Issue of Justice– 3 examples

Starvation & Poverty

“Almost 1 in every 15 children in developing countries dies from hunger.” They are deprived: deprived of food, water, sustenance, nutrition, medicine and the many day to day needs that can easily be taken for granted. People are dying, people are suffering and they live each day with single hope: to be able to eat. Starvation can be linked to poverty, but it’s also because an over populated area, a lack of resources and poor methods of economic trade. For some, it’s something they’re born into, for others it’s path they can’t escape from.

Sex Trafficking

27 million people are slaves, that’s a huge number. Young girls who should be worrying about her grades in Maths, putting on make up for the first time or fighting with her sister, is instead worrying the next time that he’ll come in, worrying about the next time he’ll touch her and worrying how long it will take her to forget that he’s there.Eventually her innocence is stripped from her and she no longer values herself, she no longer values her body and his touch, becomes her everyday reality, “Each year millions of women and children are trafficked for sex. In one of South Asia’s largest red light areas, in terrible conditions, there are an estimated 15,000 sex workers in a two square mile area who are seen as nothing more than flesh for sale.”Women sex slaves usually die very early from STI diseases and abuse.

War and Mass Killings

Some countries have a terrible history, where a dictator has caused huge suffering to millions of innocent people. In Burma, the government separated families, made people work for nothing in big labour camps, with little food, until they dropped dead. Many were tortured in prison camps for years on end. Others were shot for tiny crimes like falling asleep during a meeting, or stealing a piece of food.

Other countries have fallen into genocide, where one racial group has wanted to exterminate the other . In Rwanda, Hutus and Tutsis, who lived next to each other as neighbours started slaughtering each other. Men, women, children were mass murdered by people they had grown up with.


Claims of different religions

Which ones think that there IS an afterlife? Which ones don’t? What are most of them saying?

Buddhism teaches that humans are trapped in a repeating cycle of birth, life, death and rebirth (reincarnation). One's goal is to escape from this cycle and reach Nirvana.

Hindus believe that a person's atman (spirit) is permanent and cannot change while the physical body is not permanent and can change. The atman is reborn many times, this is samsara (reincarnation).

Muslims (followers of Islam) believe that on the Day of Resurrection, all the people who have ever lived will be raised from the dead and will face judgement by Allah. Allah will balance the good deeds of a person against the bad.If the good deeds outweigh the bad, the person will go to paradise (Jannah). If the bad things outweigh the good, then the person will be punished in hell (Jahannam).

Judaism teaches that God breathed the soul into Adam’s body ‘and He blew into his nostrils the soul of life’. (Genesis 2:7) There are later teachings about heaven and hell. One view is that good people will enter Eden (paradise) and wicked people will go to Gehenna (hell).

Sikhs believe in reincarnation. This means that a person’s soul may be reborn many times as a human or an animal. Therefore, for Sikhs, death is not the end.

Christians believe there is an afterlife. As true God, Jesus took on a human body, and raised it up into eternal life by his resurrection. In this way, Jesus made this new ‘life after death’ possible for all.

Just as Jesus died and resurrected, so the body, although it dies, will be resurrected at the end of time, while the unique soul lives on to be purified in purgatory or judged worthy of heaven/ hell by God. Jesus said, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies.’ John 11:25-26

Near death Experiences (NDE)

Brad Steiger's NDE (age eleven)

Brad SteigerOne day when he was 11, Brad Steiger nearly died of multiple skull fractures after being caught in the metallic blades of a piece of machinery on his family's Iowa farm. He felt his "essential self" drift away from his body. He watched his sister run for help and realized he was simultaneously in his father's arms being carried from the field, and above himself, observing.

While "out" of his body he was shown a geometric design of colours and seemed to see the patterns inherent in all of life. Although he did not understand it, he felt he had been shown a plan of the universe, and that he had a mission "to testify to others that the human spirit is eternal and that we are not alone in the cosmic scheme of things." He came back to his body just as the surgeons were about to operate.

Ben, a9-year-old boy spent 36 hours in a life-threatening fever. Afterwards, he reported seeing his sister during a tour of heaven. It was she who told him he had to come back to life. His father assured him he couldn't have seen her there as she was safely away at college. The following morning they found out that the daughter had died the night before in a car crash.

Clara (age 10)

I was in the fifth grade when I became sick with extreme pain in my lower right side. My teacher thought it was only a stomach ache and ignored it. Two hours later I was rushed to the hospital. I was terrified and begged to go home. I was fighting the ether mask when it happened. One second I was awake, scared to death, the next second I was falling straight down a dark hole as if in a well.

There were loud sounds like buzzing and ringing and metal scraping together, and then I was up by the ceiling looking down on myself. I felt as though I was spread out all over the room like vapour or a cloud. I watched as the doctor had a square green machine wheeled into the room by a nurse, and then worked on me using it. There were several nurses there.

Suddenly I was standing alone in a room with large, heavy doors leading into other rooms. Someone came to me. I didn't see him; I only heard his voice. He led me up through what seemed like a tunnel. I seemed to be walking, but my feet didn't touch a floor. Suddenly I heard what sounded like a city-sized playground full of kids, laughing and playing. Hearing them calmed me. Another man came to meet us. I didn't see him either. He asked the one leading me who I was, and then he went away. When he returned he told the man with me that I had to go back, that they weren't ready for me yet.

When I revived, a nurse was sitting beside my bed and she said, "Thank God you finally woke up." I told the doctor that I had watched him work on me and the colour of the machine brought into the surgery room. He didn't know what to say.

Existence of SupernaturalSpirits

OUIJi BOARD STORY

I don’t know whether you’ll believe this story or not, but I can assure you that it’s true. I messed with the Ouija board and paid for that.

This incident took place about three years ago. I was in school and we were having our free period as usual. Then, one of my best friends called me and took me to a corner and removed something from her bag. She showed the Ouija board to me though I could not recognize it having never heard of it before.
She told me it was a tool to call spirits and that it’d be very exciting to do it.

I was initially very afraid but later I relented and allowed her to show it to my classmates. Each and every one of us was excited to do it.

We sat down near our school graveyard and started the ‘game’. In the first attempt, nothing happened. But in the second attempt, it happened, a fierce wind blew about us and the pointers started moving all by themselves. A first we thought that it was the wind, but as the wind slowly subsided, we came to know that there was something seriously wrong.

My friend, who owned the board, suddenly fainted. We got terribly frightened and I asked the board,”Is anyone there?” The answer was ‘yes’. We were terribly afraid and we all ran away from that spot forgetting my unconscious friend over there.

I don’t know what happened after that, just the news came that my best friend was found dead near the school graveyard.‘Til today, I can feel the after effects of messing with the Ouija board. I can feel someone standing behind me, I can feel that I’m being followed everywhere.

Photographic Evidence of Spirits

Reincarnation accounts
Summarise one story.

Civil War Soldier
Carol Bowman was inspired to write Children's Past Lives by the vivid recollections of her own children. When investigating with a therapist why her five-year-old son Chase was frightened by certain loud noises, the small boy described events that obviously did not occur in this life. "I'm standing behind a rock. I'm carrying a long gun with a kind of sword at the end. I have dirty, ripped clothes, brown boots, a belt. I'm hiding behind a rock, crouching on my knees and shooting at the enemy. I'm at the edge of a valley. The battle is going on all around me. I don't want to look, but I have to when I shoot. Smoke and flashes everywhere. And loud noises: yelling, screaming, loud booms. I'm not sure who I'm shooting at - there's so much smoke, so much going on. I'm scared. I shoot at anything that moves. I really don't want to be here and shoot other people."

Tell-Tale Birthmarks
Dr. Stevenson's research has often turned up verified correlations between birthmarks and traumatic events in the past lives of his young subjects:
- An Indian boy with an array of birthmarks on his chest recalled being killed by a shotgun blast to the chest.
- Another boy in India remembers a past life in which some of his fingers were cut off by a fodder-chopping machine. This boy was born with mere stumps for fingers.

Reincarnation accounts contd.2
Past Life as a Nun
Carol Bowman relates the story of a little girl named Elspeth who, before she was even two years old, spontaneously recalled becoming a nun. "I'm going to take my vows," she suddenly told her mother while bathing, in one of the first full sentences she had ever uttered. "I'm not Elspeth now. I'm Rose, but I'm going to be Sister Teresa Gregory." This small child even described some of her convent duties, including milking the goats, making cheese and saying prayers. She even described her own death.
The Sewing Sailor
In another anecdote from Bowman's book, five-year-old Tommy Hibbert somehow knew how to sew a button back on his pants. "Tommy went and got a needle and thread," his mother recalled, "threaded the needle, and sewed that button on so expertly that I couldn't believe it. I had never taught him to sew and he had never even seen me do it. Amazed, I asked him, 'Where on earth did you learn to sew buttons on like this?' 'Well, we used to do it on my ship all of the time,' he answered. 'You were a sailor?' 'Oh, yes.' And then he told me about how his ship would creak in the night while he was lying in his bunk in what he described as an old sailing ship with tall masts and many ropes." Tommy grew up and joined the Navy.

Cannon Balls
At the Children's Past Lives Forum, a mother tells of the many "memories" of her three-year-old daughter who would say, "I want to go to my other home!" Even after asking her, she

Reincarnation accountscontd.3

couldn't explain it - just that their house wasn't her home. She also unexpectedly told her father that "cannon balls go really far" and killed "me and my horse."

Foreign Language
Another post on the Forum tells this interesting story: "My son, who is 15, had a very interesting experience last evening. He, myself and my wife all fell asleep watching TV in our den. I work third shift and set an alarm to awake me. I told my son to make sure I was awake so I could get ready for work. Well, the alarm went off and seemingly only awoke me. I called out to my son several times. He is a very deep sleeper and when he awoke, it was a startling awakening. He sat up and started talking in a foreign tongue for several seconds. Nothing I recognized. He is in his third year of Spanish, but it was not Spanish. After I called out to him, it seemed as if though he 'snapped' out of it and awoke. His eyes were open the whole time and he does not remember his speaking."

Explaining Away Reincarnation Accounts

Facts attained from hypnosis are highly questionable. First, some people areknown to have lied under hypnosis. Second, human memory can play tricks and imagine things not experienced before. Studies have shown that under hypnosis, patients are easily influenced by leading questions.

Past life recall can also be attributed to the influence of culture. Cultures heavily steeped in the doctrine ofreincarnation create an environment which encourages past life recall. The countries of India, Sri Lanka,Burma, and Tibet have a very high number of cases. Many who make claims of past life recall win therespect of their society. In areas like these the culture can have a strong influence on one’s subconsciousmind. If reincarnation is true, it should be prevalent in all cultures, not primarily in one area.

Finally, the majority of the incidents occur among children. Children are the most susceptible tosuggestion and their testimony should be looked at with caution.
Speaking of othe languages?

However, there is a form of memory lossthat can account for thisphenomenon where someone forgets information that was learned earlier and recalls it ata later time, not knowing its source. It is possible that one can hear foreign terms through the media or asa child and remember these when prompted.
Birthmarks?

The third proof is the appearance of unique birthmarks that are similar to those possessed by a deceasedperson. However, it is difficult to show any connection to reincarnation. Similarity does not mean it is the SAME birthmark.

There is also the possibility of demonic possession where a foreign spirit takescontrol of the person as demonstrated throughout the New Testament. Demonic spirits have existed forthousands of years and are not limited by time and space. The information they possess can enter a person’s mind during possession. Eastern meditation techniques allow for this possibility. Even reincarnation advocates believe that many cases of past life recall can be attributed to demonicpossession. They confess that it is difficult to determine whether a past life recall is the result ofreincarnation or possession.