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!!

Oh; you read the book?

You read the book too?

I know of 2 children who’ve come out with similar stuff, one was 3, one 4. Both had completely forgotten about it by around 5.

The most dramatic came from the Gds of a friend. While on holiday they were visiting a site of Greek or Roman (maybe both) ruins where none of them had ever been before. The Gds was still preschool, a non reader, so couldn’t have read anything about it.

As soon as they entered he said, ‘I used to live here!’ and went on very happily to point out the remains of his house, and his friend’s house (he even gave a garbled but appropriate name for him) and the cave where they used to hide, and the pool/bath where they used to swim.

Needless to say the rest of the family were all seriously spooked!
When they left he said, equally happily, ‘ Thank you for bringing me home.’

Another child, similar age, used to come out with all sorts of things at 3 or 4 - things they thought he couldn’t possibly have learnt or heard about at such a young age.

When asked, he’d just say, in perfectly matter of fact tones, ‘Oh, I learnt that when I was here before.’

These threads always go the same way unfortunately. I find these sorts of things fascinating- anything to do with the vast amount of human experiences that don’t fit our understanding of the world. I really enjoy the podcast ‘Uncanny’.

What’s clear is that there are thousands upon thousands of experiences that defy logic. Sometimes a sceptic explanation is pretty compelling, of course, and it can be something that most people wouldn’t have thought of. But in others, there is just no current way of explaining someone’s experience except ‘you imagined it’ or ‘you were asleep’ - which is often pretty inadequate or insulting when some of these experiences have dramatically changed or even ruined people’s lives.

I know there’s a big demand for evidence on this thread and all others like it. But I don’t know what that evidence would actually look like, except for human testimony?

Even the most scientific person here takes a certain amount of information on trust. We haven’t all independently verified the curvature of the earth or the contents of an atom. At some point we all trust the evidence of someone else’s eyes and ears.

Can any of the hardcore sceptics explain what form evidence for an afterlife or ghosts or reincarnation or any of the other ‘bullshit’ would actually take? There are certain aspects of human experience that can’t be put in a test tube or plotted on a graph, after all. You can’t prove to me in any scientific way, for example, that you love your children, but you might be pretty insulted if I dismissed your experience if that emotion 🤷‍♀️

It’s not the same as saying ‘oh, well you can’t prove there’s not a giant spaghetti monster governing the universe’ which is sometimes the sort of very specific and silly example people give when they want to illustrate that you can’t just choose to believe something random because there’s no evidence to the contrary- and most rational people realise that. The ‘supernatural’ phenomena under discussion are, by contrast, often quite similar and compelling experiences of a small range of things - baffling memories recounted by small children in this case, but often also unexplained movements of objects, visions, premonitions.

So what I’m saying is that there is definitely weirdness in this world, and I don’t think there’s any immediate hope that much of it can be proved or disproved in a conventional scientific manner. I don’t understand the pp who ask ‘well how would reincarnation work then?’ as if a simple flow diagram might suffice. I’m not saying I believe in reincarnation, but if there were some sort of cosmic rebirth system, it’s hardly likely to conform to any rules we could understand! Some people seem to think that humans have the capacity to understand everything given the right data; I think that’s eminently unlikely.

I think you’re really struggling with understanding what I’ve said.

You said this boy could be talking about any war since wars began. I said no he couldn’t, he must be referencing a modern war because fighter pilots are modern inventions. This is not a difference of opinion. It’s you being wrong.

Really well said! I agree with you completely but couldn't have put it nearly so well.

A beautiful piece of writing @Myfavouritepenguin

Just looked up Uncanny @Myfavouritepenguin and wondering how you can possibly sleep at night?!

I believe past lives are possible. If you believe that the soul exists and is separate from the body, it makes sense that it is recycled and transformed across time in the same way that natural elements are recycled in the ecosystem. Imo it's more believable than a heavenly afterlife.

But children also say a lot of nonsense.

"But in others, there is just no current way of explaining someone’s experience except ‘you imagined it’ or ‘you were asleep’ - which is often pretty inadequate or insulting"

You're right when you say "no current way of explaining someone's experience." The crucial word is "current". There are lots of things we can't explain yet. That doesn't mean we never will. Or that we need to put something reality defying in the gap. Every time a perceived paranormal event has been properly investigated there turns out to have been a rational explanation. I'm sure many people were relieved when sleep paralysis explained their terrifying night time experiences. I don't see why reassuring a person that what happened to them was a dream is insulting. Of course we don't know everything. But we do know lots of things, and we're finding out more all the time.

Incidentally, one of the reasons I don't believe in life after death is this. If people who loved us and who we loved and grieved for had the ability to come and reassure us that they were fine and happy, then why don't they? Simple as that.

If you believe that the soul exists and is separate from the body, it makes sense that it is recycled and transformed across time in the same way that natural elements are recycled in the ecosystem. Imo it's more believable than a heavenly afterlife.

Why does it make sense? Also, even if you believe in souls (I don't), why would it be a choice between believing they are reincarnated or go to heaven? Why couldn't they just die when the body dies? I guess because the whole point of humans inventing the idea of the soul (and reincarnation) was to give them the comforting idea that we don’t just stop existing when we die!

@CurlewKate

There are lots of things we can't explain yet. That doesn't mean we never will. Or that we need to put something reality defying in the gap.

I agree with the first bit of this - that there is a possibility that we might find out explanations that currently elude us. But the second bit is a bit problematic; some of these phenomena are already reality-defying. That’s the problem. For example, objects, witnessed by more than one person, literally flying off shelves and moving around rooms. That’s an example of something reality-defying. I guess you’re saying that putting ‘it’s a dead person’ in that gap is the reality-defying stage; fair enough. But I don’t think most people do that; they use the shorthand ‘ghost’ or ‘poltergeist’ to mean that there’s a phenomenon they cannot explain.

Some people have suggested that so-called poltergeist activity could originate in humans for various specific reasons possibly to do with stress or illness. We currently don’t understand this, and it does seem ‘reality-defying’ to suggest that psychological or cerebral activity could manifest itself physically in the world. But that doesn’t mean we won’t come by some sort of explanation eventually. And if that were the case it would open up new, surprising possibilities about the way the universe works.

Every time a perceived paranormal event has been properly investigated there turns out to have been a rational explanation.

I’m afraid that’s simply not true. How could it be? As I said, have a listen to ‘Uncanny’. You might dismiss most of the experiences on there, but you’ll also see that it’s not possible to ‘properly investigate’ most of them - after all, they’re in the past not they’re based on human testimony! Just how would you investigate these things? As I asked before, what evidence would you be looking for?

If people who loved us and who we loved and grieved for had the ability to come and reassure us that they were fine and happy, then why don't they? Simple as that.

If there is a realm of experience that’s beyond the here and now, I’d fully expect it to be literally that - beyond us. Expecting it to adhere to our rules and expectations seems like a fool’s game, to me. I’m not sure why you’d expect it to be ‘simple’.

@Myfavouritepenguin

That’s the problem. For example, objects, witnessed by more than one person, literally flying off shelves and moving around rooms." But I don't think there has ever been an investigated poltergeist that has remained unexplained, has there? I know that, of course, things in the past are hard/impossible to investigate. My point is that if the same phenomenon occurs, the explanation is probably the same too. And the fact that more than one person saw it is not evidence.

And I say "simple" because many people claim to have had detailed messages from beyond the grave- why doesn't everyone? Why does the dead person usually tell the seeker stuff they know already?

Are we not, more plausibly, in a simulation? Could we not be on a ‘holiday’ from the future? Experiencing pain & suffering impossible in the future, so we want to experience it all. A ‘Red Letter Days’ experience writ large?

We absolutely WILL have the power to create ancestor simulations in the future, we are already halfway there. (If we avoid destroying ourselves) Imagine going back in time & having a true experience.

We have come on so far in a relatively short space of time - some of us will remember the excitement at ‘Pong’ a simple computer game, or in 90s (!) ‘snake’ on a rudimentary mobile phone.

Why opt for a less than perfect life? Imagine riding the same rollercoaster a million times.

OR could life be a metaphysical or spiritual test? We might be with those we are close to in the future, ‘can I be the family dog next time’…Imagine…

Why are there no signs of much else ‘out there’? Where are the ‘aliens’? Could our universe be replicated on an ‘as needed basis? If so, can we find out?

That's a really harmful thing to believe. Thank God most people don't believe that.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-xCFoJ0aywc

This is interesting, ‘imagine you had the power to dream whatever you wanted to dream’.

What if all the religions in world, many with commonalities, are seeded there by those in post human future who are compassionate & want to offer comfort:

@CurlewKate

I definitely think you’re wrong here:

But I don't think there has ever been an investigated poltergeist that has remained unexplained, has there?

There are many.

As far as the messages from beyond the grave go, I think these are always fairly ambiguous /unclear. As in, I don’t think anyone has had a comprehensive ‘feedback from the afterlife’ type message that categorically states that it’s all fine and no one need fear death or mortality! But my point is that this stuff will, by it’s very nature, be unclear and weird. For one thing, life just wouldn’t work if we had proper reassurance in an after-life! There has to be uncertainty. And, as I’ve already mentioned, why do we think we could understand?

There are loads of things about life that we take for granted that actually don’t make much sense. Why are we moved by art and music and beauty? What evolutionary point does that serve? You can’t prove the existence of beauty in a lab, but we accept it as part of the human experience.

I don’t think we’re meant to understand it all. There are hints and shades of the supernatural all over the place, but you can’t necessarily test them or measure them.

*caveat to my post above - it depends what you mean by ‘investigated’.

No - don't believe in past lives- doesn't make sense scientifically

But I don't think there has ever been an investigated poltergeist that has remained unexplained, has there?

There are many.

True. But there are none that have been investigated where the answer has been "Yes, it's a poltergeist!"

@Myfavouritepenguin Couldyou point me towards a poltergeist case that was shown to actually be a poltergeist?

Well, I think ‘poltergeist’ is a bit of a generic term to describe unexplained movement of objects and such like. There’s no way to ‘identify’ a poltergeist in a way that might satisfy you. It’s a word used when no physical-world explanation has been found, I believe.

But have you heard of the Battersea Poltergeist, for example?

It’s a word used when no physical-world explanation has been found, I believe.

It's a word bandied about with seemingly wild abandon. Much like so many others associated with various unproven claims of 'paranormal activity'.

There's a reason none of the very many monetary prizes offered over decades for indisputable proof of the paranormal have ever been successfully claimed.

Could you explain (as no one else on Team Sceptic has done so this far) what kind of proof you are looking for? I’m struggling to understand what form this evidence would take. Most of the prompts for people to believe in any kind of supernatural phenomena are brief and (apparently) unexplained experiences. We can’t bottle those.

well to start with evidence would need to be corroborated by more than one person telling a story. Because that’s just a story 🤷‍♀️ that’s just a first point. It needs to be verifiable and repricatable.