Reincarnation

Looks like he felt he needed to believe in something supernatural to give his life meaning, and found an idea or philosophy that he liked and chose to believe it.

Quote: Dalex64

found an idea or philosophy that he liked and chose to believe it.

Isn't that what happens with everybody?
Do you know anybody connected with
a belief voluntarily that didn't choose it
for the reasons you just mentioned?

What's supernatural about reincarnation.
If true, it's as natural as falling off a log,
not supernatural.

Supernatural: anything which can not be explained by the laws of nature.

Until you can describe reincarnation using the laws of nature (and prove it!), or come up with new laws of nature that can be used to describe reincarnation, it is supernatural, no matter how much evidence there is that you attribute to it.

And yes, a voluntary belief in the supernatural is what happens to everybody who believes in such things.

The very same thing applies to God.

Quote: Dalex64

The very same thing applies to God.

It applies to ANYTHING you believe in,
god is the least of it.

You're definition of supernatural is way
too limiting. We don't know how anti
matter works, and nobody calls it
'supernatural'.

'unexplainable by natural law' doesn't
make everything unexplainable supernatural.
There are other criteria needed before it
gets branded with the S word.

It isn't my definition. I am not the original author.

Here is another definition that I didn't author: (of a manifestation or event) attributed to some force beyond scientific understanding or the laws of nature.

By that definition, I still label reincarnation as supernatural.

Quote: Dalex64

By that definition, I still label reincarnation as supernatural.

Then you have to label birth as supernatural,
which nobody does because it obviously
isn't, even though nobody knows where
we were before we were born.

Death is just as natural as birth, everybody
does it. There's nothing 'super'natural about
it, nor would there be if if we were 're'born.
I hate labeling things with that word because
it implies all kinds of things that aren't true.
It puts a stumbling block in front of understanding
it.

More logical fallacies.

I would probably say it has some compelling circumstantial evidence. That still leaves a sizable gap to proving it in a way acceptable to most skeptics. But it puts it farther along than many things (i.e., abominable snowmen, alien abduction, dice influencing)

Quote: rxwine

I would probably say it has some compelling circumstantial evidence. That still leaves a sizable gap to proving it in a way acceptable to most skeptics. But it puts it farther along than many things (i.e., abominable snowmen, alien abduction, dice influencing)

Like they point out, a huge amount of
the things we take for granted in medicine,
for instance, are not proved. But there is
a mountain of evidence they are true, so
we trust in the evidence. We don't know
exactly how a lot of drugs work, we just
know they do. People go to prison all
the time with nobody proving they did
the crime, it's all circumstantial evidence.

That's Christianity's failing. Not only is there
no proof sin or god exist, there isn't even
any evidence. None. They just wave their
arms around and say god created all of this,
and that makes it a fact to them. It's not a
fact, it's just their faulty agenda driven opinion.

Lots of articles about nature, nurture, and reincarnation.
Many people seem to be born a certain way, no matter how
they were nurtured as young kids. Reincarnation goes a
long way in explaining this. A person is born with his
previous nature intact, but not the memories, which are
unimportant. It's our nature that defines who we are, and
it follows us in life after life. It's our nature that is kind or
criminal, happy or glum. It's our nature that makes us smile
through adversity, or crumble like a house of cards.

Our natures also evolve over time, some religions teach that
when we've evolved enough, we no longer choose to be
reborn. But that's religion talking, who knows what the truth
is.