and made all the difference. Hamilton and Churchill come to mind.

Maybe this guy or someone else will do that.

It's happened in the US too. I'm sure there is some mathmatical theory explaining it. Some statistical explanation.

But I prefer to believe that some things are just ordained.

The cards are I get are random and I have no control over those I get. I only have control over how I play my hand.

I don't think the cards are always random. But I really believe in the concept of the Tao. Gets complicated.

was the right person, in the right place ,at the right time to protect a lot of people in our fledgling space program.

My fifth/sixth grade teacher was in the right time and place when I needed a protective mentor.

History, known or personal, has examples of such good timing. Happy accident or well placed by angles? I don't rule much out sometimes.

I have never lost faith in the American People. We have been through some awful stuff but we have always survived.

And by some people, I mean ANY and ALL of us. Heroes are people who stepped up and acted when the need presented. Any of us can become heroes in our times if we pay attention and act.

Now he is really the free world leader.

stability and he is compassionate and is a team player.

Pope Francis was such a great loss, but it looks like Leo is of a like-mind.

I think they shared similar politics and values going back many years. It's lucky for us that Pope Francis had the foresight, and that Pope Leo came forward to accept the burden of leadership.

I thought it was possible that the pendulum would swing in the opposite direction and that they would elect a more traditional dogmatic hardliner. The world is a better to place to have leaders like Francis and now Leo.

families and wanting to return to another place where they had another identity, another family including a spouse and children (this from5 yr. olds!), a career, in short another life! Dr Ian Stevenson published the original cases, 2000 I think. Since his death, the ongoing project has been taken over by a Tucker, I think, probably still under the aegis of U. Virginia.

For a more complete presentation of our paranormal minds, read Your Eternal Self, not a religious work.

The synoptic gospels teach karma and reincarnation hidden within parables.

it's part of the delusion. But I do believe in the Tao, an inexhaustible energy source that feeds this whole shebang.

Even Leon deGrasse Tyson said it's all energy.

…of reincarnation. Thanks for this info.

Tibetan Book of the Dead is by Pema Chodron. It's not one of her typical how to get through life without killing yourself books. This was a serious discussion and it's really interesting. In Tibetan Buddhism there is a belief that after death the self or soul or whatever passes through a whole series of questions that happen really fast and your answers determine the level of your reincarnation.

Sokushinbutsu being one of them. It is where Buddhist monks observe asceticism to the point of death and enter mummification while still alive. They encourage suicide in a most awful and complicit manner.

There are some really creepy stuff in a lot of those reincarnation religions.

There are a ton of stories about people dying and going to heaven in near death experiences. There are a ton of stories about children coming back as reincarnated souls. Both can Not be correct, but they can both be incorrect. Both have no verifiable evidence to support any of their claims about life after death.

People are still as gullible as they were back in 1765 when Voltaire wrote this:

"Formerly there were those who said: You believe things that are incomprehensible, inconsistent, impossible because we have commanded you to believe them; go then and do what is injust because we command it. Such people show admirable reasoning. Truly, whoever can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. If the God-given understanding of your mind does not resist a demand to believe what is impossible, then you will not resist a demand to do wrong to that God-given sense of justice in your heart. As soon as one faculty of your soul has been dominated, other faculties will follow as well. And from this derives all those crimes of religion which have overrun the world"

all your conclusions, but as my dear old pappy said, it's differences of opinion that make a horse race. In both cases, the opinion won't be confirmed or refuted until the race is over and the result is in!

At this point there is no believable, reproducible evidence for any life after death. So I'll believe this nonsense only when people who claim it's true give me reality based evidence. When we are all dead it is too late.

You do Not have to believe anything on the off chance someone, some day, will have actual evidence. You can just believe it when, and if, they give you convincing evidence. Life after death has not met its burden of proof.

study Lao Tzu, the Taoists, Ch'an and Zen.
I don't remember anybody saying too much about death. Mostly it's about living life.

The Tibetan Book of the Dead has some bizarre stuff. I don't get into all that. Too much baggage.

Zen just let's you let go of opinions and assumptions so that you give your mind space to think clearly without being pulled off track by prior information.

I'm all for meditation, calming thought processes and new ways to think about life. I think it can actually help people.

I just don't want any of that religious baggage and myths that frequently come with it. And I especially don't want those priests trying to tell me what God thinks so they can control me.

Keep on soldier of reason.

Siege of Orleans was broken on May 8, 1429, with an army led by Joan of Arc.


Here is the interesting part:

In 1894 Pope Leo the XIII ruled that Joan of Arc was on a mission inspired by God. In essence vacating her guilty verdict. Which led the way for her to be canonized in 1920

May 8th, 2025, Pope Leo the XIV is named.

I call that a full circle.

That is neat.

and principal of a Catholic grammar school, firmly believed in Irish reincarnation, which is a bit different from the Hindu and Buddhist forms. She always said she wanted to come back as a river otter because they didn't have that many predators and always looked like they were getting fun out of life.

Six months after she died, a snippet on the news said river otters had been spotted here in NM for the first time in nearly a century. Cue Twilight Zone music.

I think the jury's still out because nobody's really come back to tell us what happens after we kick the bucket. However, the presence of the same fascist scum that blighted the 1930s all seem to be back with a vengeance, so my mind is open.

Unlike you, however, I hold little hope for Pope Leo, although I do hope he continues what Francis started. No one can rise in the ranks at the Vatican without sharing a blind spot big enough for half the human race, the female half.

It's why I stomped off in disgust from that church a lifetime ago.

nt

... I mean, the number of people living vs the number of people who have lived don't add up right.

of worlds that you could be incarnated into.
It's not just here although a human incarnation is a huge gift because this is one of the few places you can actually work on yourself problems with anger, jealousy, greed. And your good stuff, too.