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Reincarnation

There is nothing in nature that would suggest the possibility of reincarnation.
 
BmanMcfly said:
Well, that's also presuming that the previous life was human... Also consider; that if all life forms possess a soul, then just on earth there would need to be a pool of x10^20-30 souls around.

Then in the scale of the universe there could be another 10^100's of other planets with life...
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Indeed, that is another possibility besides the one I stated. As I said, with myth making, you get to make it up as you go along.


What precludes this from being studied objectively??
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I can see that I wasn't clear: The truth of the notion of reincarnation cannot be studied objectively. The reason it cannot is because it is a speculation that cannot be falsified. Jack Hays tried to come up with a falsification through logic, and you and I both came up with wild, unprovable, speculations as to why what he was saying was irrelevant. But wild, unprovable speculations are allowed when the hypothesis under consideration is itself a wild, unprovable speculation.
 
americanwoman said:
That is very true, who knows where or what she heard that may have put something in her head. It's very important for kids to understand reality vs fantasy, which is even harder because it seems like everything that is geared toward children is some kind of fantasy.
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And yet fantasy is the playground of imagination. And imagination is one half of creativity. And creativity is America's competitive advantage in the global marketplace.

Long live fantasy.
 
americanwoman said:
Good morning Polgara! :)

Yes, I like the karma angle as well. Sometimes when I've had a really bad day and I'm feeling sorry for myself I think what oh what did I do in my past life to deserve this! :mrgreen:
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I know exactly what you're saying, having muttered that on occasion myself! :lamo:
 
on the surface, logical level, i don't completely believe in it. however, i have been thinking a lot about it lately. i have had several recurring dreams in which i die, and they are the same every time. one is a boat sinking in a storm around the 16th century. another is being shot in a war. now, these dreams could be easily explained away, but the fact that they have occurred so often and that they have had a real impact on my personality gives me pause. for instance, i won't get on any seafaring vessel, and in my earliest childhood, i was certain that i'd have to go to war, and i was terrified of that. this was before i even had a good idea of what war really was. also, pretty much all of the music that i really gravitate towards was recorded before i was born. i guess i just don't know. i find it odd and interesting. there's really no scientific mechanism that i can think of to explain it.

my advice? ask her about it, and write it down. try to get some details.
 
no. not reincarnation as the same self, or a "whole person" There is the concept of cyclical re-birth (dependent origination), karma, etc.

I can't c/p here ; and if you are interested, you might want to read this , to see the fuller unfolding of the idea.

Fundamentals of Buddhism: Dependent Origination
 
Helix said:
on the surface, logical level, i don't completely believe in it. however, i have been thinking a lot about it lately. i have had several recurring dreams in which i die, and they are the same every time. one is a boat sinking in a storm around the 16th century. another is being shot in a war. now, these dreams could be easily explained away, but the fact that they have occurred so often and that they have had a real impact on my personality gives me pause. for instance, i won't get on any seafaring vessel, and in my earliest childhood, i was certain that i'd have to go to war, and i was terrified of that. this was before i even had a good idea of what war really was. also, pretty much all of the music that i really gravitate towards was recorded before i was born. i guess i just don't know. i find it odd and interesting. there's really no scientific mechanism that i can think of to explain it.

my advice? ask her about it, and write it down. try to get some details.
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Good morning, Helix. :2wave:

I once had what I call a "waking" dream, in that I was in the here and now, in the middle of the afternoon, but I "saw" myself talking to a man I know...but we were in Ancient Rome and he was a soldier. It so intrigued me that I went to the library and the librarian helped me identify the helmet and breastplate he was wearing. It turned out that there was only a 20-year period in Roman history when that particular clothing was worn by soldiers! I am pretty well convinced that I must have known him prior to this lifetime, which is why I can't not believe in reincarnation! Weird! I would be interested in reading about other people having a similar experience!
 
Jack Hays said:
Because there are so many more people living now than in the past. As I said in my first post on this thread, the problem is arithmetic.:peace
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Is there more grass, trees, sea beatles, ants or earthworms living now than in the past?
 
polgara said:
Good morning, Helix. :2wave:

I once had what I call a "waking" dream, in that I was in the here and now, in the middle of the afternoon, but I "saw" myself talking to a man I know...but we were in Ancient Rome and he was a soldier. It so intrigued me that I went to the library and the librarian helped me identify the helmet and breastplate he was wearing. It turned out that there was only a 20-year period in Roman history when that particular clothing was worn by soldiers! I am pretty well convinced that I must have known him prior to this lifetime, which is why I can't not believe in reincarnation! Weird! I would be interested in reading about other people having a similar experience!
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morning, polgara.

yeah, i'm really interested in other peoples' stories, too. could just be our imaginations, but maybe not. we'll never know for sure, and that's part of what makes it interesting.
 
I am not sure where I came to this conclusion. I think it is something I learned in this book:

What Makes You Not a Buddhist

The life force is very strong. This accounts for our uncanny ability to disregard the inevitable possibility of death. It actually takes effort to contemplate death realistically. We all know it's coming but we are nearly incapable of believing it.

I think this is because the life force is eternal. Everything is constantly changing and reorganizing. A cow dies. We eat it. That dead cow becomes life within us. We die. We rot in the ground. This rotting of our body generates nutrition for grass which becomes life for these other plants. The cow eats the grass which kills the grass but generates life for the cow. The human eats the cow. This is kind of the gist of what I am saying but there are trillions and quadrillions of possibilities of how life is reorganized. The chemicals that make up our body may shift and deteriorate but the life force inside us lives indefinitely. Otherwise I don't know how to account for our confusion of death. We know it's coming. We should be able to expect death, appreciate it and understand it. That requires effort and isn't natural. Life has to exist eternally.

I don't believe it is very likely to reincarnate holistically from one body to the next but it is possible. We have no way of validating the stories of people who have memories of their previous lives. It is most certainly possible.
 
azgreg said:
My problem with reincarnation is everybody who claims to have been reincarnated was a member of royalty or someone famous. No one has claimed to have been a **** hole scrubber or stable boy.
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That's not completely fair. You do notice that most people don't have any stories to share of their past lives. How interesting could it have been to be an oak tree, an earthworm or a blade of grass?

Sometimes when my wife tells me things I quickly forget them even if she tells me 3 or 4 times. Things that are boring tend to be forgotten. Only interesting things are remember. If your former life was very interesting you would be more likely to remember it. That would account for the wide disparity in an account for only interesting former lives. The boring ones are easily forgotten.
 
Jack Hays said:
One problem with reincarnation is simple arithmetic. About half the people who ever lived are alive today. There are not enough souls in the pipeline.:peace
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People who believe in reincarnation tend to believe that it includes animals, plants, etc...
 
Past lives?

My experience with D.P. has led me to believe many people have more than one present one.
 
sangha said:
People who believe in reincarnation tend to believe that it includes animals, plants, etc...
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Reminds me of absolutely delightful movie from New Zealand called Dean Spanly I saw a few years ago.


I think you would like it. .
 
vasuderatorrent said:
I am not sure where I came to this conclusion. I think it is something I learned in this book:

What Makes You Not a Buddhist

The life force is very strong. This accounts for our uncanny ability to disregard the inevitable possibility of death. It actually takes effort to contemplate death realistically. We all know it's coming but we are nearly incapable of believing it.

I think this is because the life force is eternal. Everything is constantly changing and reorganizing. A cow dies. We eat it. That dead cow becomes life within us. We die. We rot in the ground. This rotting of our body generates nutrition for grass which becomes life for these other plants. The cow eats the grass which kills the grass but generates life for the cow. The human eats the cow. This is kind of the gist of what I am saying but there are trillions and quadrillions of possibilities of how life is reorganized. The chemicals that make up our body may shift and deteriorate but the life force inside us lives indefinitely. Otherwise I don't know how to account for our confusion of death. We know it's coming. We should be able to expect death, appreciate it and understand it. That requires effort and isn't natural. Life has to exist eternally.

I don't believe it is very likely to reincarnate holistically from one body to the next but it is possible. We have no way of validating the stories of people who have memories of their previous lives. It is most certainly possible.
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I have studied Edgar Casey, known as "The Sleeping Prophet, and he describes life as a never-ending circle, much as you have described. I like that! He also described many cases of reincarnation... which does make me wonder. I have also read that with the dawning of the Age of Aquarius, we will learn the answer to many questions we now have. It was also predicted that we will one day have the ability to communicate mind to mind, with no verbal communication necessary. Shades of Star Trek? It can't come too soon for me! :peace:
 
Personally, I hope the reincarnation exists. Seems a better alternative to the idea of heaven and hell.

That concept never felt right to me. However, one simply cannot go with feelings and desires as a soul guide.
 
tacomancer said:
Personally, I hope the reincarnation exists. Seems a better alternative to the idea of heaven and hell.

That concept never felt right to me. However, one simply cannot go with feelings and desires as a soul guide.
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Well, the reason I tend to think it's a possibility is because of the great figures in religious history who reportedly reached a state of perfection, nirvana, or whatever the choice of concepts is for the individual attaining a certain level of spiritual attainment. A single lifetime is not nearly enough time for a soul to reach a certain level of development. If the inclination is to reach certain levels of spiritual awareness, there is no way in hell that the vast majority of humans could do that, because we don't have the specific conditions required for that sort of development. My view on people, souls, and related matters is that the soul is what lives on and evolves, and physical manifestation is the vehicle for that to happen. I view people as souls who just happen to have bodies for the purpose of learning, rather than as bodies who have a soul. To me, the soul is what determines the conditions, and not the other way around.
 
Ian Stevenson is a respected academic psychiatrist/psychologist (now deceased) who studied reincarnation. I've read his book Twenty Case Suggestive of Reincarnation, and found it to be fairly compelling. I have some theories about why some people remember past lives and some do not, but they are merely speculative. Nevertheless, I think there's pretty good evidence that reincarnation does happen from time to time. I wouldn't simply dismiss it as a case of a brain circuit misfiring or a dream or something, though I also wouldn't necessarily encourage it. I can imagine, as a parent myself, how shocked I would have been had my daughter told me about her life before she was born to me and her mom.
 
ashurbanipal said:
Ian Stevenson is a respected academic psychiatrist/psychologist (now deceased) who studied reincarnation. I've read his book Twenty Case Suggestive of Reincarnation, and found it to be fairly compelling. I have some theories about why some people remember past lives and some do not, but they are merely speculative. Nevertheless, I think there's pretty good evidence that reincarnation does happen from time to time. I wouldn't simply dismiss it as a case of a brain circuit misfiring or a dream or something, though I also wouldn't necessarily encourage it. I can imagine, as a parent myself, how shocked I would have been had my daughter told me about her life before she was born to me and her mom.
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I found this one pretty compelling, as well. (also written by a highly respected psychiatrist, with his own personal experiences to recount)
Amazon.com: many lives, many masters: Books
 
lizzie said:
I found this one pretty compelling, as well. (also written by a highly respected psychiatrist, with his own personal experiences to recount)
Amazon.com: many lives, many masters: Books
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The way I figure it pretty much every culture that has ever existed has some kind of story about an afterlife so simply discounting that possibility seems rather naive.

While the idea of reincarnation is nowhere near as universal, if we accept that spiritual "life" exists and interacts on some level or another with material life then the prospect of someone being reincarnated isn't at all unreasonable.
 
All Hindus reincarnate. No one else does.
 
americanwoman said:
Do you believe in it? I think it can be possible - I mean why not, anything is really.


This morning I just got a little freaked out when my five year old started saying some stuff that was a little out there. She has never done or said anything like this before but this morning as we were getting ready to leave she suddenly said to me "I remember before I was born to you" I was alittle rushed this morning and it caught me off guard so I asked her what and she said "I was in heaven but before that I got all scratched up and died. I had cuts on my face" That stopped me and I said what happened. She looked alittle confused and said again she got scratched on her face. Then she said she remembered her eyes turning to brown and I asked her what color were they and she took her finger and kinda swept over them and said that she doesn't know only that they turned to black then brown in heaven. So I was kinda freaked then and asked her where she heard this stuff because I figured maybe she heard something or someone talk about something but she says she didn't hear it, that it happened to her before she was a baby with me. At that point we really had to get going so I couldn't talk to her more about it but it made me wonder and think, could she be saying the truth? I'd like to think she heard it somewhere or imagining things but isn't there a chance of reincarnation being possible?
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In the Buddhist Religion they call it re-birth or being re-born and they believe a person can live many, many lives before one achieves enlightenment. But remembering a previous life according to them or the sect I belong to is very rare. Now the Tibetian Buddhist is more in the reincarnate side of things. Sure it is possible, but the fact remains one will never know until they die and then even they may not. Especially if one never or rarely remembers anything from the previous lives. Although meditation can bring some of that back, but one wants to do is empty one's inner self of all clinging. Who knows what is really the truth here?
 
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