yup, i am an atheist. Reincarnation talk has been around for
centuries already.
Other than so called these few evidence of people and child
having those abilities to recall and do certain skills, what else
have you people found out and develop in this field. See?
No progress at all. How do i believe in this things when all you
can show me is this same old recycled information and evidences
without any progressive information and facts and experiments......
How?
I really want to be believe that i have a next life , you know?
But its just that i do not like to delude myself so easily by all
these salesman talk. Come on, more obvious things to show me, no
more examples of miracles children already, i am opening my eyes
now..
For example, can you please tell Straits time, or the some
reputable media , like United nations, or like Nature.com , or
microsoft, to do a study on this things so that it is more
convincing for me.
SGforums + sgforumers telling me that something is true and true
, and link to some unreputable or bias website, and with same old
'evidence' ??
I will be the first to sign up if there is really a afterlife
for me. really. I hope it true. But you know what? Hoping is
futile, if you want to have forever life, you must be the miracle
to achieving it, not by waiting to find out with reincarnation is
true, because it will never be.
I guess so far the children's accounts are most credible.
However it would be great if they could expand their studies to
meditators - as meditators can also remember past lives. I am not
sure if studies have been done in this regard. I believe this study
will be much more interesting -- as many meditators report not only
remembering one past life like most children, but through deep
concentration and states of absorption they can access hundreds,
thousands, or more lifetimes. They will be utterly convinced of the
'cyclical nature' of rebirth.
Straits Times will probably not be posting articles considered
religiously sensitive even though it has scientific backing, as it
may offend some people in the the multi religious society. Sorry
but I hope you are not expecting the Straits Times to be an
unbiased scientific journal, it is a government influenced media.
Microsoft? You got to be kidding. They'd be more interested in
selling you Windows 7.
I am guessing that many people after reading those scientific
reports (those open minded ones at least), including scientists,
will read through and shrugg and say "ok... that sounds
interesting, I think it is true" but overlook the implications of
such findings and so did not bother to look into them further.
However, in Buddhism as mentioned there are implications to
this.
And the implication I am refering to is not 'eternal life'.
Buddhism does not seek to comfort themselves with the understanding
that there is rebirth. In fact if you can remember your past lives,
and those who do have consistently mentioned one thing: they have
witnessed countless suffering they have to go through in this
cyclic existence... and imagine playing the story of life over and
over again, then restarting... it's actually very pointless and
even 'boring' from that point of view.
Buddhism thus seeks to relief oneself from the endless cycle of
rebirth. It does so by removing one's ignorance of the true nature
of reality, because it is by the false-perception of a separate,
independent self and world that sufferings arise out of grasping,
clinging, desires, etc. The realisation of the nature of reality
removes such ignorance and all sufferings that results from it.
And there remains people who have attained enlightenment and
liberation from suffering even in this very life, (not in the
future life but right here and now)... so it is truly possible. And
it is not just one enlightened being... but there have been
countless enlightened beings since the Buddha's times, some even
among us right now in the forum. It just shows that Buddhist
practice DOES produce the goal/result that it aims - enlightenment,
liberation from suffering, etc. It does produce life changing
transformation that radically transforms the way one perceives the
world such that one no longer suffers, so it is not arm chair
philosophy.
The part about enlightenment is universally reported by
practitioners all over the world. Even forummers here do report
enlightenment. Just that the part of 'enlightenment leads to
transcending uncontrolled rebirth' requires faith, because before
you do remember your past lives beyond doubt through your own
practice... or are able to see what happens after death... and most
importantly see the truth of dependent origination and the
mechanics behind rebirth and how enlightenment unwinds the
mechanics of rebirth. In short before you are an advanced
meditator, you will not be able to know the whole story for
yourselves, so though Buddhism does not encourage blind faith, some
faith is still necessary (at least in the beginning). But since you
are so skeptical I doubt you will have faith in rebirth at least
soon, but do keep an open mind, many have seen their past lives,
not just small children, I'm talking about seasoned meditators.
That said.. Buddhism is not just a cosmic suicide club (i.e. end
rebirth, that's it). Especially in Mahayana, those who overcame
uncontrolled rebirth are still able to 'choose' to take birth to
continue to help others with their enlightened view... though
arhats simply enters cessation.
