Hello from a non-skeptic

[madmonk76]

Well, at least so far you can continue to read the threads without registering.

I know nothing about forum software; but I know of one forum where they have articles and threads. The threads are not viewable unless you register.

Anyone know if they can close the threads to public viewing?
Anyone think they will? (if they can)

Actually, I only tried to register because one of the links here took me to a page that said I wasn't authorized to view that page and asked me to sign in. I guess that's what happens when you're late to the party.

 

[Mirrorglass]

Actually, I only tried to register because one of the links here took me to a page that said I wasn't authorized to view that page and asked me to sign in. I guess that's what happens when you're late to the party.

Some of the links lead to posts or threads that have since been deleted; have you tried the other ones? I think most of dlorde's and Aqualung's posts are still visible in other threads. I do wonder how long they can allow that to go on, though.

 

[FSM]

I remember when the Randi site closed itself to new members because of an influx of bullying non-skeptics. They used faith based arguments and unfairly used the eloquence of historic speakers they were in previous lives such as Cicero, Patric Henry and Julius Cesar. When the guy who used to be Joseph Goebbels registered the moderators had to close registration down because we skeptics were out gunned.

Or maybe I'm confused with a site I belonged to in a previous life

I nom'd it, because it was so nommable.

 

[FSM]

You know, while Charles' accusations certainly ring hollow, I have to agree that sometimes we, as a community, really are a bunch of dicks.

Hey, say that with relish.

 

[FSM]

I find that very disturbing, given the fact that a lot of stories there involve children. No problem with everyone having her/his own set of beliefs, but dragging children into it is just sick.

Instead of examining those things a bit more critically, there they are pushing each other more and more into that belief. Instead of telling the parents "well, your child might just have a good imagination", they are applauding them to have an allegedly reincarnated child.

From my POV, most (if not all) those childs want to have attention. So they make up stories, and thus get attention. Instead of telling them "well, that's a bit too far fetched" they actually go all "wohoo, great, gimme more!". I think that sends the wrong signals to the child: The more you make up, the more they love you, the more attention you get.

But then, that's just me... In any case, the way even the slightest skepticism is handled over there is, in my opinion, really disgusting. I found it always strange that a lot of woo's complain about others suppressing their views, while it is them who do exactly that most of the time.

Greetings,

Chris

You know, as I read through the forum over there, I started looking at some other research on past lives involving children and strangely, both Sam Harris and Sagan have said there might be something to the 'evidence' in those cases...

I disagree for many reasons (however... Harris said, and I paraphrase-- either the evidence holds water or people are stark raving mad...) and I'd love to have that discussion with someone over there, but I don't think they would take my thoughts very kindly no matter how non-dickishly I tried to say them. I don't think there's much to the child research at all. And further, I think 'researching' this issue with kids MIGHT be, and I'm hesitant to say it this way... but... well, it MIGHT be a form of suggestion that almost resembles brainwashing and might also be a type of neglect or abuse if the child needs other types of mental health assistance and they are being interviewed instead by a past life researcher...

But, to the past lives people... if the great Sagan were still alive (or maybe reincarnated in the precocious body of a, what, thirteen year old?) and propped up on the pedestal I would put him on... I would STILL ask the questions I ask and make the same dickish arguments with him that I would with the past life people.

So my intent, and I think the intent of many here, is to have a good discussion... not to cause the Meltdown (tm) and have everyone close down shop.

I'd like to hear if Charles does the Ouija board retest... if it works, then HEY! Let's do it again and get a real test set up and get Charles some money. Let's get some research going on past lives and really dig in to the whole thing.

If it doesn't work, I'm still interested in hearing what Charles would say... there's always a way to stick to faith in something if you really want to do so. Sunniva said it really well.

Still, I'm intrigued by the conversation and I don't mind being called names. It tickles me.

Here's another blurb from over there of why we are dicks and I don't think this is completely off base:

Originally Posted by stardis
Since it seems that you may have some insight into the character of a skeptic, I wonder if you could answer a question for me. Why do people become skeptics and pursue a career of intruding into the thoughts and conversations of other people and seemingly make sport to "mock the proposer for their lack of knowledge".

I don't think we intrude, but mock we do.

 

[iknownothing]

Here's another blurb from over there of why we are dicks and I don't think this is completely off base:

Originally Posted by stardis
Since it seems that you may have some insight into the character of a skeptic, I wonder if you could answer a question for me. Why do people become skeptics and pursue a career of intruding into the thoughts and conversations of other people and seemingly make sport to "mock the proposer for their lack of knowledge".

I don't think we intrude, but mock we do.

Awesome. Charles Boden starts a post here for the purpose of poking people. And he gets responses. Then he invites JREFers to post on his forum.

That's stretching the definition of "intrude."

 

[majamin]

I think the part that's really telling is his refusal to even consider doing the blindfolded Ouija board test. Here's a simple thing to do, choose anyone you want to be the subjects of the test, and have a go at it. Yet nooooOOOoooo, Charles won't do it. Deep down in his heart he knows that the results of the test would be the same as in the Penn & Teller video, and he doesn't want his favorite royal fantasy to be so conclusively shot down.

I'd like to hear if Charles does the Ouija board retest... if it works, then HEY! Let's do it again and get a real test set up and get Charles some money. Let's get some research going on past lives and really dig in to the whole thing.

I think asking Charles to perform a test and relying on him to conduct some kind of analysis from the results would be fruitless. The issue is that Charles would not know what to do with the results. If he went through with it, I'm sure all he would surmise is that the experiment is somehow flawed ("the spirits need to see through my eyes", "the spirits will not communicate if the experiment is setup to disprove their existence", etc.).

 

[Senex]

I nom'd it, because it was so nommable.

Thanks. Just because it was nominated doesn't preclude it happening in an alternative universe.

 

[John Jones]

Does anyone know when they suspended new members from registering on the Past Life Forum? I wanted to go over and have a look at the discussions mentioned previously, but it seems they've closed up shop to new members entirely.

Since everyone is a reincarnation of someone else, there can be no new members.

 

[dlorde]

Originally Posted by stardis:
Since it seems that you may have some insight into the character of a skeptic, I wonder if you could answer a question for me. Why do people become skeptics and pursue a career of intruding into the thoughts and conversations of other people and seemingly make sport to "mock the proposer for their lack of knowledge".

Awesome. Charles Boden starts a post here for the purpose of poking people. And he gets responses. Then he invites JREFers to post on his forum.

That's stretching the definition of "intrude."

To be fair, I get the feeling that stardis was talking about sceptics in general, not just the JRef Boden followers p). Which, of course, makes it an even more bigoted assertion

They seem to see all sceptics as nasty busybodies determined to try and chase down believers and destroy their beliefs by poking fun and mocking when they can't debunk... a subtle blend of paranoia and xenophobia - and, presumably, fear that their belief system is fragile enough to be threatened by that

I seem to be tolerated as long as I just ask questions without directly challenging the belief - which, in the spirit of sceptical curiosity, I'm prepared to do.

I'm curious to see what data there is on the numbers of people involved, the geographical and temporal extent of the past lives recalled, the characteristics of the past life, etc. It appears that the child 'memories' are typically very local and of the very recently deceased, whereas the adult 'memories' in the forums seem temporally and geographically unconstrained - although one member told me they were mostly local; but then she told me there were far more child cases than adult cases, which doesn't appear to square with the evidence of the forums themselves. Perhaps she was referring to detailed studies rather than simple reports...

Anyhoo, it appears, at first glance, that the typical child reports are qualitatively different from the typical adult reports, and differ particularly in their temporal range. This could indicate that they have different aetiologies, or that the children do not have the broader historical and/or geographical knowledge of the adults on which to base their 'recollection'. Statistical studies of this kind could provide an alternative, orthogonal dataset for critical examination of these claims, alongside the detailed investigation of individual cases.

That is, if anyone can summon the will to care for long enough

 

[Dunstan]

I'm curious, does that forum ever have two or more people with conflicting claims?

"I'm the reincarnation of Cleopatra."
"No, I'm the reincarnation of Cleopatra!"

 

[AdMan]

I'm curious, does that forum ever have two or more people with conflicting claims?

"I'm the reincarnation of Cleopatra."
"No, I'm the reincarnation of Cleopatra!"

LOL that is a great question. Reminds me of this famous experiment.

I'm betting the outcome on the forum wouldn't be too far away from the one at Ypsilanti.

 

[kittynh]

well you are a skeptic. Everyone is. Most of your life is run that way. About a few things, you are less skeptic... but for the big things that mean the most for your safety and day to day living... you are a skeptic. Someone knocks on your door and tells you they are here to check your furnace (and you haven't called for someone to check) you are a skeptic. You are running a high fever and blood is coming out weird places... you are a whole lot more skeptic of that homeopathy and a lot more believing in the ER.

We are all skeptics about the most important things.

Other things, where your life isn't on the line or even your comfort... people often choose to be less skeptical.

 

[Ririon]

LOL that is a great question. Reminds me of this famous experiment.

I'm betting the outcome on the forum wouldn't be too far away from the one at Ypsilanti.

According to that link, it would be unethical to not ban all but one of the Cleopatras from the forum. So the administrators would just have to pick the one they liked the best. Problem solved. At least the practical problem..

 

[Gao]

I'm curious to see what data there is on the numbers of people involved, the geographical and temporal extent of the past lives recalled, the characteristics of the past life, etc.

I think this would be really interesting as well, and could be interesting even if we look at specific eras of claimed reincarnation. For instance, in the Roman lives thread that I linked to, there was one who seemed to claim to have lived under Julius Caesar, one who claimed to have been Augustus, several people who claimed to have lived around the time of Jesus, one under Claudius during the British conquest, two under Nero (with one dying during the Jewish revolt), two died under Vesuvius, one under Hadrian (this person claimed to be Hadrian's love Antinous), one sometime in the second century, a few under the republic at some point, and several that didn't offer a specific timeframe. Notably, there was no one who claimed to have lived in the third, fourth, or fifth century despite the huge amount of people who lived during those periods. So we have clusters around what are today the most famous periods of Roman history, with most claiming to have lived in the first century AD, and nothing about the eras that few people know anything about. Similarly, the lives were almost all centered around the city of Rome despite the fact that the vast majority of the population of the empire lived elsewhere.

Obviously, this makes plenty of sense with the idea that these "memories" are based around the bits of information about Rome that they get from school and popular culture. It might be interesting to see how much similar clustering there is for other locations and time periods. It's probably more of the same, but it would still be something nice to have hard data on.

 

[eerok]

I thought that the tendency to produce false memories under hypnosis was pretty well established. Even without hypnosis, it's pretty easy to distort memory. There was a lot of fuss years back over false claims of child abuse touted as repressed memories that were restored by therapy (cf sciam article).

Reincarnation as supported by "regression" appears to be pure fantasy based either intentionally or naively on distortions of memory.

 

[Nursefoxfire]

I think this would be really interesting as well, and could be interesting even if we look at specific eras of claimed reincarnation. For instance, in the Roman lives thread that I linked to, there was one who seemed to claim to have lived under Julius Caesar, one who claimed to have been Augustus, several people who claimed to have lived around the time of Jesus, one under Claudius during the British conquest, two under Nero (with one dying during the Jewish revolt), two died under Vesuvius, one under Hadrian (this person claimed to be Hadrian's love Antinous), one sometime in the second century, a few under the republic at some point, and several that didn't offer a specific timeframe. Notably, there was no one who claimed to have lived in the third, fourth, or fifth century despite the huge amount of people who lived during those periods. So we have clusters around what are today the most famous periods of Roman history, with most claiming to have lived in the first century AD, and nothing about the eras that few people know anything about. Similarly, the lives were almost all centered around the city of Rome despite the fact that the vast majority of the population of the empire lived elsewhere.

Obviously, this makes plenty of sense with the idea that these "memories" are based around the bits of information about Rome that they get from school and popular culture. It might be interesting to see how much similar clustering there is for other locations and time periods. It's probably more of the same, but it would still be something nice to have hard data on.

In my admittedly brief scan of that forum, i noticed that a lot of the members' past selves were close to positions of power (Hadrian's amor, a Japanese nobleman's daughter, etc...). I haven't read anyone saying that they were a lice-infested syphilitic prostitute from some obscure era, who died a horrible death.

You'd think the odds would be that most "past-life reincarnates" would be from the majority population, dirt-grubbing peasants. But NOOO! it's all "Lifestyles of the Reincarnates of the Rich and Famous!"

 

[Emet]

"I have been born more times than anybody except Krishna."
-Mark Twain

 

[iknownothing]

In my admittedly brief scan of that forum, i noticed that a lot of the members' past selves were close to positions of power (Hadrian's amor, a Japanese nobleman's daughter, etc...). I haven't read anyone saying that they were a lice-infested syphilitic prostitute from some obscure era, who died a horrible death.

You'd think the odds would be that most "past-life reincarnates" would be from the majority population, dirt-grubbing peasants. But NOOO! it's all "Lifestyles of the Reincarnates of the Rich and Famous!"

Or, lots of them should remember lifetimes that ended before the age of 5, dying from malnutrition, or a difficult bout of diarrhea, or child abuse, etc.

 

[Gao]

In my admittedly brief scan of that forum, i noticed that a lot of the members' past selves were close to positions of power (Hadrian's amor, a Japanese nobleman's daughter, etc...). I haven't read anyone saying that they were a lice-infested syphilitic prostitute from some obscure era, who died a horrible death.

You'd think the odds would be that most "past-life reincarnates" would be from the majority population, dirt-grubbing peasants. But NOOO! it's all "Lifestyles of the Reincarnates of the Rich and Famous!"

Yeah, the vast majority are at least of people in the upper classes, but there was one major exception in the Rome thread:

I was an Armenian stonecutter who became an indentured servant in Rome under the name Marcus Livius. That was, as far as I know, my first life, and it was rather unremarkable and quite full of stress and anger. I think this was around the 2nd century AD...

You would think that you'd see a lot more of that if reincarnation were real, but it does seem that some lives are at least occasionally claimed. There were also a couple of people who claimed to have worked in the Coliseum as boys, but while that would definitely be a lower class position, the "cool" factor of working with gladiators and wild beasts in the most famous building of the Rome makes me hesitant to classify these lives with something mundane like the life of a stonecutter.