding the inclusivity of these Boards, and agree that the thread might look a little “ugly” to new members.
However, I venture that merely pointing out that eg. crop circles, recovered memories of past lives and the Tooth Fairy are not falsifiable, correct though such a statement is, suggests to said members that you personally ascribe similar probabilities of existence to such things as to such perfectly “respectable” beliefs as the spirit, soul or heaven.
I have learned (via more error than trial) to try to avoid entering debates concerning some aspect of Christian theology and declaring my atheism since I now consider it as inappropriate as barging into a home prayer meeting. I would suggest that bringing up the point that all supernatural phenomenon are equally unfalsifiable and outside science’s scope (be they the Resurrection of Christ or the ability to communicate telepathically with large-headed aliens from another galaxy) in discussions like this are as inappropriate as my past mistakes.
The debate concerns past life regression. You have, of course, every right to argue on behalf of what I regard (and you also, would you be willing to admit?) as utter bunkum, but I would seriously question whether this would constitute “fighting ignorance”.
I don’t begrudge materialists their beliefs. My point is not about what is falsifiable and what is not (including science itself), but that fighting ignorance ought to be done with reason, and not fallacy. Rephrasing people’s arguments into babble; presuming an authority cum science that does not exist; bullying and blustering — these are not fighting ignorance, but propogating it.
Oh, Sentient Meat, do not feel that it’s inappropriate. For the most part, those of us who participate in GD and are believers are prepared to discuss and defend our point of view on quasi-rational grounds (“quasi-” because there are some aspects of belief that are not amenable to rational analysis, as I’m sure you recognize). This applies even to our more conservative-Christian posters such as Joe Cool and his wife, who will calmly and reasonably give the basis for their beliefs if they are not verbally assaulted for them.
On rethinking and rereading the above, I’d like to emend the summary of my point to this: It is quite possible and indeed probable that any given alleged supernatural occurrence identified at random is the product of fraud, inadvertent falsification of data, etc. But it is not a given that this is the case.
To assert that it is impossible that, e.g., someone had a recall-able past life because there is no such thing as a soul that survives between incarnations is as much a dogmatic statement regarding one’s convictions as is anything that His4Ever has ever said in this forum. To say that it must be established that such a thing as a “soul” exists and can survive independently of the body, and that such existence has not been empirically proven as yet, is quite another matter.
I do not feel it is inappropriate full stop, only in those discussions wherein jumping in and questioning the entire edifice of Christian belief would stray somewhat from the point at hand. All Christian debates could easily degenerate into theist vs. atheist. Of course I appreciate that almost all of the theists here would display grace and patience during such, I merely feel that theists should be given space to converse within their own assumptions whenever they like.
Similarly, all debates like this one, regardless of subject, could immediately become one regarding the nature of scientific enquiry. Where the initial subject matter was as general as eg. “Does God exist or not?”, such a development is IMO entirely appropriate. However, if the OP asked the same about the Tooth Fairy, I would hope that concern that the person might actually believe in the Tooth Fairy (ie. ascribe better than 50:50 odds) might be of higher priority, even though such odds can never be mathematically zero.
I, and hopefully most of us here (materialist or not), would put the current matter of hypnotically recovered past lives squarely in the “vanishingly small” probability range, since the extraordinary evidence required by such an extraordinary claim is singularly lacking after the aforementioned debunkings of the “best” evidence. I would venture that jumping onto the more general “falsification” debate before this had been made clear was, at best, not fighting ignorance as effectively as it might be and, at worst, misleading someone into thinking you were a “fellow believer” in such nonsense, although I agree with Libertarian that some other posters’ methods were not as effective as they could have been either.
I respect the right of atheists to be that, I don’t think it really matters what you believe, and long as you treat others with love, compassion, and honesty. I wanted to discuss the subject of Past Life Regession with someone who had asked about it.
I wanted to do that without being belittled, insulted, and having my posts may fun of, that is in concurrence with the rules of this board. I find that those who perform this condescending kind of activity show little knowledge of the subject, and IMHP are not “fighting ignorance” but rather “wallowing” in it.
Psychic phenomenon has been tested in parapsychogy schools for many years now. Some have it, some don’t.
I don’t like past life regressions because, even if they are accurate, they don’t give meaning to the life being lived.
When I had my NDE it destroyed my old ideas of what the world was like. I had a new perspective and it was wonderful, I wanted to tell the world about it. But I soon found nobody wanted to know, they thought I was, a demon, crazy, deluded, or whatever.
It was the psychics that understood, and taught me how to live in the shadow of hate, corruption, and greed without becoming part of it. Yes, there is such a thing as psychics, but the really good ones won’t let you know.
Leroy, as an atheist and skeptic, I believe you were treated somewhat harshly and disrespectfully earlier. However, you must provide some support for the above.
Sorry, my brother, but that won’t do. For a couple of reasons.
(1) The sites are biased in favor of your claim.
Suppose, for example, I gave this site as evidence that God does not exist:
Also…
(2) Those aren’t links to studies but to front pages of websites.
Suppose, for example, I gave this as evidence that red-headed Black people tend to have more children than blond-headed Indians
I realize that it’s a lot of trouble to track down and post the studies themselves from reputable sites, like peer review journals or universities, but if you are the one who is making the claim that the studies exist, then you must show them.
Now, if you believe simply on faith and do not rely on the studies, simply say so. But if you call upon studies to back up your claims, make sure you have read them first and know how to point people to them.
Well, that’s closer. I followed your link and dug a little, and here’s what you want to do. Go to the library and get this:
Honorton, C. & Ferrari, D. (1989). “Future telling”: A meta-analysis of forced-choice precognition experiments, 1935-1987. Journal of Parapsychology, 53, 281
In fact, just get everything you can by Honorton and Ferrari because what they have done is “meta-analysis”. In other words, they have already mined the data, organized them, and made findings. That saves you a lot of work. And here is a PDF with references to more studies.
Resolve that you will do this, and then let us know what you find one way or the other. It will be good for you in so many ways. And I recommend that you approach with skepticism. Skepticism is good. It led me to God.
Perhaps you missed the name of this forum: Great Debates. If you wanted Great Agreements, you’ll need to look elsewhere. If you want a bunch of people who will mindlessly accept nonsense, you’ll need to look elsewhere. We fight ignorance here; we don’t propagate it. Well, most of us, anyway…
Polycarp said:
Note please that I was talking specifically to Edlyn and specifically about a statement she made, “I’ve learned not to discuss topics such as this with those who do not even acknowledge the existance of their own spirit.” I know you well enough to pretty well guess that you wouldn’t say something like that. But she did, and it was a pretty ridiculous thing to say, IMO. So I was not talking at all about you, and thus your “we” statement in reply does not really apply.
Then you get into a philosophical discussion. And if that’s what somebody wants to say, fine. But that’s not what has gone on here. People have claimed to have evidence for reincarnation and past life regression. If they are going to bring up evidence, I am going to point out counter-evidence and show how flimsy their supposed evidence is.
It’s like the standard creationist debate. If somebody wants to claim they simply have faith and believe in creation, well, that’s their belief. If they aren’t trying to force it on anybody, bully for them. They’re wrong, but okay. The second they claim to have evidence for that claim, though, they have moved into a different realm.
Not necessarily. But I’m still waiting for a case that isn’t. I’m not holding my breath.
Er, I have to admit I don’t really know where this is coming from. We weren’t talking about that, and I would think you’d know me well enough by now that I don’t try to prove the nonexistence of God because I have said many times that such a thing could not be done.
One can hold the skeptical position until proven otherwise. I await the evidence.
Then we are equal footing there.
Again, agreed. I have never (well, rarely – in specific cases) doubted that a person believes his or her own memories. Indeed, I believe I said something about that early in this thread – that makes it that much more difficult for them to accept contrary evidence, because we ALL believe our own memories. We pretty well have to. But the problem is that memory is faulty and can be altered, as you know.
OK, I intended to catch up on the whole thread with this message, but that’s not going to happen right now. Signing off for now.
lekatt, what do you think of the fact (as I posted earlier) that those religious traditions which believe in reincarnation also believe that past-life memories cannot be accessed through hypnosis. Does a self-proclaimed psychic know more about reincarnation than thousands of years of accumulated Hindu and Buddhist wisdom?
I was surprised and delighted when I read your comments and noted similarities we shared! In fact, there isn’t anything you stated that I would not concur with.
You have a wonderful gift of teaching which is evident by the number of other posters who respect you for your well thought out and reasoned posts.
SentientMeat
I hope that others who were merely argumentative take note of your approach to this discussion. It would do them well to follow your example.
Libertarian must speak for himself, but as for myself, I am unwilling to write off past life regression possibilities as sheer nonsense. First because I lean towards reincarnation as possible and secondly, if that is true, then our spirit would carry forward what we have learned from each experience. As such, if our subconscious can be tapped through hypnosis, perhaps a previous experience could be brought forth. Perhaps there are those individuals who have no need of hypnosis since the door between consciousness and subconscious is “more open”. Maybe this would be more likely in children.
Whether any of this is true or not, it would not change how I will try to live the remainder of my life. The goal is the same. I do treat those who use hypnosis on clients with the same skeptical eye. The abuse is not limited to regressions.
coosa
Some of your questions have already been answered, but as to:
You’re here aren’t you?
As you like Jesus? If not, follow His example and teachings.
No, I don’t find that disturbing, if true. However, I hold the opinion that it is unnecessary to recall except, perhaps, in the case of what appears to be an illogical fear or terror. In those cases, to learn why may be of great help to that individual.
lekatt
I have not experienced what you have, but somehow I do understand.
Scylla & Sampiro
I’m sorry that you both had such lousy experiences with unqualified “professionals”. As with any field of work, there are those who should find another field that they actually might have ability in.
Nah, David. What I said was simply common sense. If someone does not recognize their own spirit, how in the world can they discuss details of spirituality?
Edlyn, what do you mean by “spirit?” Where is it located and what is it made of?
Also, what do you think of the question I posed to lekatt? (i.e. Even if reincarnation exists, Buddhist and Hindu traditions both teach that memories of past lives cannot be accessed through hypnosis. Are those traditions wrong?)
Finally, your comment to Scylla and Sampiro seems to imply that you believe ther is such a thing as a “qualified professional” in the field of past life regression therapy. Since the fields of both psychology and psychiatry do not recognize such therapy as credible or valid, I wonder what “professionals” you are referring to, and how, exactly, they are “qualified.”
Belief?
I know/believe in the personal experiences that I have had. I know when I drink a cup of coffee, eat an egg, and/or have a spiritual experience. No one else knows about my spiritual experiences unless I tell them. They can believe me or disbelieve me, it doesn’t matter. But they can’t tell me I never had them, or that they were false, that knowledge is just not available to them.
On reincarnation.
I believe the idea originated long before that, paintings on the cave walls of ancient man indicated he believed in an after life and returning to earth. I saw this on the History channel.
I can’t tell you about the fine points of eastern religions, because I have not studied them sufficiently.
Now, I have never personally witnessed a past life regression, or talked to anyone who did. The group of psychics I meet with don’t engage in that kind of activity. If we want to know our past lives we ask our guide to look it up for us. Everyone has a spirit guide or “guardian angel” is another name. This guide will usually do that, but not always, because past lives are just not that important to your current life.
When I asked about mine, I was given a few, only one had achieved any status. He/I was a general commanding a large army back in the days of Egypt. I lost the battle and was killed, others were a famer in Ireland, died in the potato famine. A couple of prostitudes who didn’t do well, and a person who cleaned stables for horses, another as a slave. The last one as a printer in England, circa 1905, died of a fever. The reason I am telling this is to show past lives are not very exciting material. I also wanted to point out that past lives can be either male or female. I have a pet theory, and it is only a guess. People who lived many lives as one sex and then decided to change to the opposite sex in this life time, might (maybe) have trouble dealing with the sex they chose. I have no experience with this, just a guess.
From each life we carry on the knowledge and love we learned. This is not in the form of actual events, but in the emotional knowledge we learned from them. Actually, it is almost impossible to explain properly.
I was hestate to write about this due to the reception of my posts lately. You are, of course, entitled to disbelieve anything written here. I will not try to prove it to anyone. It is written here for information only.
