Human Spirit

[What's Burning?]

Can we stop calling it spirits?

[Jabberwocky]

If it is promoted or demoted who designated the order

[CookinFlat6]

Darwin

[andrew]

If it is promoted or demoted who designated the order

Evolution and the process of natural selection.

[LewEngBridewell]

Reincarnation is an interesting one. I'm an atheist, but I'm not going to s*** all over the topic in a "one-sentence-and-run" style, which has been described earlier in this thread. There's something rather mysterious, and even haunting, about the topic, and it becomes duly fascinating for most people.

Like most things attributed to religion, it's a topic full of contradictions, disagreements and wildly differing opinions, thoughts and views. This even occurs within the same branch (broadly speaking) of religion. Take Christianity, for example. Major Christian denominations reject the concept of reincarnation. However, a large number of Christians have said that they, in fact, do believe in reincarnation. A section of this poll here (http://www.pewforum.org/2009/12/09/many ... le-faiths/) shows 24% of American Christians to hold such a belief. Again, as with many religious ideas, it will always be a muddied, vague, contradictory picture on which many people will always hold contrasting opinions.

What I will always have a fondness far, is the fascinating research that has gone into the subject. Take North American psychiatrist Ian Stevenson, for example. Over forty years of his life, he did particular research into children who claimed to remember a past life. The details of such past lives were given in terms of past people (deceased people the child identified with), places, things that had been, past events, etc. He wrote many books containing various case studies during this time. All the childrens' statements were documented, and the facts of the deceased person's life (which the child allegedly identified with) were verified with the words of the child.

The works have both been praised and criticised. Crucially, there is no mechanism known to modern science, that would enable a personality to survive death and travel to another body.

Such cases as described are very rare. Most people have never identified in similar ways to the deceased. In cases where a child allegedly remembers a wealthy past-life, it has been heavily suggested this may simply be means to obtain money (most famously written about by author Ian Wilson). Thoughts and ideas about reincarnation are so varied, and whilst I've laboured on a certain area, animals, etc are also brought into the equation.

Interesting, complicated, varied, and on scientifically rocky ground.

[Jabberwocky]

If it is promoted or demoted who designated the order

Evolution and the process of natural selection.

OK say a Sparrow dies and it's spirit comes back as a blue finch.... is that a step up or step down? As some cultures believe that if you are good you move up the scale in your next life. Who decides the order. Would it be egotistical to belive that humans are the top of the scale?

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[LiamCatterson]

If it is promoted or demoted who designated the order

Evolution and the process of natural selection.

OK say a Sparrow dies and it's spirit comes back as a blue finch.... is that a step up or step down? As some cultures believe that if you are good you move up the scale in your next life. Who decides the order. Would it be egotistical to belive that humans are the top of the scale?

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Aliens...Or any other form of creature greater than us.

[Jabberwocky]

Holy thread revival batman.

So are you saying to believe in reincarnation their must be a god?

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[LiamCatterson]

No. I believe once you do kick the bucket, your soul will transfer itself to another body but it won't remember what its past life was about, however there could be side effects like people partically remembering their past lives. Lets go with RAM. Crap example but it is a primary source of the computer memory and every time you turn a computer on, the temporal storage that was held last time will be gone the next time you start the computer up.

[stonemonkey]

If it is promoted or demoted who designated the order

Evolution and the process of natural selection.

I love that we are finding out more and more about the amazing processes involved in life, how it started and then evolved, none of that takes away how incredible it is and in my opinion adds to it and its things we wouldnt know if everyone just accepted that god did it or explained it away as some supernatural phenomena.

For example, how mutation might be something that's naturally built into the replication of DNA rather than just being a case of random errors in copying.
http://m.phys.org/news/2015-03-quantum- ... ancer.html

[darwin dali]

If it is promoted or demoted who designated the order

Evolution and the process of natural selection.

I love that we are finding out more and more about the amazing processes involved in life, how it started and then evolved, none of that takes away how incredible it is and in my opinion adds to it and its things we wouldnt know if everyone just accepted that god did it or explained it away as some supernatural phenomena.

For example, how mutation might be something that's naturally built into the replication of DNA rather than just being a case of random errors in copying.
http://m.phys.org/news/2015-03-quantum- ... ancer.html