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Argument and Counterargument

Argument and Counterargument:


The argument presented within my paper supports the idea that children with past lives are tangible and not only quantifiable in an area where a belief in reincarnation is present. Through this discovery, I used research questions discussing the possible patterns seen within a multitude of cases, discovering if children are just highly imaginative in their thinking that could cause this behavior, and recognizing cases not subjected in areas where reincarnation is of a firm belief. I believe these questions remove the assumption that a possible third variable that takes away the evidence within these cases is regarded as anything less than evidence pointing towards possible reincarnation. 

Within a source by Tucker, he presents an opposing idea (from another author) based on the socio-psychological hypothesis. It is a theory that can be loosely defined as the idea at which a child who has a family has a belief in reincarnation can then allow for the falsification of evidence (with the deceased's family) to something that points towards a case of reincarnation. In simpler terms, if I was someone who had a belief in reincarnation and my child was presenting minimal or minor signs of a child who was reincarnated, then I can then influence my child into believing (through falsification of facts with another family) that they were once reincarnated. This idea is proven by Tucker to be false through other reasoning based on tangible evidence. However, through my perspective, this idea fails to see that not all cases are ones where families are from areas where reincarnation is believed in. A statistic from Statista asked U.S teenagers about what theories or religious symbols they believed in. Here is where it was regarded that reincarnation was the least believed in and was the most “not believed” theory. This study is one that can be used to reflect the United States' beliefs. Within cases like Ryan Hammons, the parents had admitted to not believing in reincarnation when their son first presented signs of being reincarnated. With this idea, it makes it highly unlikely that people who at once refused to believe in reincarnation would go out of their way to make their son a center stage for researchers to regard him as one of the cases with the most highly verified case and one that is publicized for reincarnation. The sources that I used to build my argument come from Ryan’s mother herself, who, in both the book and Netflix production, admitted that she and her husband went through a time where they would not fully come to terms with reincarnation playing a part of their child’s reasoning for having these experiences. In addition to the statistics by Statista, and Tucker's article that first reports about this hypothesis (and also goes to disprove it with another variation of proof). 

Works Cited

Tucker, Jim B. “Children Who Claim to Remember Previous Lives: Past, Present, and Future Research.” Journal of Scientific Exploration, vol. 21, no. 3, 2007, pp. 543–52.

Harris Interactive. "U.S. Teenagers: Do You Believe in The following Theories and Religious Symbols?." Statista, Statista Inc., 22 Apr 2014, https://www-statista-com.proxy.libraries.rutgers.edu/statistics/297180/united-states-teenagers-religious-symbol-theories-belief/

Kean, Leslie. Surviving Death: a Journalist Investigates Evidence for an Afterlife. Three Rivers Press, an Imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a Division of Penguin Random House LLC, 2018.




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