Posted on 02/23/2014 5:18:03 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
The only science that even touches consciousness is quantum mechanics, where nothing exists independently of a conscious observer.
Does the soul exist independently of consciousness?
Is the soul consciousness?
Reincarnation is mathematically impossible - at least as it is described by the major religions that believe it.
Buddhism, for example, at least some forms of Buddhism believe in 31 planes or levels of existence through which all souls are sojourning or traveling through. At the top is is true enlightenment the highest state which once reached is called Nirvana. The doctrine is that everything was once literally “Nothing” and that “Everything” is a function of the great nothing becoming unbalanced. (Yeah that sounds weird to me as well) The deal is all temporal souls were created when nothing became something and we’ve been trying to work our way back to nothing every sense.
The way we do that is through a series of lives as various creatures where we accumulate either good or bad Karma. The only thing that survives the previous life is the Karma. There are no memories of past lives to regress to - only Karma.
Here is the problem. All souls appeared out of the perturbation of the cosmic nothingness at the same time. Thus there are no new souls being created. Since a few souls manage to reach the original state of cosmic nothingness that means that the total number of souls (People and animals that are alive) should remain almost constant but should be falling at a slow endomatic rate as souls in ones and twos pass from being Bodhisattva’s and are absorbed back into nothingness.
Yet that is not what we see. 95% of all animals and people that have ever lived are alive today. For example: In 100 AD there were about 200 million humans on Earth. today there are over 7 Billion. There are also, thanks to advances in animal husbandry and agriculture more cows, horse, chickens and pigs than ever before.
Thus how is it possible that we have all been reincarnated several times when there are simply not enough ancestors?
There are only a limited number of ways to explain this.
1. Some of us have no souls or are some type of persistent illusion that is viewed by those with souls - in which case not everyone you see has been reincarnated because some of us are not really here.
2. Some of us are a soul that has procession of more than one body simultaneously. In that case how does the “Past live regression coach know that what is experienced is a past life and not a concurrent life?
3. New souls are being created all the time to fill the new bodies. This also means that there will be a large number of souls that have not been reincarnated.
4. There is no such thing as reincarnation.
I think #4 is the only plausible answer
Did the jar die? Did it weigh less when it did?
The jar cracked, losing its vacuum, and died.
I knew it. But wasn’t the vacuum replaced by something else?
Campbell is fuula crap
“Past Life”?
That defies the initial judgement.
Thanks 2ndDivisionVet.
I am troubled by the title of this story. Science deals with the observation and measurement of material phenomena. If the soul is not material then it lies outside the purview of science and in the realm of psychology or religion.
The closest science can come to a conclusion of a religious nature is that the cause of a measurable effect can not be determined and proved.
This is as it should be. Religion is founded on faith, the capacity to believe, even to know and experience, that which can not be seen and touched. It is rightfully said that God is love and it is forever true that love can not be measured.
Stopped read right there.
Excellent judgment LL.
But it is not based on blind faith, despite assertions by atheists, but on a degrees of evidential warrant.
“Luminous beings are we not this crude matter...” Master Jedi Yoda_The Empire Strikes Back. Kiddie movie...right. /sarc
“I don’t need anyone’s word on if I have a soul. I know it because Jesus told me that it is so.”
Bingo!!!
Dr. Duncan “Om” MacDougall (c. 1866 – October 15, 1920) was an early 20th-century physician in Haverhill, Massachusetts who sought to measure the mass lost by a human when the soul departed the body at death. MacDougall attempted to measure the mass change of six patients at the moment of death. His first subject, the results from which MacDougall felt were most accurate, lost “three-fourths of an ounce”, which has since been popularized as “21 grams”.
Of the four successful measurements he obtained an average weight loss at the moment of death of 15 grams. The total average unaccounted for weight loss in these four subjects was found to be approximately 29 grams.
n 1901, MacDougall weighed six patients while they were in the process of dying from tuberculosis in an old age home. It was relatively easy to determine when death was only a few hours away, and at this point the entire bed was placed on an industrial sized scale which was reported to be sensitive to “two-tenths of an ounce”. He took his results (a varying amount of unaccounted for mass loss in four of the six cases) to support his hypothesis that the soul had mass, and when the soul departed the body, so did this mass. The determination of the soul weighing 21 grams was based on the loss of mass in the first subject at the moment of death.
MacDougall later measured fifteen dogs in similar circumstances and reported the results as “uniformly negative,” with no perceived change in mass. He took these results as confirmation that the soul had weight, and that dogs did not have souls. MacDougall’s complaints about not being able to find dogs dying of the natural causes that would have been ideal led one author to conjecture that he was in fact sacrificing the experimental animals, as is standard practice in scientific experiments.[1]
On March 10, 1907, before MacDougall was able to publish the results of his experiments, New York Times broke the story in an articls titled “Soul has Weight, Physician Thinks”. MacDougall’s results were published in April of the same year in the Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research and the medical journal American Medicine.
MacDougall’s experimental results have been regarded by many as flawed, due to the limitations of the available equipment at the time, a lack of sufficient control over the experimental conditions, and the small sample size. Author Robert L. Park raises objections to MacDougall’s findings in his “Superstition: Belief in the Age of Science.” [2]
Nonetheless, MacDougall’s finding that presumably the human soul weighed 21 grams has become a meme in the public consciousness, mostly due to its claiming the titular thesis in the 2003 film 21 Grams. MacDougall’s experiments have not been repeated, and his research remains the most accurate measurements of the mass of the human soul performed to date. - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duncan_MacDougall_%28doctor%29
I was with Eben Alexander the first time he told his story in public, long before he wrote the book. It was not a profound experience in comparison to many near death experiences. It also changed as I have heard it many times.
His experience was no proof of heaven. I know Eben and we have many mutual friends, including his wife’s friend that he claims to have seen during his experience.
I do read souls and have for many years. I can tell if a person’s story has merit or not by the feeling of emotion attached to the stored memory they retrieve when they tell their story. There are very unique attributes associated with a true near death experience. For example, if a person meets Jesus or a Divine Being(angelic), the profound Love is unmistakable. It comes back full blast every time you think of the experience.
The soul is separate from the physical body, but not in the way these people describe. Jesus described it correctly.
“In the most compelling scientific evidence to date validating reincarnation, Dr. Ian Stevenson documented over 3,000 cases of children who remembered their past lives.”
I liked Ian’s work, but it lacked scientific credibility. One of the main reasons is that he used local interpreters rather than bringing his own to interview the children. I discussed this with Dr. Raymond Moody who worked with Ian and was a friend of his at University of Virginia, Charlottesville.
True the Ancient of days has it all in balance and the wisdom that brings it
bookmark
“which incidentally was banned by the Council of Nice in 553 AD”
This guy writes fiction. He is referring to the 2nd Ecumenical Council of Constantinople, which was also the 5th ecumenical council. It was the one where the Emperor Justinian kidnapped the Pope Vigilis and held him prisoner for eight years until he agree to call the council.
This guy does not have pure motive. He is a media hound....From his website:
HATHAWAY IS AVAILABLE FOR HYPNOSIS STAGE SHOWS where he provides fun and entertainment suitable for the whole family. He will demonstrate the amazing power of the unconscious mind and call upon volunteers to act as subjects. The demonstration, which lasts from an hour and a quarter to an hour and a half, is tailored to the age level of the audience, and is both fun and educational. Great for schools, clubs, private parties, and fund-raisers.
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