FYF 101

Saturday, November 20, 2010

Since many people have fewer than 10 posts, from now on each for discussion question will allow you to participate twice.

First, you should read and react to some of the comments on this post so far.

Then, you should answer the question yourself.

Revisit the post to see what other people may be saying about your comments!

For Discussion:

Then do a quick search and find a reincarnation story on the web which hasn't yet been posted here give a link to it and give your opinion - is it evidence for reincarnation or does something else seem likely?

posted by Anthony at 12:47 PM

26 Comments:

  • http://www.pureinsight.org/node/4110

    To summarize, this story basically said that there was a family who had a dog. When the dog died, the family was absolutely traumatized. Then the wife had a dream one night and her grandmother was in it. She said that when she was living her last few weeks of life, they didn't pay much attention to her and when she died they didn't cry as much as they cried when their dog died. The grandmother said she was reincarnated into the dog so the family can pay their debt to her. Then she said to do some math and see
    how long you had raised the dog and how long you had kept me home unattended before I died. The times were the same. Also she explained where and how she got the dog, and after the wife asked around, she realized the grandmother was right in the dream.

    I personally believe in reincarnation. I think from a science point of view the saying "matter isn't created nor destroyed" fits perfectly. All of life is like a giant cycle. There are too many unexplainable stories of reincarnation for people to not believe it. Some say they are coincidences, and in some situations I think they're right. But other times, I feel like there is no way that someone could simply make something like feelings or memories from a past life up, especially in the case of very young children. I think the skepticism comes into play because there really isn't a way to "prove" that reincarnation is happening, so people generally just don't believe in it.

    By Blogger Unknown, at Sat Nov 20, 10:01:00 PM 2010  

  • http://www.beyondreligion.com/su_personal/reincarnation_2children.htm

    I liked this article. In it, there is a girl from Vietnam, and her brother took his own life when he was 19. Her father was really upset by this, and went to a temple where he was consoled by a monk who told him his son would be born again in two years. Two years later she called her dad to tell him some good news. She asked him what day her brother died. He replied, September 25th he was killed, but he was notified on the 26th. She told him that her son was born on the 26th, but she went into labor on the 25th. Her father was astonished. He asked her if there was a certain birthmark on her son's thigh. Sure enough there was. The next thing her dad said to her was, "he is not your son, but mine".

    The second part of the story is about her daughter who was born a few years later in Sept. of 2002. When she was about 2, she told her mom she wanted a job. Her mom jokingly played along and asked where? The little girl said New York City, and she would be back. Her mom was puzzled. A couple years later, they were watching a piece honoring 9/11. The girl turned toward her mom and said, "I want to visit that place. It's very important to not forget these people."

    By Blogger Unknown, at Sun Nov 21, 12:47:00 AM 2010  

  • http://abcnews.go.com/Primetime/Technology/story?id=894217&page=1

    The story has similar characteristics to the ones we saw in the video we watched in class. It is about a little boy whose parents think he is the reincarnation of a navy fighter pilot who died during WWII. At a young age the boy loved to play with air planes, but he also had horrible nightmares dealing with planes. He would also be able to name things on a plane that no regular person without training would have known and he also seemed to perform preflight checks when playing.

    I don't know if all of these stories are true but they are very interesting and make you wonder whether or not reincarnation is real.

    By Blogger egreen, at Sun Nov 21, 11:22:00 AM 2010  

  • http://www.circlesoflight.com/past-life/shanti-devi.html


    This is just a brief article about a lady who died during child birth and believes she is now reincarnated into a 4 year old girl and is asking about her 6 year old son who she died giving birth to. I believe this story sounds like reincarnation. Im not sure how someone can claim things from a past life otherwise. Why would someone lie about it? Is it really rewarded?

    By Blogger Jaclyn Dicarlo, at Sun Nov 21, 08:50:00 PM 2010  

  • http://www.pastlivesremembered.org/crocodile_death.html

    This story was about a past life regression by hypnotism. It talk about a man who was having a reaction from his leg during the hypnotism. It turned out the man began to say that he was a boy in a tribe in his past life and was killed by a crocodile. The crocdile grabed him by the leg and killed him. The man also spoke about leaving his body and seeing all his tribe members running around in a big commotion. Im kinda on the fence about this one. It all makes sense, but with my own experiences with hypnotism i found that the hypnotist has complete control and can make you believe anything he tells you. So there is a possiblity that this person my have been told to say this to make it seem real. Overall Im not ruling reincarnation out, but i cant really accept it either becasue of the lack of the ability to prove it.

    By Blogger mttshaver, at Sun Nov 21, 10:44:00 PM 2010  

  • http://www.beyondreligion.com/su_personal/reincarnation_911.htm

    This story is about a family who was watching 9/11 on the television years after the tragedy happened. Their daughter was in the room with them and she was coloring. She was a little older then three years old at the time. She looked up at the television when the plane crashed into the towers and said "I died there.". She has never seen the event before in her life, and her parents never talked to her about it.

    In a way I've always had my own theory on reincarnation. I definitely believe in it, but not as the way as people state it to be. I don't believe that we die as one person and come back as another. I've always had a strange belief that were all trapped in our own spot in time. We continue to live our own lives, over and over, within the time frame chosen. When we die, we start our life over again as the same person. I've always believe deja vu to tie into this. I think when we have those deja vu moments, were seeing into a past life of ours that we've already lived, and maybe it's showing us to do something differently then we did previously. Maybe we continue living our lives over and over until we have the best life possible. And deja vu helps with this because it shows us the mistakes we made in our past lives.

    My thought on reincarnation isn't traditional, but I like to have my own viewpoint on things, especially on something like death, which no one knows about or can prove what happens.

    By Blogger Unknown, at Mon Nov 22, 09:41:00 AM 2010  

  • http://www.beyondreligion.com/su_personal/reincarnation_sister.htm

    This story is about a five year old girl, Melinda, who asked her parents "When was I in the hospital, and why was I there?" It turns out she had never been in the hospital before but she had very distinct memories of being there. When she described these memories to her parents they were shocked because it turns out Melinda had a sister who had died four years before Melinda was born, however, Melinda knew nothing of this.

    I'm not really sure how I feel about reincarnation. My grandmother always says that my uncle is her dad reincarnated because he acts so much like him. I suppose it could be possible, because I think in this world anything is possible. The thing that gets me the most in this story is the fact that Melinda had no idea that she even had a sister. I guess maybe she could have picked up on some things when she was little without knowing it. She could have subconsciously picked up on the fact that she had a sister who died in the hospital but with all of the things she seems to have remembered, it seems like too much of a coincidence. I think this story could definitely be evidence for reincarnation.

    By Blogger Amanda Rossi, at Mon Nov 22, 04:08:00 PM 2010  

  • All in all I'm currently undecided as to the fact if reincarnation is actually real or not. However, after reading a lot of these stories I feel as though I may be leaning more and more towards believing in it each time. It just seems as though theres so much coincidence in a lot of them. I do realize that there are so many stories out there and some of them are most likely made up but that does not necessarily omit the possibility that some of them are true. The story about the navy fighter pilot reincarnated as a little boy is especially interesting because of the boys dreams. There definitely seems to be a lot of evidence to support the theory of reincarnation, however, the problem is all of the evidence is just based on eyewitness testimony. The huge question is, is this evidence credible?

    By Blogger Amanda Rossi, at Mon Nov 22, 04:19:00 PM 2010  

  • http://www.pureinsight.org/node/3711

    I looked at this site and chose this story because it had a different interpretation of reincarnation as the stories we saw in class in the video.

    This story is of a man who planned out who would be his disciple. This gave the Lu's son special powers allowing him to die and come back among other things as well.

    By Blogger Michael.Bowersox, at Thu Nov 25, 12:21:00 PM 2010  

  • http://www.beyondreligion.com/su_personal/reincarnation_dday.htm

    This story is about a kid who started having dreams about D-Day at age four. He dreamed about invading the beaches of Germany. The boy dreams of being on a landing craft, the door opens and he rushes the beach. Shortly after he is shot from a pillbox. The dream sounds a lot like Saving Private Ryan according to some, but the movie came out six years after the dreams took place.

    The stories make you think if the events are all just coincidence or if people are actually reincarnated.

    By Blogger dudeck20, at Sat Nov 27, 11:46:00 AM 2010  

  • My comment applies to the third post from the top. Egreen brings to light a very interesting post on a possible reincarnation, of a pilot, shot down during WWII. The thing that bothers me about the story, which she links above, is it's very short nature. It offers no real evidence or any true substance to its story. All we know is that the boy does things or knows things that are "abnormal." What separated his memories form the memories of ANY dead pilot from WWII. For all we know the kid learned how to turn the discovery channel on when his parents head out. An even better explanation is that the knowledge he knows that his parents do not was obtained because he cares for the information while his parents don't. Perhaps the parent where around when the child learned of such things but never noted it. I personally see no real "proof" of reincarnation here. I do, however, agree that it makes one wonder of reincarnation is real or not.

    Mark Attilio

    By Blogger Vader, at Sun Nov 28, 12:15:00 AM 2010  

  • http://www.beyondreligion.com/su_personal/reincarnation_nazis3.htm

    I almost feel bad writing this, for I seem to be quite the skeptic. The above link is a post by a man, that worries he may have been a Nazi in a past life. His proof is admittedly convincing. Such things like being able to sporadically speak German are rare, and identifying previously unseen structure correctly is odd. However, it is the condition of this "proof" which I question. For one, he mentions that during a movie he correctly identified improper uniform. What supports his accusations, and better yet, it is Hollywood he is accusing here. Historically accuracy is soooo up their ally way.
    The second thing to take into account here is the power of the mind. A smiple iaotulrslitn of this power can be drsetmanteod by tihs very sneencte. Wilhe the frsit and lsat lteter of a wrod are ianctt, the hmuan mnid wlil be albe to read said wrod. There is even a story of a man who had every symptom of being pregnant... except actually the pregnant part. Why did he go through nine months of hell then? The answer is, his mind told him he was.
    The man who fears he is a Nazi reference he had a German pen pal. He also brings up many cases where he studies some aspect of German history. It may very well be he fears being a Nazi so much, his mind is creating this pseudo reality which he projects as a past life. He has all the information he needs, and he never talks about the amount, proving, or quality of his past German life's passed on abilities and memories.
    The third very real possibilities is his German friends are playing a cruel joke... I have seen worse jokes, but still, that would be cruel.

    Mark Attilio

    By Blogger Vader, at Sun Nov 28, 12:56:00 AM 2010  

  • http://www.cyberfortunetelling.com/supernatural-belief/reincarnation/Reincarnation-Stories.html

    To summarize this article, the story said that a man remembers being Genghis Khan in a past life. He remembers details of a past battle and being overpowered by 4 men.

    The last thing that he remembers is being stabbed by a spear under his armpit, and he has a birthmark under his arm that looks like the arrow on a spear

    By Blogger BrianZ, at Sun Nov 28, 10:46:00 AM 2010  

  • I believe it all, too many things line up for it to be just a coincidence.

    By Blogger Unknown, at Sun Nov 28, 10:54:00 AM 2010  

  • Some of the stories seem believable, but with the amount of people in the world the chances that there are parallel lives is slim but possible. I feel that the idea of reincarnation is coincidence.

    By Blogger dudeck20, at Sun Nov 28, 01:16:00 PM 2010  

  • My comment refers to the seventh post by Amanda. Personally I found this article very convincing when it comes to the discussion of reincarnation. I agree with Amanda in that the detail of the girl's recollections could definitely provide evidence of reincarnation. I found the recollection of her experience in the hospital to be freakishly detailed and vivid. With an account like that it's hard to blame it solely on coincidence.

    By Blogger Jenna Murphy, at Sun Nov 28, 09:00:00 PM 2010  

  • http://www.beyondreligion.com/su_personal/reincarnation_bank.htm

    This story is of a 60 year old women who is convinced that she was a male bank robber in a past lifetime. She recalls this life through a reoccurring dream in which she sees herself as a young man, tall with blond hair, carrying a bag of money and running from two men. She also recalls getting shot in the dream, the bullet penetrating her heart, and waking with a stinging sensation in her chest. In addition, she remembers walking home one day with the sense that she was being followed by two men. When she turned around and saw the men she started to run, however when she finally arrived at her neighbor's house she looked back once again to find no one there.

    Stories like these make it difficult to believe that reincarnation does not exist. The details and specific memories are just too exact. It's hard to believe that someone would make up a story like this.

    By Blogger Jenna Murphy, at Sun Nov 28, 09:30:00 PM 2010  

  • http://petchatter.com/communication/tag/reincarnation-observations-and-anecdotes/

    This is a story about how pets and animals have short lives because they get reincarnated after they die. Basically its just a leftist propaganda outlet to make people sorry that they eat meat and that they may be eating sentient beings that go through the process multiple times. It's laughably biased.

    By Blogger Mitchell "this is my 9 profile" Yamrus, at Mon Nov 29, 10:10:00 AM 2010  

  • I personally believe that most of the time, reincarnation stories are just parents making impressionable children act in certain ways to appear to be a dead person, usually to further a goal or gain fame/ recognition. Other occurrences are probably just chance hunches that are exaggerated and tweaked by the media and the people themselves.

    By Blogger Mitchell "this is my 9 profile" Yamrus, at Mon Nov 29, 10:13:00 AM 2010  

  • Some of these stories are believable in the fact that they are reincarnated, but I believe maybe some people have dillusions which make them believe they were reincarnated or they were influenced to it. I agree with Mitchell in most sense. There are over millions of people with similiar past lives of ones told with reincarnation, maybe it's just coincidental or made up stories to get attention?

    By Blogger NatalieSmirne, at Mon Nov 29, 12:32:00 PM 2010  

  • http://abcnews.go.com/Primetime/Technology/story?id=894217&page=1

    This story basically describes about a 6-year-old boy whose parent's think may be reincarnated from a 21-year-old Navy fighter Pilot who died on a mission shot down over the Atlantic by Japanese atrillery. The boy has nightmares of plane crashes and says words he never would have learned if he hadnt't watched the history channel or taught. The little boy at age 3 went over a plane as if he was doing a preflight check. The nightmares got worse as he started to get older, but when he actually started to share his "memories" they got better and had less frequent ones.

    This story seems to be believable in the fact that a boy of age 3 can't possibly know anything in such detail about a plane. Nightmares of plane crashes and words he has never learned give more of a reason to say he was reincarnated. Yet, I think that maybe in school the boy had always an interest in planes and maybe would say random things about them that he had learned. Anyone can influence a young child's mind to learn or say things, and once they do they become repetitive actions even if they don't know what they mean. There is a lot of evidence of reincarnation, but most of them always seem questionable.

    By Blogger NatalieSmirne, at Mon Nov 29, 12:46:00 PM 2010  

  • I think that all of these articles have provided substantial evidence to prove the theory of reincarnation. There are just too many things that match up. There are billions of people on this earth. I think that it is quite possible that someone may be reborn from somebody else.

    By Blogger Unknown, at Mon Nov 29, 01:38:00 PM 2010  

  • http://www.beyondreligion.com/su_personal/reincarnation_sonbrother.htm

    This story is about a women who believes her son may actually be her brother due to reincarnation. Two days before her brother was murdered he asked her to name her son after him. While her son was growing up there were instances when the son would say something that only applied to the brother's life. For instance, the son was driving along a road and got anxious when he passed a saw mill and claimed that's where he had died when in reality the brother was actually murdered there. Another instance was when the son was with his grandpa and recalled his grandfather having to put down a horse with a broken leg. The last time a horse had to be put down because of a broken leg was two years prior the birth of the son and the brother was present when the horse was put down.

    By Blogger Cynthia Kiesling, at Mon Nov 29, 03:23:00 PM 2010  

  • I still stand behind what I said in class which was that too many pieces fall into place for it to just be coincidence. I've always questioned what happens after someone dies and the only thing that seems logical to me is being reincarnated and living another life. However, I don't believe in the Hinduism reincarnation which is, if I'm correct, that a person is reincarnated to right their wrongs and gain Nirvana. I believe that there is no life after death and instead of wallowing in nothingness we are reborn and the cycle of life and death continues until the world eventually ends. A lot of the stories presented on this post show some sort of evidence, whether it is valid or not, that reincarnation is real. I don't think my belief in reincarnation will ever falter or be diminished in any way.

    By Blogger Cynthia Kiesling, at Mon Nov 29, 03:32:00 PM 2010  

  • http://www.rationalistinternational.net/article/2006/20060415/en_2.html

    The story is about a 4 year old boy Bagpat village in the north Indian state of Haryana who expressed a fear of tractors. The son started insisting that his name was Pavithra, which happened to be the name of a well-off farmer who was shot in the neck and killed by robbers while driving his tractor. The boy's father would ask him questions about Pavithra's family and where he was shot. The boy answered the questions correctly every time.

    While I believe in reincarnation, I'm not too certain about this story. Young children are usually frightened by large, noisy objects such as a tractor. The fact that the boy was frightened by the tractor is not unusual. Also, while the boy was being questioned it appeared that he was being tutored on the correct answers. The family also had a motive for the child to claim to be Pavithra, because Pavithra's family was well-off while his own family was not.

    By Blogger Unknown, at Mon Nov 29, 04:10:00 PM 2010  

  • http://paranormal.about.com/od/reincarnation/qt/soul-survivor.htm

    This story was actually turned into a book which describes a families surprise once their child recalls being shot down in a plane after recieving the copy of the book The Battle for Iwo Jima. WIthout reading it, the young boy turned to his father and said of his 'past life'.

    I believe that at this age, children have a very vast imagination that can take conversations and ideas and put them together to make a story in their minds. Sometimes, the stories they may produce can be more realistic than we think. however, may be just vague enough to fit the bill for past events. if this child remembers being shot down, so have millions of others in war. who says this is so special?

    By Blogger KellyMarie, at Mon Nov 29, 06:38:00 PM 2010  



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