Is reincarnation real?

[AnnaG]

Only if you prefer to view it that way. Look, Gerry, I am half Anishinaabe and half Irish. To me that means I can have fun with the stereotypes people inflict on both. We have a few friends that are disabled and they have fun with their situation in life.
My Dad who goes waaaay deeper into the myths and legends of our people also has fun with the myths of our people. It's called having a sense of humor. It's a game to me. I play games not to make fun of them, I play them to HAVE fun with them. Big, huge difference.

 

[Cliffy]

Not everything is scientifically provable because not everything is in the realm of physical reality. My favourite reaction on this thread is the one about how these people must be making money off of this "obvious phony" claim. I've never thought of reincarnation as being mystical, spiritual or religious in nature. But there are things like idiot savants, people like Mozart who wrote symphonies at six years old, people who could remember details of past lives.

I do not believe that if reincarnation exists that it is anything they way Hindus believe it to be. I don't think you can go backwards (to being a cow, for example) but that we may come back to correct a mistake made in a previous life.

There is no way to prove it, but when I was around four or five I had a recurring dream of burning in a house fire. It was very real, with heat, smells and pain, and occurred nightly for many months and caused me to wake up screaming. To this day, even though I have not had that dream since I was five, I remember this dream in minute detail.

Was it a past life experience? I don't know but I certainly do not right it off as impossible because science cannot prove it.

 

[AnnaG]

IOW, you need more evidence. Me, too.

 

[Cliffy]

Only if you prefer to view it that way. Look, Gerry, I am half Anishinaabe and half Irish. To me that means I can have fun with the stereotypes people inflict on both. We have a few friends that are disabled and they have fun with their situation in life.
My Dad who goes waaaay deeper into the myths and legends of our people also has fun with the myths of our people. It's called having a sense of humor. It's a game to me. I play games not to make fun of them, I play them to HAVE fun with them. Big, huge difference.

One of the things that endeared me to native spirituality is that they were not afraid to have fun with it. The first time I went into a sweat lodge with an old medicine man I was horrified, having been brought up Catholic, that the old fart kept making jokes during the ritual. Surely this is the most sacred of rituals. The sweat lodge is like a church to most aboriginal peoples. How could he be cracking dirty jokes in a holy place?

Part of what made his "medicine" so strong is that he had a sense of humour about everything - Coyote, the trickster. As I have stated before, one cannot become enlightened by being serious. To be enlightened is to lighten up, eh! to divest ourselves of all the beliefs and dogma that weigh us down, to free the mind. To me being spiritual means seeing the humour in everything in spite of the insanity that surrounds us.

 

[AnnaG]

Yeah. That's at least part of it anyway.
My Dad and his friend were travelling to somewhere ione time, and the friend forgot to fill the gas tank. They bombed along for a while and the friend had to pee or "something". So they stopped and while the guy was peeing Dad got the jerry can out of the trunk and put gas in. The friend came back and they got to their destination and the friend said, "Great Spirit was sure looking after us there. I forgot to fill the tank". Dad said,"Great Spirit, my butt. I brought a jerrycan."

 

[gerryh]

One of the things that endeared me to native spirituality is that they were not afraid to have fun with it. The first time I went into a sweat lodge with an old medicine man I was horrified, having been brought up Catholic, that the old fart kept making jokes during the ritual. Surely this is the most sacred of rituals. The sweat lodge is like a church to most aboriginal peoples. How could he be cracking dirty jokes in a holy place?

Part of what made his "medicine" so strong is that he had a sense of humour about everything - Coyote, the trickster. As I have stated before, one cannot become enlightened by being serious. To be enlightened is to lighten up, eh! to divest ourselves of all the beliefs and dogma that weigh us down, to free the mind. To me being spiritual means seeing the humour in everything in spite of the insanity that surrounds us.

:roll: we're not talking about someone like the medicine man in your example.... we're talking about someone that admits to not believing but only uses it to make a joke.

 

[AnnaG]

I don't believe in leprachauns either but I can joke about them. Get a grip.

 

[Unforgiven]

Funny, I don't see anybody making any claims other than (possibly) "I believe in reincarnation". You will be sitting in front of your computer a very long time before somebody is able to prove to you what they do or don't believe in.

I don't doubt someone's beliefs. What I doubt is that what they believe is the truth.

 

[Unforgiven]

To use the words of Dexter, so what?

(BTW - I think you meant to say, to your knowledge that has never ever been established to be the truth in all the time of the Humans)

Yeah, so what.

I meant what I said. That's why I said it.

 

[Cliffy]

:roll: we're not talking about someone like the medicine man in your example.... we're talking about someone that admits to not believing but only uses it to make a joke.

And maybe Anna is an enlightened one, but I doubt she would admit it. Enlightened ones never do. As the old Zen saying goes: "Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood carry water." Although personally, if I wake up in the morning I assume I am not enlightened yet.

 

[AnnaG]

Seems to me, Les mentioned having good conversations with someone named Chris here at CC. He also mentioned that Chris was a RC priest. And on top of that, he mentioned Chris has a really good sense of humor about his faith and wasn't at all sensitive about joking around with Les. That would indicate to me that this Chris fellow was deeply secure about his faith that he could do that with an atheist. I haven't seen a priest around here so I guess the Chris fellow has left. We also have a Catholic priest near here that has a sense of humor. He's a really good fellow. And we had an Anglican priest friend in Kloneville that told marvelous jokes about faith.

 

[gerryh]

Like I said, there is a difference between what they do, and what you say you do....... it's rather sad that you are too, either blind or stupid...take your pick, to see the difference.

 

[s_lone]

Is reincarnation real?

It all depends on whether or not there is that little thing in us that we tend to call ''soul'' or ''spirit''.

So the fundamental question is...

Is soul real?

 

[AnnaG]

Like I said, there is a difference between what they do, and what you say you do....... it's rather sad that you are too, either blind or stupid...take your pick, to see the difference.

Sorry, I don't understand what you are saying here.
Anyway, sorry. I really expected people to laugh, not get all sensitive and go off the deep end.
Want to hear some jokes about being female? I can laugh about that, too.

 

[AnnaG]

And maybe Anna is an enlightened one, but I doubt she would admit it. Enlightened ones never do. As the old Zen saying goes: "Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood carry water." Although personally, if I wake up in the morning I assume I am not enlightened yet.

I am enlightened a couple times a day actually. As Les would say, I go "pinch a loaf" sometimes, or "coil a rope". lol

 

[Cliffy]

I am enlightened a couple times a day actually. As Les would say, I go "pinch a loaf" sometimes, or "coil a rope". lol

I feel the same way about leaving a large trout in the bowl. One of the best scenes in a movie about the subject was Robin Williams in the Fisher King where he talks about how he came to be able to see the little floating people during a particularly ecstatic bowel movement. Absolutely hysterical as only Robin Williams can present it.:lol:

 

[AnnaG]

I'll have to catch that sometime. Never heard of it before, I don't think. Gotta love Robin W. Absolutely nothing is sacred to the guy.

 

[taxslave]

My wife who is a naturopath and does regression therapy watched the video and said if it is a fake it is a dam good one that somebody put a lot of work into. Basically all the facts about the fighter pilot can be verified so unless some one coached the kid his experiences are real and what can be expected.

 

[AnnaG]

Except for the tiny little details such as Huston was probably shot down in a Wildcat, not a Corsair. The devil's in the details.

 

[AnnaG]

But Professor Paul Kurtz of the State University of New York at Buffalo, who heads an organization that investigates claims of the paranormal, says he thinks the parents are "self-deceived." "They're fascinated by the mysterious and they built up a fairy tale," he said.

James' vivid, alleged recollections are starting to fade as he gets older — but among his prized possessions remain two haunting presents sent to him by Barron: a bust of George Washington and a model of a Corsair aircraft. They were among the personal effects of James Huston sent home after the war.

"He appears to have experienced something that I don't think is unique, but the way it's been revealed is quite astounding," Bruce said. Asked if the idea that James may have been someone else changes his or his wife's feeling about their son, Bruce said: "It doesn't change how we think. I don't look at him and say, 'That's not my boy.' That's my boy."

Could a Little Boy Be Proof of Reincarnation?