I'm a skeptic of any afterlife

[SydneyPSIder]

[pwil]

I myself do not believe in reincarnation. The calculations of past souls occupying present human vessels just doesn't add up. Let alone some religions believe you may even be reincarnated as a cockroach if you weren't a pleasant being in your past life.(Weren't cockroaches crawling around this planet before humans?) If that were the case, we would have an astronomic amount of souls inhabiting every creature on earth which I don't believe either.This would mean that a soul would lose it's intelligence going from a human to an insect based on our observance of their behaviors. Or does a soul even have an intelligence? It could just be some form conscious energy acting as a battery only being compatible to the organism's brain and/or instincts. Also, who's to say that earth contains the only life in the universe? Would souls be able to generate intergalactic species? I just don't know what we are. But I don't believe in reincarnation and I do believe that we contain our own individual soul and there is something after this life. Even though I have no proof, I have a strong gut feeling that drives me to believe this without involving any religion.

[Arouet]

[pwil]

please explain arouet. There have never been about 7 billion people living at once before. ( Or at least never on record or ever estimated before) The discovery of fossilized bones would be at a much greater percentage if there ever was a time before the beginning of historical record keeping. Unless you are considering the soul being present in every organism on earth in which another species has been depleted or become extinct to account for the numbers. Or are you considering the possibility of the difference onto other extraplanetary lifeforms in which we cannot tally to make up for? But if you are just regarding to souls being transferred within mankind, how will your explanation work even 100 years from now when the population explodes due to the longevity of a human's lifespan becoming greater? Barring any major devastation due to plagues or wars. Hypothetically,"a peaceful and healthy 100 years" from now. I really am interested in your response and not being sarcastic in any way.

[pwil]

The only way I see that the belief of reincarnation could work is if there is an infinite amount of souls in a waiting line looking to inhabit a vessel. Who's to say that we don't ever hit 100 trillion throughout the universe.But that would mean we had to have many cutters in line that had already had their turn to occupy someone or something since people say they can account for a past life.

[pwil]

Or unless new ones could be made to accommodate the population growth.

[pwil]

One last thing for tonight to ponder, out of the almost 7 billion souls(for example just humans) that exist today, if only 1 billion people were alive tomorrow, where would the other 6 billion souls go for the mean time? I would like a believer in reincarnation explain his/her views on this question.

[Arouet]

[SydneyPSIder]

The only reason I believe in an afterlife is that I've seen and experienced personal compelling evidence of it, where no other alternative explanation or clever hoax etc was really possible, even applying a pseudosceptics level of denial.

[pwil]

Thank you for your responses and I welcome others. But I would like it to be known that I don't believe that my beliefs are the way it really is and must have to be. I have read articles and watched shows about how even young children can account for a past life in details of things they couldn't possibly been scripted on. I am just trying to fathom an understanding how this is possible and looking for some scenarios and hypotheses to help me view this subject at another angle. That is why I am asking a believer in reincarnation as to opposed to someone like me who leans towards no such thing. I have no explanation to how some people can refer to details and circumstances of someone's past life where documented or not can be performed. I personally tend to believe in one's own soul, regardless to any religion or faith, until evidence can disprove it. Is it not a possibility that these people can describe a past life by being informed of details by a spirit's soul without any awareness of its existence? Not quite like a medium in sense, since they claim that they are aware of a spirit's presence, but something along those lines.

[SydneyPSIder]

[AlbertoGraber]

A personal view on the subject of the Afterlife
FYI I have considered myself an atheist ever since I was 17,basically,I could not at the time conciliate the world that I saw around me and the existence of an all powerful,and above all,"loving" God,"looking after us".This is,in a few words, exactly what I feel right now.However,I have been glancing through the sciences,especially Quantum Physics,for many years,and then I looked into psychiatry,meditation,psychedelic experiences,NDEs,Hinduism,etc., and what has been researched on paranormal phenomena mainly in the 19th and 20th century,and I felt I had no choice,but to accept,against my best judgement,the real posibility of an afterlife.But then,I do not understand it neither I particularly like it,it is just the way the universe looks to me.My "convictions" ,I have to say,can change at any time.In short,I believe evolution is a basic process in the universe and my best bet (and it is just that, a bet) is that the afterlife is a part of it,and most likely,also reencarnation.Sorry that in a forum like this I can not go more deeply into why I think this way,but I am willing to share whatever I personally consider as credible evidence on the afterlife with anybody in this forum.

[jsky]