To ask if you believe in past lives?

[Sayhellolikethis]

Name changed, as I’ve told MIL and DSis about this already…

Putting my little boy (just turned 4) to bed and he told me “I built 60 bridges during the war and I also built a bomb”. I asked him why he built a bomb and he said “I put 2 bombs on each of my bridges to protect them”. He also said “the factories were covered in camouflage”.

He then added “and a fighter jet plane falled to the ground”.

It was such a ramble of words and then he just wanted to snuggle down and go to sleep.

Has anyone else had a similar experience with their little ones? He won’t talk about it any further. Puzzled!!

It’s such a comforting thought to think we might get another go, but equally feel unlikely

That said, perhaps it’s not comforting, as we could get brought back into a part of the world where life is much less rosy

@GertrudePerkinsPaperyThing yes I certainly don't find the idea of reincarnation comforting.

I do think "nearly" is doing a lot of heavy lifting in the term "nearly dead." And hearing is, I think, the last sense to go. When I mentioned hallucinations, I was talking about the reports of portals of light and seeing relatives who had already died.

"You cant just dismiss these experiences as hallucinations, there's no way you can know or prove that's what they were. To so confidently state "hallucinations" as a Fact is rather arrogant." I can- until such time as proper evidence is put forward to prove me wrong. Then I will happily change my position. As far as I know, there is no such evidence.

I mean, you're right - but obviously billions of people around the world are religious. So people do this every day.

If this boy had a past life he obviously was a bit of a nutter in it. Why would he put bombs in bridges he had build to protect them? Were 60 bridges ever build in one area/by the same construction workers during any war in recent times, which presumably this is if there were jets? If not then it’s unlikely he’s describing a past life and more likely he’s talking nonsense as kids do.

But no, I don’t believe in them. I think if people had multiple lives, we would have seen widespread confirmation of them rather than kids saying jumbled statements that parents then twist to sound like it could be ‘past life’ experiences.

Have you read Eben Alexander's book "Proof of heaven"? Its a very compelling book written by a neurosurgeon (so obviously a very educated man with regards to how the brain works) and his experience when he was essentially brain dead. Not "evidence" as such but an interesting read by a credible source

@OnlyFannys I don't think I have read Alexander's book-although I did read a lot of books like it when I was going down a rabbit hole a few years ago and I have read about him. IIRC, his attending physician raised many concerns about his account of the events around his experience.

According to an article released in 2018 there were some false reports around this, the article links to an independent, peer reviewed medical journal though I haven't had time to read it through

http://ebenalexander.com/independent-medical-review-validates-facts/

Yeah, I'm with this. Science can prove testable things. If we can't prove something by testing it, there's no scientists out there with pitchforks. It just means we can't call it a field of science, and it remains in the camp of 'we don't know' as we can't prove or disprove it. Which is kinda exciting really, to know it could be a possibility.

Well this isn't true. Could easily have been pontoon bridges or bailey bridges, and if so, that would've made him a potential war hero, not a nutter. The use of bombs to blow bridges to keep enemy out isn't that unusual either. Could've also been any war since humans began to fight in any country so none of us have any idea!

Sure we can't prove it's true or untrue but...we can't prove it's true or untrue. So why pour scorn as if we have knowledge of something we don't? Truth is, none of us have a clue one way or another so let's not be arrogant or posture about what might be true or false 😄

Well it couldn’t really have been any war since humans began to fight, could it? Because planes and factories are relatively modern concepts, aren’t they?

And we can prove some things are true. That’s what makes them true. I hardly think it’s arrogant to say ‘there is no proof that any person has had a past life.’

Eben Alexander appears to so unreliable it's unbelievable.

Multiple malpractice, sacked from lots of medical jobs he is practically incompetent as a doctor. From the doctors who treated him the book is a work of fiction.

"Reports in 2014 that explosives had finally been removed from a bridge on the Swiss-German border came as a surprise to some — mostly those who hadn’t realized it had been wired to blow in the first place. The Säckinger Bridge was built over the Rhine in 1272 and has long been considered a national monument, but that didn’t stop the government from rigging it with TNT during the Cold War. Military actions like this were part of a larger Swiss defense strategy, which included withdrawing to the mountains and fighting a guerrilla war if invaded. The idea was to leave rubble rather than functional infrastructure behind. These days, the Swiss military won’t comment on whether other infrastructure is still rigged for reasons of military security. Either way, this bridge set up to be demolished on demand is only one example of a longstanding national approach."

So you think he built this bridge (and many others like it) in 1272? Were there many fighter jets and factories in 1272?

Or do you think he’s lying about building the bridges and in fact simply planted bombs on pre-existing bridges?

Yes it could, I quickly looked it up. But that's beside the fact.

I personally don't have an opinion one way or the other, because I don't have enough facts to know, and nor do any humans on earth, and we likely never will. 🤗 So I'm taking neither side.

It's just sad to see so much embarrassing and arrogant posturing on this thread, when the simple truth is, we have no idea. It could've been a nice chance to just muse over what if's, or a friendly difference of opinion, but it's just lots of bitchiness, cringy posts about dictionary definitions and passive aggressive posts about science, and trying to outsmart each other instead.

You quickly looked up what? It could not have been any war since the humans began to fight wars because fighter jets are a relatively new invention. You can’t argue with this because it is a fact. If this boy fought in a war in his past life where there were factories and planes then it was a relatively recent war.

And I can’t provide that there aren’t invisible centipedes crawling all over my body. Nobody can prove there aren’t. But we’d presume someone had a mental illness if they told us invisible centipedes crawled all over them at all times. Because it’s very unlikely that it’s true.

*prove

@Outofthepark "It's just sad to see so much embarrassing and arrogant posturing on this thread, when the simple truth is, we have no idea. It could've been a nice chance to just muse over what if's, or a friendly difference of opinion, but it's just lots of bitchiness, cringy posts about dictionary definitions and passive aggressive posts about science, and trying to outsmart each other instead."

I just don't see any of this. Could you point me to some examples, please?

Incidentally- the whole point about having a scientific approach to subjects like is not about having sides. It's about looking at the facts, and using the information we have to come to a best fit explanation. So, a child talking about a past life could be describing just that. Or she could be describing something she had imagined or half heard or saw in a picture. Seeing a glimpse of a computer game being played in another room. Something on the news as it was being turned off. The best fit is obviously the second option. So that's the sensible option. Until such time, maybe tomorrow, that something happens to make the first the more likely option. Always choose the the most obvious explanation but be prepared to change your opinion as new evidence emerges.

@Kanaloa you sound angry and desperate to win an argument that doesn't exist. None of us know the truth, and we never will, so there's no point in trying to win an argument!

As an aside it took me seconds to Google this - Bailey bridges, very common in WWII. It would have been easy to construct 60 or many more in a very short amount of time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bailey_bridge

Doesn't matter though, none of us will never know so why the anger, pride and need to prove a point or win an imaginary argument? You'll just burst a blood vessel pointlessly. Why not just be happy to accept any outcome is possible? Because it is. Us humans will simply never know.

But that’s not the most objectively sensible answer though is it, it’s just the one that fits your perspective best. I think that the first option is the most obvious, a small child repeating something that they actually experienced rather than cobbling together a narrative loosely based on glimpses off a tv screen through a crack in a door. The second idea seems absurd to me.

@OMG12 But children do this sort of thing ALL THE TIME! My son had an imaginary friend called Jonty who wore a big hat and rode a horse everywhere. And it seems that whenever one of these cases is properly investigated that's what it turns out to be. Look at the Barra boy. My brother did a past life regression once- and when he looked at the notes, he realised that the life of an Anglo Saxon child he had recounted was the plot of an obscure children's book he had read 40 years previously. I was badly scared by a "green man" in my childhood kitchen and seriously freaked out my parents, until they got down to my level and saw the person shaped splash of green paint on the wall under a shelf. We have no reason to believe any other "paranormal" events are anything more than things like this. There have been loads of experiments to try to prove the possibility of life after death- Houdini had a complicated arrangement with his wife-but she waited for contact in vain. There were many others.

Experiments to prove life after death though are completely pointless though as you are only looking at it from this space/time. It’s like trying to find out what something sounds like by sniffing the air.

Your own experiences don’t really prove anything other than your experiences. Who’s to say Jonty didn’t exist? Who’s to say the green paint and the story were not just coincidence?

That fact is you will never be able to prove these things don’t exist. You can believe one way or the other but proof (except in the positive) is extremely unlikely