[Arturo2nd]

Originally Posted by howerd

OK I 'get' that it's your opinion Brian but what's the best reason you can give for thinking it's particularly likely to be true rather than simply intellectually satisfying to your need to believe it? Do you have anything that's genuinely verifiable?

Hello howerd,

Let me start out by saying that it is a much a hope as an opinion. I really hope to have the opportunity to use lessons learned through a succession of painful experiences. Aristotle stated at the conclusion of Posterior Analytics that all knowledge is based on intuition. IMO, all of our experience and/or knowledge is subjective in the final analysis. Do you have anything genuinely verifiable that objective knowledge can exist?

My subjective reasons for believing reincarnation may be true are 1) experiences that suggested encounters in past lives and memories thereof, and 2) Plato and several Eastern religions attest to that reality.

Originally Posted by howerd

Again that's another highly contentious claim. What's the best justification you can supply for thinking it's at all likely to be true?

The 'special education planet' hypothesis comes from the cosmology of the spiritual practice of a former girlfriend. This explanation states that all the souls in the universe "who just don't get it" are sent to this out of the way place so that they don't impede the work of the Masters in the serious business of making the universe work. I rather like it because it reminds me not to have unrealistic expectations of my fellow travelers, and it reminds me to humbly remember that I am here, too. Take a look around you. Do you have a better explanation for human behavior?

Naturally, if this is indeed the special ed planet, all of us here are a very long way from enlightenment.

Originally Posted by howerd

But since there is no remotely reliable way to really know if any supernatural claim is likely to be true how can believing any faith claim is much more likely than any other one? Especially since as you rightly say one is never free from a particular indoctrination? - Not all supernatural claims can be true can they? However they can all be false.

Whatever

Originally Posted by howerd

I cannot believe in hell claims either because the it's far far more plausible the story was made up to scare little children away from asking how the claim could really be known to be factual & not fictional?

It is notable that the burning forever conception of hell originated with desert peoples living in blazing temperatures. The Nordic peoples conceived of hell as being conscious, but eternally frozen. Stories to scare children or allusions to a spiritual reality, probably some of both. Thomas Aquinas talked of hell and sin in terms of being in a state of alienation from God. Now, there was a period of my life where I was on a self destructive path, completely alienated from my innermost values, much less any underlying principle of Being or experience of all embracing Love. It is this state that I conceive as being hell. It is a state of the soul's own choosing and not a sentence from a vengeful deity.

I know I owe you an a promised PM. It has been on my mind of late. Life has been quite a struggle for quite awhile now, but hopefully I can get the PM out to you in the next few days.