Roger,

I was impressed by your report on Ian Stevenson's modest assessment of his childhood evidence for reincarnation because he remains the most respected researcher in this area in the world.   In some of Stevenson's alleged reincarnation cases, it was later proven that the prior personality was still alive well after the child was born.  So what does that say about the child's past life memories?

Some of the most basic questions are poorly grasped even by devotees.  For example, most people think of biblical faith as belief or mental assent to theological propositions.   In fact, the world means "faithfulness" to one's spiritual quest.  This distinction allows for periods of intense skepticism.   In my view, the self-inflicted pressure to determine whether one really believes in certain spiritual claims is often premature or unnecessary.  Overstatement often leads to disillusionment and cynicism; understatement often allows the flower of fascination to blossom at a more natural and fulfilling pace.   After all, it is the power and permanence of our awe and its impact on our conduct that truly determines where we stand on basic spiritual issues.   Doubt is often the catalyst for a spiritual hunger that deepens spirituality and leads to far superior insights and experiences.  

Besides, psychological research has shown that Christians with several loose ends in their belief system are more helpful and compassionate than those who have no doubts and have a settled spiritual self-image. Some day, I may start a thread that documents the empirical evidence on the relationship between compassion and the nature of one's religious orientation.

Don

P.S.  It's good to see you posting again.  I need a skeptic like you around while I'm musing on how to reply to the latest jibe from my buddy Spitfire.

Don-

Your post about doubt being the catalyst for spiritual insights struck a chord with me. 

I am reminded of a recent column in our local paper written by a minister.  He was talking about how people can have all the material possessions in the world and yet feel a sense of emptiness.  He quotes Ecclesiastes 6:2, "God gives a man wealth, possessions and honor, so that he lacks nothing his heart desires, but God does not enable him to enjoy them....."

In trying to answer that question, he quoted Pascal who said "There is a God-shaped vacuum in the heart of every man."  Also Acts 17:27 where Paul said "God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each of us." 

I especially like what Dale Evans Rogers said- "I looked my whole life for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow but found all I was looking for at the foot of the cross."

So maybe Paul gives us the reason why we'll never be able to prove the existence of the afterlife.  And if that's true, it makes a lot of sense to me.

As for me, I don't really think I'm a skeptic about the afterlife.  Actually I think I really do believe in it.  But I'm a skeptic when it comes to much of the new age beliefs.  Folks are so quick to embrace Seth or Elias simply because of what they read in books or on the net, not because they themselves have had any experiences that would validate what these so-called advanced entities say.

As Bruce has said, there's a big difference between beliefs and knowns.  I agree with that, although I'm not sure whether we can really say we "know" something.  We might think we know, but whether it's really true or not, is really uncertain.

As Swedenborg has pointed out, there's a lot of deception in the afterlife.  And there's probably a couple of levels of deception as well.  There may be malicious deception and benign deception.  We'll probably never know the real deal even when we die.  It's all a big Mystery.  And as any mystery writer knows, if you give away the answers too soon, the reader will put down the book before he gets to the end.

R

Leilah

So keep us posted on the results your sister gets. Reading your post, I realized that in my own way I too am trying to learn to bend reality. Yeah, I like the way that sounds.

If there really are earth changes coming by 2012, will all of this be easier?

Rob

always interesting to hear about Mt. Athos though if they wouldn't let the women there, it sounds like they were afraid of bending more than eating utensils. was Mt. Athos mentioned in Zorba? Well Jacob Needleman wrote some stuff about the Orthodox Church in Lost Christianity that I think touches on some of the interesting aspects. What do you think of Kyriacos C. Markides'   work?