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Split Thread Scorpion's Spiritualism

anglolawyer said:
Well, in that case, where are all the missing 73-93 billion unreincarnated dead people? Hmmm? Let's see you answer that smart aleck!
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Aaaargh. I deliberately avoided making any kind of supposition about reincarnation, and reserved myself to smartaleckyness.

But since you ask... I'm assuming they're being recycled! Souls are issued to the first squillion people/creatures who correctly complete the application form in triplicate, and this form is tacitly accepted as a re-application upon the death of the squillionth (and so forth) person/animal.

If it happens that people/critters find themselves to be soulless, this is more than likely due to clerical errors or automatic disqualification (which i can only speculate might apply to such beings as locusts, goats and people who cut in lines)
 
TofuFighter said:
Aaaargh. I deliberately avoided making any kind of supposition about reincarnation, and reserved myself to smartaleckyness.

But since you ask... I'm assuming they're being recycled! Souls are issued to the first squillion people/creatures who correctly complete the application form in triplicate, and this form is tacitly accepted as a re-application upon the death of the squillionth (and so forth) person/animal.

If it happens that people/critters find themselves to be soulless, this is more than likely due to clerical errors or automatic disqualification (which i can only speculate might apply to such beings as locusts, goats and people who cut in lines)
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Darn bureaucrats! They're at the bottom of everything! :)
 
anglolawyer said:
Hey tsig! Did I change your mind about whether the estate of a deceased person could maintain an action for damages for assault on that person? You deserted the discussion rather than reply to my post (and those of others) having told me that I did not understand the term 'estate'.
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It was a misreading on my part.
 
tsig said:
It was a misreading on my part.
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And what prevented you from saying so at the time? I mean, that is what this thread is actually about. As I recall, you just cheesed off in silence instead of piping up. In fact, it was a little worse than that because you launched your point with a sarcastic attack on my professional credentials as a lawyer so, at the very least, I should have thought an apology was due. Don't get me wrong. I don't mind in the least and I am not asking you to apologise. I just want you to know I remembered it and that these things tend to hang in the air. Better not to misread of course but, far better than that, when you do, is to own up and make your peace with the thread, the forum and/or the other poster.
 
anglolawyer said:
And what prevented you from saying so at the time? I mean, that is what this thread is actually about. As I recall, you just cheesed off in silence instead of piping up. In fact, it was a little worse than that because you launched your point with a sarcastic attack on my professional credentials as a lawyer so, at the very least, I should have thought an apology was due. Don't get me wrong. I don't mind in the least and I am not asking you to apologise. I just want you to know I remembered it and that these things tend to hang in the air. Better not to misread of course but, far better than that, when you do, is to own up and make your peace with the thread, the forum and/or the other poster.
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I just did.
 
anglolawyer said:
Well, in that case, where are all the missing 73-93 billion unreincarnated dead people? Hmmm? Let's see you answer that smart aleck!
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What is interesting of all that pool of souls to draw from, only the known historical figures get the "second, third..." chance.
The many others that lived and died in anonymity get no second chance, if the claims of having a past life had any basis in reality.
I get Military History Quarterly. The number of grunts dying in battle, and the toll on the losing sides is enormous, but it's only Napoleon who shows up 100 years later, not one of the grunts that died at Waterloo.
 
I Ratant said:
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What is interesting of all that pool of souls to draw from, only the known historical figures get the "second, third..." chance.
The many others that lived and died in anonymity get no second chance, if the claims of having a past life had any basis in reality.
I get Military History Quarterly. The number of grunts dying in battle, and the toll on the losing sides is enormous, but it's only Napoleon who shows up 100 years later, not one of the grunts that died at Waterloo.
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Funny, but I've noticed that too!

The thing that always strikes me about reincarnation of the common or garden variety is - so what? Say I am the reincarnation of some nobody no one ever heard of. What of it? I don't remember him and he had no foreknowledge of me. So it's exactly the same as if he died and I was born and neither event had any connection with the other. More to the point, it means death is forever or that it is not not forever because of reincarnation.

Reincarnation only addresses the problem of being permanently dead, or permanently not being, if there is some cognitive link between the dead one and the living one, otherwise it's pointless.
 
anglolawyer said:
Funny, but I've noticed that too!

The thing that always strikes me about reincarnation of the common or garden variety is - so what? Say I am the reincarnation of some nobody no one ever heard of. What of it? I don't remember him and he had no foreknowledge of me. So it's exactly the same as if he died and I was born and neither event had any connection with the other. More to the point, it means death is forever or that it is not not forever because of reincarnation.

Reincarnation only addresses the problem of being permanently dead, or permanently not being, if there is some cognitive link between the dead one and the living one, otherwise it's pointless.
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I would very much appreciate it if you would post this in Rich Savage's "Bayesian Statistics" thread...
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=248163
 
I Ratant said:
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The problem with incarnations is there's more people alive than have died.
Whereat do those souls come from?
Humanity began with just a handful of homo sapiens, who bred and fruitfully multiplied the number of us.
A "handful" of souls is now several billion?
How's that compute?
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I seem to remember a science fiction story from some years ago in which babies started to be born without minds/brains. The x-planation was that there was a finite number of souls and the Universe had run out (some number were normally in the buffer in Heaven but it was exhausted). :eek:
 
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Gord_in_Toronto said:
I seem to remember a science fiction story from some years ago in which babies started to be born without minds/brains. The x-planation was that there was a finite number of souls and the Universe had run out (some number were normally in the buffer in Heaven but it was exhausted). :eek:
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I've read that one. The protagonist (a Buddhist IIRC) decides to commit suicide so that one less child will be born mindless.

I've also read a story where someone investigating why life expectancy appears to be dropping finally works out that every time the world's population exceeds a certain number the oldest person alive drops dead, apparently to free a soul for the next baby to be born. Can't remember the title or author of that one either.
 
Scorpion said:
I think it unlikely that anyone else here has as much experience of psychic mediums as I have. I have been looking into it since the 1960's and I attended many trance lectures at the spiritualist association in London throughout the 1970's. My conclusions were that some mediums are genuine, and they do not just do cold reading, as James Randi says. They do tell you facts and names, and details that it would be difficult for them to know unless they are doing what they say they are doing. Which is talking to the spirits of the departed. I conclude that most people here have little or no experience of psychics, and they write them off because of a preconception that they must all be fakes. Or it would entirely change the scientific paradigm. We would have to accept life after death, and higher realms of experience. Therefore I guess I am trying to preach a belief system.
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So why cant any of these psychics ever demonstrate these abilities under controlled conditions? One thing about psychics is that it's actually very easy to test the claims they make.

The things you list - "Facts and names, and details that it would be difficult for them to know unless they are doing what they say they are doing" - all very easy to test under controlled conditions. All things that psychics apparently do with ease day in day out during private sessions, stage and TV shows. Yet as soon as simple controls are used that prevent shenanigans (and more importantly prevent natural human cognitive biases from skewing the results) the abilities mysteriously disappear.

Show me results from a few credible, properly controlled tests that demonstrate psychic ability exists and I'll change my mind on the matter. What will it take for you to change yours?
 
I Ratant said:
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The problem with incarnations is there's more people alive than have died.
Whereat do those souls come from?
Humanity began with just a handful of homo sapiens, who bred and fruitfully multiplied the number of us.
A "handful" of souls is now several billion?
How's that compute?
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The spiritualist mediums I have studied teach that we incarnate on many, many different planets. They are at different stages of evolution, and some are far higher in development than ours. The soul or spirit goes to a planet that is at a stage of evolution where experience will benefit that soul.
There are also countless souls in the spirit world between incarnations. According to the mediums I have heard giving trance lectures, there has been a great rush of souls wanting to incarnate on the earth at this time because the opportunities for spiritual advancement are great.
 
Slowvehicle said:
...and you know this...how? What is your source for what the "spirit world" says?
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My source is that I attended many trance lectures by several mediums at the spiritualist association in London for several years during the 1970's.

Two of the mediums I listened to at the spiritualist association were Ivy Northage and Ursula Roberts. I also went to White Eagle lodge and heard Grace Cook give trance lectures. I also attended an art class by Gladys Mayer, a student of Rudolph Steiner.

I believe all these people are now dead, but information about them all can be found on the Internet together with some of their teachings.

PS. Trance lectures are where a medium is purportedly taken in trance by a discarnate spirit who then speaks through the mediums mouth.
 
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thenigotoffthebus said:
Show me results from a few credible, properly controlled tests that demonstrate psychic ability exists and I'll change my mind on the matter. What will it take for you to change yours?
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The spirit world do not want or intend to give absolute proof of their existence to the people of this world. Because that would defeat the very object of incarnation. Which is to choose our own path through the world and by doing so invoke karma that is designed to teach us to spiritually evolve. If we had absolute proof of the existence of the spirit world we might as well stay there and not incarnate at all. But in this world we are tried and tested by experience that leads us gradually up the path of evolution over many incarnations.

I am unlikely to change my mind about all this as finding it out was the work of years, and I have had much subjective evidence that we do survive death, in the form of many evidential messages from the spirit world given to me by mediums. But telling you of my experiences is just anecdotal, and although it gives me belief it proves nothing to you. You would have to spend years in a spiritualist church to get such evidence, and even then you might not. The spirit world do not give away their secrets to the idly curious, only to those that they think will use the knowledge in a positive way.
 
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