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Hello from a non-skeptic

Robert Oz said:
I think Sunniva would have been a far better ambassador for belief in reincarnation than Charles was. She seems to recognize reincarnation as a faith-based belief and acknowledges that looking for answers from scientists is either premature or impossible.

She chooses to believe that certain 'memories' are from past lives and is unconcerned about confirmation through objective evidence. She also understands why we don't believe this and is okay with that.

It's called 'being intellectually honest'.
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This is why they love you over there, Oz. You really do a good job of making a point and being kind (and others have as well on this thread...I just think they've noticed your brand of kindness. As others have said, they have no idea how VERY kind and polite this thread actually was in comparison with other threads of this sort...)

Just think... you and Sunniva could maybe become the Romeo and Juliet of the past life/skeptical worlds!

A plague on both our houses!

ETA:
Since we are now reading each other's threads, we should get together and have a DANCE! They should have plenty of people over there who know how to dance from past lives.
 
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dang.

Can't we still have a dance? You don't have to fall in love and kill yourself or anything...
 
AdMan: :D

To anyone from Past Life Forum: My comments and my sig line are both intended to fall into the category of light mocking and kidding around. I'm not intending to ridicule or bully anyone.

Past lives are funny... what can you do?


ETA:

I'm just saying, I can bring some corn chips... we can get a cheap DJ. Skeptics pay for beer, Past Lifers pay for liquor and let's see how it goes.
 
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Whoa.

So they seem like very nice people over at the Past Life Forum...

But I've been reading the threads... and, uh, maybe we should start with coffee first before we commit to, you know a DANCE...
 
I've only sporadically read this thread, so I don't know if anyone has made the following comment yet.

The thread title -- "Hello from a non-skeptic" -- is tantamount to saying:

"Hello from a person who does not critically evaluate new information, but who instead credulously accepts claims as factual without investigation into their veracity."

Seems kinda silly, don't it? :boggled:
 
Vortigern99 said:
I've only sporadically read this thread, so I don't know if anyone has made the following comment yet.

The thread title -- "Hello from a non-skeptic" -- is tantamount to saying:

"Hello from a person who does not critically evaluate new information, but who instead credulously accepts claims as factual without investigation into their veracity."

Seems kinda silly, don't it? :boggled:
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With what Charles has presented here ... the thread title might as well have said "I think I have a scientific explanation for something that I've already decided is true." This statement and the thread title may be silly to us, but is truthful for Charles (at some level) nonetheless. It is a self-defeating, worthless act by any measure, if the goal is to arrive at some consensus.
 
In retrospect, it was clear from the beginning that Charles did not want to apply any critical thinking to his experiences. Any attempt by any members to explain alternate possibilities (confirmation bias, probability, law of large numbers, etc.) resulted in him accusing us of being closed-minded and he made no significant attempt at explaining how he rejected any of these other possibilities. His responses amounted to story-time, at which point I completely lost all interest. The clever, and poignantly articulated responses served by other members here kept me coming back for more.
 
The old "I was once a sceptic" line was a dead giveaway - it's just a variant of the godbot's "I was once an atheist" (yes, I'm talking about YOU, Kurious Kathy).
 
Alice Shortcake said:
The old "I was once a sceptic" line was a dead giveaway - it's just a variant of the godbot's "I was once an atheist" (yes, I'm talking about YOU, Kurious Kathy).
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It was a dead giveaway and it was also patently false. That's the reason he so disliked having people learn about the book he'd written and read his posts on other forums where he said that since childhood he was convinced he'd lived an earlier life.

What's funny (well, maybe not so funny) is that even in his last post he kept repeating the lie that he'd come here just to ask a question on quantum physics.
 
Sunniva said:
However, one of my biggest concerns about this whole believer vs. non-believer discussion is that there is a constant referring to 'science', 'scientific' and 'experiments', which is easily misunderstood: reincarnation is not and will never be physical science. Many believers use 'science' and 'scientific experiments' as a label to justify their beliefs because you can't dispute science, but as you well know - you can easily dispute reincarnation. It's the good old 'absence of evidence/evidence of absence'-discussion.
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[source]

Yet, believers can't help themselves and constantly use terms and validations that encroach on scientific ground, and the religiously-flavoured "your scientific methods can't explain my beliefs" get-out-of-jail-free card. I realize Sunniva is doing her job, and moderating the discussion, but I'm astounded how such a neutral reply such as Aqualung's received such a response as this.

RANT! "Please let's try to have a civil discussion"? "Not really contributing"? Wha? The attitude there is just dripping with low self-esteem and namby pamby self-delusion.
 
majamin said:
RANT! "Please let's try to have a civil discussion"? "Not really contributing"? Wha? The attitude there is just dripping with low self-esteem and namby pamby self-delusion.
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TIL of the rant tag. :D
 
TIL that urbandictionary.com can be really useful.

<edit> OK, well that's completely redundant, as AdMan got in ahead of me with the very same point.
 
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Vortigern99 said:
I've only sporadically read this thread, so I don't know if anyone has made the following comment yet.

The thread title -- "Hello from a non-skeptic" -- is tantamount to saying:

"Hello from a person who does not critically evaluate new information, but who instead credulously accepts claims as factual without investigation into their veracity."

Seems kinda silly, don't it? :boggled:
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Seems like, whattayacallit . . . faith. And that's a virtue, right?
 
Charles Boden said:
I personally have also encountered apparently mediumnic occurrences which would go well beyond the possibility of a scam of any kind
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Fortunately that doesn't make them true. Otherwise every supernatural claim in the universe would also be true.

we now know as a fact that the human consciousness, or our intent in observing the reality around us, collapses quantum waves into particles.
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Why do you state this as a matter of fact when it's entirely false ?

Some researchers have been investigating the possible association of the greater or lesser mediumnic capacity of an individual to the pineal gland
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Some researchers ? Who ? And why would they be investigating the association of something we know exists with something we DON'T ?
 
Alice Shortcake said:
The old "I was once a sceptic" line was a dead giveaway - it's just a variant of the godbot's "I was once an atheist" (yes, I'm talking about YOU, Kurious Kathy).
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Love the sig, btw ... who is Adrian Pengelly?

I'm not sure how any of the other members at childpastlives attempt to validate their beliefs (if at all?), but Charles was hopeful in that he was actually asking how science could help to confirm his beliefs (better than nothing). I may be stretching the merits of his performance here, but seeing how everyone else treats each others' beliefs over on that forum, his outreach to science was noteworthy. On another note, I wouldn't last a day over there ... I'd drown in woo (or ... wooter?)
 
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