[Nat]

I don't believe in reincarnation so I don't think they will be coming back, nor do I believe they will immediately find themselves in a hellish existence because hell is a state of mind, and that will only come when they become aware of the impact of their actions and have remorse for them. I don't even think gravitating to a sphere of like minded individuals would necessarily be hellish. If they are comfortable with themselves, they will be comfortable with people like themselves, and that hardly sounds hellish at all, ... more like in their appropriate comfort zone.

I believe the after life is what we make of it, so as unjust as it may seem to some, I would not be surprised if there are some terrorists floating around the ether being entertained by their illusion of the 99 virgins they believed they would get as "reward" for sacrificing their lives to take the lives of others. Terrorism is a point of view to the perpatrators, ...they believed they were acting for a higher cause and were doing a good thing, so it may take some time for them to rethink their position and have remorse for the pain and suffering they have caused. THEN, I imagine life would become a bit hellish for a while.

Like all others tho, they too can progress and evolve in to the type of beings who would not commit such acts, and who knows, might become your new best friend. Reform tho, (where the perpetrator of a violent act is still on earth) can and should be worked on right here. It is not fair to those in spirit to handball our problem people on to them to deal with.

[dragonfly]

what of the people who are bad , that have already crossed then Nat?

you did contradict yourself a little there with you dont believe in reincarnation, but then you said a spirit may evolve into the type of being that doesnt commit these crimes how exactly do they evolve? Do they learn lessons? If so how? Im not saying i believe in reincarnation in the sense that some believe what i was trying to say is that lessons would be learnt through a different way of life, but this can not be done truly until one has passed through to the "other side".

[Nat]

Originally Posted by dragonfly

what of the people who are bad , that have already crossed then Nat?

I am not sure I am following you here. ??? The first two paragraphs ARE covering my thoughts on what happens to people who HAVE crossed over.

Originally Posted by dragonfly

you did contradict yourself a little there with you dont believe in reincarnation, but then you said a spirit may evolve into the type of being that doesnt commit these crimes

You think so??? Again, I don't think we are on the same wave length. Maybe you substituting my "would not commit such acts" for "doesn't commit these crimes", is where this has gone off the rails, as the latter (doesn't) would imply the opportunity to commit them and therefore reincarnation (coz you can't kill a spirit, only a physical form) where as the former (would not) has no bearing on the opportunity being present or not. Not sure if that is what you were getting at? If so, I hope that clears it up for you. But anyway, ...

I fail to understand why people think an earthly reincarnation is necessary to learn a lesson. We evolve and progress whilst here on earth, ... we evolve and progress whilst in spirit. Simple.

I am sure there is not a person on this planet that has not learnt (or will not learn) a lesson and changed a thought, an attitude, or a behavior, during their life time here - reincarnation therefore, to my mind, is clearly not a prerequisite for this occuring and people evolving as a consequence. In spirit I believe we will be able to experience first hand the emotions our actions and thoughts have evoked in others and again learn and evolve from this. Reincarnation simply just does not factor in to learning lessons in my opinion.

Some one could commit such acts as you would think they should be killed for, then through progression adopt a new perspective and become some one who wouldn't do the same thing again. I don't believe they have to come back to earth and not kill someone to prove it, ....and coming back as a butterfly or something else incapable of complex thought processes and emotions seems completely pointless and irrelevant to me, ...not to mention in opposition to the fact that what we essentially are (once we shed our bodies), is the sum of our experiences, thoughts, and feelings. How we can pack away in a box our complex minds to go be a simple butterfly escapes me when our minds are the very essence of us.

I think using their complex and reasoning minds to ponder what they had done would be more effective than wasting time flitting about as a purely instinctual butterfly only to arrive back at the same point in spirit - where they would eventually ponder what they had done. And stating it as a lesson because your life would be short suggests death is some sort of punishment. I think of it as a promotion, so if I was a butterfly who upon my physical death would become a human spirit, I would think the sooner it happened the better. Except I would not ever have that thought coz I would be a stupid butterfly thinking nothing much at all, and when I got back to spirit and could think about it - I would not care coz I'd rather be there than be a butterfly. No lesson in that.

Originally Posted by dragonfly

how exactly do they evolve? Do they learn lessons? If so how?

We are always learning lessons. They come to us through our experiences, through our interactions with others, through realizing our effect on others, when we gain new knowledge, new perspectives, some times some one sits us down and teaches us something, some times it is conclusions we have arrived at our selves, .... and I am sure a lot more ways to boot, ....and it can happen both here on earth and in spirit.

It need not be an eye for an eye, shorten a life and have one shortened ... who would you have murder a murderer? ...and then what becomes of them for doing it? Would you condemn them for the same act, that only happened because of the element in society that accepts and even calls for it? I am sure in god's/ spirits eyes it is all the same whether it was an act with personal motive or an act on behalf of a society who wanted it. Who hands would the blood really be on then? I believe reformation rather than retaliation is the only way this can not become a vicious circle of paybacks provoking anger instead of promoting forgiveness.

Originally Posted by dragonfly

Im not saying i believe in reincarnation in the sense that some believe what i was trying to say is that lessons would be learnt through a different way of life, but this can not be done truly until one has passed through to the "other side".

I was not actually responding to your post or debating your opinion with my inital one, ... you can think anything you like, ....I'd be bored stupid if everyone agreed with each other,.... I was just throwing my two cents worth in. Thanks for your thoughts, thanks for the lesson, ....hope you learnt something too.

[dragonfly]

certainly did cheers!

[lecter]

I am not quiete sure that i can fully see the logic in your figures.The amount of murderes happen in a society is to some degree dependant on the size of society.So if you have a clan of 1000 people and 15 murders are committed,m i would expect that in a clan of 10000 people that number of murders would increase too.The likelyhood of any even t will and is always correlated to the number of possible subjects this can occur to.

With view to the role DNA plays these days i would like to suggest that nothing is ever infallible.DNA has been hugely supportive in solving many cases, and undoubtly will do so in the future, however DNA eveidence can be planted and what we call scientific sound will never be exactly that, because we as humans interpret the scientific sound exvidence and oput it into context, hence making it fallible.

Death penalty or any increase of severity of punishment for a crime should according to ur thinking decrease the rate of crimes.I do not believe that this is the case.Crimes in any shape or form are a result of many complex reasons, ranging from psychosocial to physical/ biological and to opportunity.If i am noit mistaken, then most murders are commited by someone the victim knows.Which would indicate some sort of issue in the relationship, whichever form that relationship may be. I do not believe that we as humans can ever fully understand the motivation behind killing someone.We may see the logic in some cases( jeaousy, greed etc) but in most cases we do notunderstand the complex reasoning of a person making the decision to kill someone and then act on it.Badness as such is often mistaken for madness, however i do believe that we all make choices depending on our circumstances.As a person committing a crime or as a personm judging someone who committed a crime. Its important to demonstrate that crimes are punishable and will be punished but taking somebodys life is a decision i do not believe we have the power to make, or should have the power.As somebody mentioned earlier, it puts us on a very sdimilar level to those commiting the crime and whilst i am sure that the people who do so have absolutly no problem with it, i speaking for myself personally know that i would not and could not make a decision and judgement like that.

Sorry for the long text.U made it all to the end...

Kat xxx

[DABhand]

No scientific evidence is available to show that an increase in population spawns more evil type people who kill.


So in the end population figures dont make killers, society and upbringing do.

[lecter]

NO scientific figures are available either that proofe that an increase in population doesnt increase the amount of people commiting crimes such as murders.etc...

[myself]

ok lets look at this
If you have 100 people and 1 commits murder then thats 1 per 100 population ...yes.
so if you have 200 people you can expect that 2 will commit murders.
300 people and 3 will commit murders and so on and so forth.
this is the expected norm in this population. the greater the amounts of people within the population the more likely there are to be more murderers. We can expect that the amount of people being murdered will increase too, ie if 1 person is being murdered per 100, then 2 people per 200, and 3 per 300.
It is highly unlikely and unreal to expect that the murder rate will remain the same with an increase in population. Even if as you say society causes people to murder, what happens to the extremes within society? the people with mental health or other issues who take lives? do we expect that to remain the same? and the people who murder out of a fit of anger? does anger not exsist in your ideal world?

[Sibyl]

The question asked was: What happens to spirits given the death penalty?

We have now sorted out the number of murders per population together with goodness knows what else and for what?

Until we move into spirit ourselves, can we ever know what happens?

[DABhand]

Originally Posted by myself

ok lets look at this
If you have 100 people and 1 commits murder then thats 1 per 100 population ...yes.
so if you have 200 people you can expect that 2 will commit murders.
300 people and 3 will commit murders and so on and so forth.
this is the expected norm in this population. the greater the amounts of people within the population the more likely there are to be more murderers. We can expect that the amount of people being murdered will increase too, ie if 1 person is being murdered per 100, then 2 people per 200, and 3 per 300.
It is highly unlikely and unreal to expect that the murder rate will remain the same with an increase in population. Even if as you say society causes people to murder, what happens to the extremes within society? the people with mental health or other issues who take lives? do we expect that to remain the same? and the people who murder out of a fit of anger? does anger not exsist in your ideal world?

Unfortunately you are relying on mathematics to show this, when in reality its not like that. If you took the figures of deaths say each murder was by a single person and then found out a percentage of the these from the population, you will see every year these figures fluctuate there is no static ratio or equation to show that the population is tied to murders that have happened.


What im trying to say is, if someone is evil enough to kill they are born or influenced to do so. Population figures does not influence these people.


And to Sibyl, I gave my answer on what I think on page 1