So, a man dies.

Adam was driving down the highway when a semi comes spinning into the traffic way to fast. His car hits the rear of the smei and the next thing he sees is a paramedic pulling him into an ambulance. In pain he is sedated through the trip to the hospital, and he feels lighter when they wheel him into the operating room.

He feels likes hes flying and he watches down as the surgeons operate on his broken body, but while hes watching he is overcome with a white light.

Finally, he thinks. I can be with my lord. He feels himself lighter and lighter as he reaches for the gates of heaven..but once he goes through feels very cold and everything is blurry.

The doctor says: "Its a healthy baby boy Ms Avery!"

Nice. I take it that you believe in reincarnation?

oh god, there's no escape

in an odd, way, yes.

I belive as we have experiences we 'build up' energy

once we get enough 'energy' we cease to reincarnate truly and the energy splits to make 2 lifeforms..be it animal babies, human babies, alien babies, or even trees.

Why do people believe in random things without requiring evidence?
I believe in Santa - but at least I've actually seen him quite a few times, and I do get presents showing up under my christmas tree

What is a "smei"?

a 'smei' is my dyslexia acting up when I try to type 'semi'

As far as reincarnation..I have proof for me, but its a subjective truth, a subjective experience. Just because I can't prove it scientifically doesn't mean I can't have faith in it.

I just get tired of those who keep pushing 'if you beleve different you're going to hell.'

well isn't the meaning of faith "believing without proof" ?

oh and I believe in reincarnation ... so beware if you walk on a worm ! it could have been your grand mother

Because there is some evidence, actually ?

hmmm, interesting ideas, and children have very active imaginations. It's also possible that these children saw: a war movie that dad was watching and the idea was very upsetting to a sensitive child, so he went to bed and dreamed about it. NOW it's in his memory as if he were there.
a report about a bad flood on the news and the body count also referring to how many children were lost. Hearing this, the little girl is very sad, and dwells on it for weeks or days or even months until it is overwhelming. In order to deal with the grief she feels, one day she digs a hole in the ground, covers it with leaves (she's seen funerals in movies, or she's been to one already) and cries for the children.
And I worry about adults "helping" children to believe that their make-believe stories are the truth.
Gosh, was my imaginary friend "Fraverlous" a ghost from my life before this one? She was evil, she did all the bad things I got in trouble for.

Avery?

Very cool.

Briana Dawson

I believe in the Invisible Pink Unicorn.

I'd just like to toss out an idea. If you believe, as I do, that all consciousness and experience lies within the human skull, then why is it that both of us have the same physical hardware, and the same kinds of electrical circuits, but I only experience *me*, and not you? In other words, what makes me *me*?

Well, imagine that in fact I *do* experience both of us. But not at the same time.

Imagine a single spark of sentience, of consciousness. When I die it immediately moves to another body, another person, perhaps, at an earlier time. Or an animal, even. This spark is in an almost eternal dance through time, lighting on one physical being and, when it dies, darting to another in a different place, a different time.

So when I look at you from my perspective, so I - as you - look at my present incarnation from the perspective of another time and see myself as another person.

This of course is karma made incarnate. Because we are the criminal, and simultaneously, the one harmed. We are both the murderer and the victim. The rapist and the one raped. The hunter and the fox.

Not that I believe this - it would be my definition of hell - but I think it's a lot more plausible than many of the weird things that people believe, and it does give a rational underpinning to morality.

But I think I will stick with the IPU - Blessed Be Her Hooves!

We Discordians know for a fact that the Invisible Pink Unicorn is actually blue. F'taghn.

As opposed to an invisible sky pixie who alternates between forgiving us and making us suffer horrible firey spankings if we don't listen to him?

Cthulhu was juts apawn of the invisible blue unicorn..who serves his noodly highness..

all hail the noodly appendage!

That's like saying the Bible is evidence that God exists.
Show me how the cells, molecules, and atoms in someone's brain transmit information upon their death, to some sort of place where it is stored for a while, and how it ends up in a random child's brain again.
Not to mention that it's physically impossible for a baby to form new memories, since its brain has not matured yet. Everything would have to be implanted between the 1st and 2nd year of age, when the brain starts gaining the ability to store memories.

Interesting story.

<IMO>

I believe in reincarnation to the extent that I believe Consciousness inhabits our physical forms for the length of their existance. At the body's death, the Consciousness realizes the truth.... it was never seperate from the whole to begin with.

There is only one Consciousness, it is only through the filter of our biological senses, which each of us individual organisms use to perceive the world around us, that we come to imagine ourselves as seperate.

Contrary to materialist belief, Consciousness does not rise out of phyical matter (our brains). Consciousness is primary, and physical reality is the epiphenomena which rises out of Consciousness.

Consciousness has gone by many names. For example, some call it God, some call it Nirvana, some call it the Tao. It always was, is, and always will be.

</IMO>

-Ghoti

You're asking someone to confirm your own superstitious beliefs before they can believe their own experiences?

Me, I get tired of people thinking dying is anything but biological matter decomposing, but I'm too much a realist for most people.

No, I don't think that's what he's saying at all.

Speaking as someone well versed in Forteana (but not a believer), the "evidence" for paranormal claims goes like this:

"Some Evidence"
- UFO's

"Less Evidence, (but still some) but most likely hoaxed/circumstantial"
- Sasquatch
- Loch Ness Monster
(pretty much anything crypto-zoological falls into this category)

"No Evidence at all"
- Psychic Powers
- Ghosts
- Vampires
- Werewolves
- Poltergeists
- Reincarnation
- God

I'm with ya. Not only that --I welcome it.

Everyones got their own opinion, and path in life

I'm actually happy go lucky about faith, death, and religion until soemone tries to say theirs is the only way.

How is this stance any different from a theist? Theist says YES, there is an afterlife. You say NO, we're worm food. No proof for either.

I'm comfortable with letting unknowns be unknown. Hey, when/if we get there we will either know, or it won't matter.

And it doesn't make me feel any more/less secure in my beliefs to have people agree/disagree. But it does piss me off when people make absolute statements about unknowns, and judgements about other people's beliefs.

Believe what you want, keep your opinion of other's beliefs to yourself, and leave me the fuck alone - a simple philosophy that works for me.

Actually, bodies really do decompose - you can see that yourself. So there is proof of mine. Have you ever seen a "soul" "ascend" to "heaven"? Didn't think so. Plus, mine has started less Crusades