Reincarnation Cases

I agree. I don't believe that discarnate spirits decide to be born handicapped or get murdered etc. I think that it's possible to choose one's parents and perhaps some other things as well, but nobody chooses a miserable life deliberately. All that talk about choosing to be born blind or choosing a life in which one gets raped or disfigured in some horrible accident etc. is merely New Age belief or unreliable channeled information.

I suppose this would be better. We should note that if a soul does sometimes choose the parents, then the soul also chooses the location on the Earth, and the time period. It is predictable that the life will likely be short and miserable if certain times and locations are chosen. It is certainly predictable that having some particular parents will mean a difficult life with birth defects and/or poverty, cruel upbringing, any number of other bad conditions. What about a war-torn and/or starvation-prone African country any time in the recent past or now for that matter. There must be an awful lot of souls desiring to do that, since we are talking about populations of hundreds of millions. 

Your suggestion that usually the soul doesn't make the choice of parents then leaves most human suffering due to uncontrollable conditions of birth including genetic defects, and the theoretically predictable consequences that follow from these conditions, to sheer chance I suppose. That would mean the soul usually willingly enters a lottery with very high stakes for its human. Maybe it just wants to come back, whatever the conditions and experience. Whatever the mechanism is, it instead may not have anything to do with soul choice.

I suppose this would be better. We should note that if a soul does sometimes choose the parents, then the soul also chooses the location on the Earth, and the time period. It is predictable that the life will likely be short and miserable if certain times and locations are chosen. It is certainly predictable that having some particular parents will mean a difficult life with birth defects and/or poverty, cruel upbringing, any number of other bad conditions. What about a war-torn and/or starvation-prone African country any time in the recent past or now for that matter. There must be an awful lot of souls desiring to do that, since we are talking about populations of hundreds of millions. 

Your suggestion that usually the soul doesn't make the choice of parents then leaves most human suffering due to uncontrollable conditions of birth including genetic defects, and the theoretically predictable consequences that follow from these conditions, to sheer chance I suppose. That would mean the soul usually willingly enters a lottery with very high stakes for its human. Maybe it just wants to come back, whatever the conditions and experience. Whatever the mechanism is, it instead may not have anything to do with soul choice.

The Druzes of Lebanon, Igbos of Nigeria and the Alaskan Tlingit believe in reincarnation within the family lines. Northern Europeans also had this belief in ancient times. I think that those peoples were right. In my opinion reincarnation occurs within the family lines, and the cases in which the soul is reborn to strangers are exceptions to the rule.

Although there is evidence to support this view, it is my personal opinion, and I am not here to argue that it is true. I wanted to mention this theory, because if it is true, it explains why many souls are born to starvation-prone African countries etc.

What is really difficult to either comprehend or, worse, to explain is the need for suffering at all. My take is that it is part of our free-will driven narrative. I think that humanity, as a whole, could have chosen a different path but we allowed the ego to dominate our earthly choices and a downward spiral began, reaching its nadir in the 20th century with the horrors of two world wars and mass slaughter across the globe. 

The Scolastico channelings similarly explain suffering as the result of humanity devolving into its animal nature over many generations in the Earth environment, but with the key factor being domination by fear. Fear supposedly led to all human suffering. Unfortunately, I don't think either fear or ego domination or free will causes all human suffering. So much of humanity's travail stems from what is called "natural evil" - natural phenomena and disasters that are independent of man's will free or otherwise. These are things like disease, earthquakes, droughts, forest fires, hurricanes, etc. etc. The fact that a few highly spiritually advanced humans can overcome and rise above fear and suffering is irrelevant - this is not a realistic option for the vast mass of humanity.

1. Yes.
2. I'll probably have to live again.
3. Incarnate spirit --> discarnate spirit --> incarnate spirit in a new body. Therefore I am that old version (same consciousness), but outer layers of me have changed (new body, and possibly different personality.)
4. The second I, but after a while I'll probably remember my previous lives and things in a larger perspective. In that situation I will probably think that I was both the first I and the second I, but ultimately I am neither of them. Both of those incarnations manifested some parts of my subliminal self/higher self etc. (When I said that I don't believe in "higher self" I meant that term in the same sense as the New Agers do. I do however believe in some kind of "higher self" in the same sense as William Buhlman uses that term.)

In a previous post you said-
It is always the same individual, same being, whether he is incarnate or discarnate. E.g. in this life I can decide, whether I'm going to visit my friends A and B in my hometown, or my friends C and D in another city. After my death I can decide whether I want to have couple AB or DC as my parents. It is always the same I that makes the decisions

Given your recent answers I think that the "you" in life 1 and 2 are different in some important ways (memories and maybe personalities) and generally don't know about each other, it seems that at least in terms of day to day experiences, they are different people.  

Seems like you are also saying the version of you in the afterlife is really a combination of those previous lives and others perhaps and that the "larger" or maybe "expanded" you includes and is aware of this.

So in some ways, the you who chooses which friend to visit in life is different and unaware of the you in the afterlife. So it looks to me like the are not the same person, in terms of awareness of each other. 

Consequently, not sure why you would say it is "the same I who makes the decisions". Feels like different "I"s to me. And seem like they will make different choices because they have different perspective, likes, memories and motivations.

No biggie either way to me,,, but that's why I asked those questions...

I agree. I don't believe that discarnate spirits decide to be born handicapped or get murdered etc. I think that it's possible to choose one's parents and perhaps some other things as well, but nobody chooses a miserable life deliberately. All that talk about choosing to be born blind or choosing a life in which one gets raped or disfigured in some horrible accident etc. is merely New Age belief or unreliable channeled information.

snip- but nobody chooses a miserable life deliberately
What do you base this on?

And what leads you to decide that choosing ones parents IS based on reliable information, however the other stuff is unreliable? Sounds like you are making these choices on what you think should be true. 

Or is there some particular way that you are determining reliability that is objective?

So in some ways, the you who chooses which friend to visit in life is different and unaware of the you in the afterlife. So it looks to me like the are not the same person, in terms of awareness of each other. 

Consequently, not sure why you would say it is "the same I who makes the decisions". Feels like different "I"s to me. And seem like they will make different choices because they have different perspective, likes, memories and motivations.

I think simple logic dictates that this conclusion is the truth.

I think simple logic dictates that this conclusion is the truth.

Now you have 100% lost me. 

What about the stories of after death experiences conforms with "simple logic"?

Does the double slit experiment conform to "simple logic"?

You are bound to end up off in the weeds if you are determining the nature of reality based on simple logic, as there is much is neither simple nor logical about this stuff.

Hey do what you want, but accepting some evidence and throwing away others, is exactly what deniers do every day, and it is one of the reasons it's so simple to shoot holes in their hollow arguments.

Just my 2 cents.

snip- but nobody chooses a miserable life deliberately
What do you base this on?

An interesting subject.

I had a dream nearly forty years ago, in which I watched, with some distress, a somewhat balding middle-aged man (very unlike myself at the time) inside some sort of concentration camp, close to a boundary fence and being beaten with long wooden sticks by the guards. There was an understanding that the man in this scene had placed himself in this situation voluntarily, he believed it would in some way bring him something of benefit. It was certainly a curious thing to observe. The strangest and most disturbing part was that as I awoke from the dream I realised that the man in the dream was myself. 

Note, this wasn't a past-life recall or anything of that nature. It was simply a symbolic representation of my then situation.

I've always found dreams valuable. I don't know how it is that I understand them, but the meaning is usually crystal clear, the language of dreams can be clearer than long wordy explanations which may just as well confuse as illuminate. Perhaps it is analogous to telepathic communication as reported in some NDE accounts - it is a form of direct communication which bypasses primitive human language.

An interesting subject.

I had a dream nearly forty years ago, in which I watched, with some distress, a somewhat balding middle-aged man (very unlike myself at the time) inside some sort of concentration camp, close to a boundary fence and being beaten with long wooden sticks by the guards. There was an understanding that the man in this scene had placed himself in this situation voluntarily, he believed it would in some way bring him something of benefit. It was certainly a curious thing to observe. The strangest and most disturbing part was that as I awoke from the dream I realised that the man in the dream was myself. 

Note, this wasn't a past-life recall or anything of that nature. It was simply a symbolic representation of my then situation.

I've always found dreams valuable. I don't know how it is that I understand them, but the meaning is usually crystal clear, the language of dreams can be clearer than long wordy explanations which may just as well confuse as illuminate. Perhaps it is analogous to telepathic communication as reported in some NDE accounts - it is a form of direct communication which bypasses primitive human language.

Interesting stuff.

I agree,, there is a lot going on in dreams!

Now you have 100% lost me. 

What about the stories of after death experiences conforms with "simple logic"?

Does the double slit experiment conform to "simple logic"?

You are bound to end up off in the weeds if you are determining the nature of reality based on simple logic, as there is much is neither simple nor logical about this stuff.

Hey do what you want, but accepting some evidence and throwing away others, is exactly what deniers do every day, and it is one of the reasons it's so simple to shoot holes in their hollow arguments.

Just my 2 cents.

I think that reality must conform to the laws and truths of logic. These are things like the law of identity, the law of noncontradiction, and the law of of the excluded middle. These fundamental laws should be and are considered true principles governing reality. For one thing, if they are not then rational discourse would be impossible - we couldn't even be sure 2 plus 2 always equals 4. We are certainly fundamentally incapable of imagining and envisioning such a realm. If the spiritual reality of souls and spirits does not conform to the logical principles inherent in our existence then these issues are fundamentally impossible to understand, and we might as well give up any attempt.
  
The double slit experiment aside, this matter of whether there is soul choice of the next life, and some important aspects of what must be the nature of this soul, does in part at least boil down to a little simple logic based on our knowledge of our human selves. What as human beings would our decision be if given the choice whether or not to condemn ourselves to a life of suffering and struggle in order to grow spiritually? At least I am sure I know what my decision would be. Somebody or something else might decide differently. This is the case regardless of any number of channeled communications, past life memories obtained under hypnosis, and NDE accounts.