Do you believe in reincarnation? (don't spam)

fable · Post by **fable** » Fri Mar 21, 2003 5:49 pm

Just curious. I generally don't, though I'm willing to think that for some people, this may be the case. Or maybe we reincarnate in some complex manner we simply don't comprehend. I certainly don't buy the standard "dream regression theory" stuff, since the subconscious can play all sorts of wonderful tricks. And if you judge history by the number of my fellow Wiccans (and the larger group of pagans, for that matter) and their claims for reincarnation, then there were more high priests of Isis and Osiris in the Later Egyptian Dynasties than there were peasants.

So anyway, what do you think?

RandomThug · Post by **RandomThug** » Fri Mar 21, 2003 5:52 pm

Call me a sad boring and unimagintive realistic person, but I think when you die you become food for the worms and thats about it.

dragon wench · Post by **dragon wench** » Fri Mar 21, 2003 6:01 pm

Hmmm... I don't know which to check...

I don't believe in reincarnation in the more literal, conventionally perceived way. But I do believe that since neither matter nor energy can be destroyed... that it has to go somewhere. So my feeling is that when something dies that energy is reabsorbed by the universe and eventually it comes to settle within a new life.

Dottie · Post by **Dottie** » Fri Mar 21, 2003 6:02 pm

Originally posted by RandomThug
Call me a sad boring and unimagintive realistic person, but I think when you die you become food for the worms and thats about it.

Ditto.

Scayde · Post by **Scayde** » Fri Mar 21, 2003 6:27 pm

Originally posted by dragon wench
Hmmm... I don't know which to check...

I don't believe in reincarnation in the more literal, conventionally perceived way. But I do believe that since neither matter nor energy can be destroyed... that it has to go somewhere. So my feeling is that when something dies that energy is reabsorbed by the universe and eventually it comes to settle within a new life.

Ditto

Chanak · Post by **Chanak** » Fri Mar 21, 2003 6:56 pm

This is a tough call for me as well (I didn't vote either). Looking at the processes of nature on this planet, I would have to say that some manner of energy cycle takes place...matter converted into energy...energy converted into matter...matter into energy, and so on ad infinitum. I see that in how an aminal's corpse is broken down by the process of decay, returned to the soil, air, and water...then reintroduced as the agents of decay provide their own energy to the cycle of life in the grand scheme of things.

Some form of reincarnation has to take place. If it's the ideal of the Hindus, I'm not entirely sure.

fable · Post by **fable** » Fri Mar 21, 2003 6:57 pm

Guess I should have been clearer. I was referring more to the old "transmigration of souls from body to body" idea, rather than any continuance of energy/matter.

Scayde · Post by **Scayde** » Fri Mar 21, 2003 7:06 pm

Originally posted by fable
Guess I should have been clearer. I was referring more to the old "transmigration of souls from body to body" idea, rather than any continuance of energy/matter.

LOL.Well, in that case, nope, else we were all as you say, Isis, napoleon, Caesar, George Washington, Pancho Villa..

AFAIK, only Dianne Warwick and Shirley McClain have ever actually been reincarnated, and I have my suspicion they are one and the same person, but her timing got a little off, and she passed herself up in the wheel

Chanak · Post by **Chanak** » Fri Mar 21, 2003 7:15 pm

Originally posted by Scayde
LOL.Well, in that case, nope, else we were all as you say, Isis, napoleon, Caesar, George Washington, Pancho Villa..

AFAIK, only Dianne Warwick and Shirley McClain have ever actually been reincarnated, and I have my suspicion they are one and the same person, but her timing got a little off, and she passed herself up in the wheel

I agree too...the transmigration of souls is something that I don't believe in. My vote shall follow.

Cowgirl...you know as well as I do that Dionne Warwick is really a vessel for Elvis...just a fragment, though. Shirley channels Truman Capote.

fable · Post by **fable** » Fri Mar 21, 2003 9:40 pm

Originally posted by Chanak
Shirley channels Truman Capote.

You know, that would explain a great deal.

Scayde · Post by **Scayde** » Fri Mar 21, 2003 9:53 pm

LMAO @ Chan and fable

Chanak · Post by **Chanak** » Fri Mar 21, 2003 10:16 pm

Don't laugh. I think I met the reincarnation of Ethel Murman earlier today.

Really, though. One concept behind the trans-migration of souls deals with the question of karma. Apparently, some kind of record of your actions throughout the lifetimes are kept somehow, somewhere...imprinted upon your "true" self, as it were...

This speaks of some greater authority keeping watch over the trans-migrators. It's like a list of your sins, carried over into your next existence with interest, apparently. Reincarnation or (a little link to another thread here, hope you don't mind

) a single existence whereupon at death, you are taken to heaven or hell, speaks of a judgement of some kind. To me, these two concepts are very much related to one another...both point to a "divine" judgement of some sort, whether by a personalized deity, or an impersonal force...

fable · Post by **fable** » Sat Mar 22, 2003 4:12 pm

Originally posted by Chanak
Really, though. One concept behind the trans-migration of souls deals with the question of karma. Apparently, some kind of record of your actions throughout the lifetimes are kept somehow, somewhere...imprinted upon your "true" self, as it were...

The old Theosophical argument, and the so-called Karmic Records. Never much cared for Blavatsky. Her breath smelt bad.

This speaks of some greater authority keeping watch over the trans-migrators. It's like a list of your sins, carried over into your next existence with interest, apparently. Reincarnation or (a little link to another thread here, hope you don't mind ) a single existence whereupon at death, you are taken to heaven or hell, speaks of a judgement of some kind.

I think the Buddhist concept of reincarnation is simply that you're drawn karmically to a next life whose qualities mirror those emotions you most used in this one. It has nothing to do with what you "deserve." On the other hand, the various Hindu religions do include a more active role for karma.

InfiniteNature · Post by **InfiniteNature** » Sat Mar 22, 2003 4:34 pm

Isn't this rather like that heaven and hell thread?, oh well anyway.

Reincarnation, it might be, will be, has been, possible, A physical network might allow for reincarnation, but unfortunately it would only really allow fragments of memory. Quantum entanglement or some such physical process, could allow information to be passed, or souls to different points in the space time continuum, chances are good though that it won't end up on Earth, or in this reality's version of Earth, Look at yourself as a string stretching from your birth to death, now this sting is infinite string coexisting with a infinite amount of other strings, connecting, each particle in you is constantly changing but still retains a quantum entangled connection to your past self and to your future self, information passes from the various yous along this sting, bearing in mind that this sting has a infinite amount of possibilities in it, or different paths many different yous have taken, information passing from possible future to possible you in the present and also possible yous in the past could explain precognition, in general I think that your memory tends to filter out most of the information you get from the future, which is why I guess that people get their head hit can see more possibilities, whereas those who have a lot of knowledge in their heads get the same result, and those who restrict their information see few possibilities. Anyway getting back to reincarnation, and what happens to information transfer, it could be said that consciousness is a quantum mechanical phenomena, a quantum entangled loop stretching from birth to death. Some people would say that information transfer is ended at the birth death barrier, but logically you retain links with your mother to her mother to her mother to her mother to her mother, but chances are information arriving from their is again filtered out due to lack of similarities in brain structure and experience base, thus your mind based on its memory filters out information from that time, unless it correlates or is similar to experiences of your own. Vice versa with your death, that would seem to cut the link wouldn't it?, no bear in mind you are still linked to a infinite amount of other yous who have still survived, and you will survive as information in one of them, actually you are them, so it would basically just be information transfer, memories and such, of course eventually that link would end, but it would still link to a infinite chain outside that to similar yous to your sons daughters, their children, and the infinite amount of realities yous other children. Links would also be attained to similar people to you, similar thought patterns, and so on ad infinitem.

Anway is reincarnation possible, to my mind it is, do I believe in it yes, to me even low probability events like reincarnation are a certainity given eternity.

Aegis · Post by **Aegis** » Sat Mar 22, 2003 5:30 pm

No. no reincarnation. that would require my belief in a single solitary entity that guides and controls my life. I like to believe in myself, rather in someone's plan. thus, when I die, I'm dead. I'm not being put into someone else.

C Elegans · Post by **C Elegans** » Sat Mar 22, 2003 5:33 pm

Just came home from an multidisciplinary conference with the title Neurobiology and religion where different aspects of spiritual and religious behaviour and concepts were discussed in relation to the biology of the brain

To answer the question, no, I do not believe in reincarnation. I will acknowledge transcendental beings or dimensions of the world the day when I see evidence of their existance, not before that.

However, a general comment:

Originally posted by dragon wench
I don't believe in reincarnation in the more literal, conventionally perceived way. But I do believe that since neither matter nor energy can be destroyed... that it has to go somewhere. So my feeling is that when something dies that energy is reabsorbed by the universe and eventually it comes to settle within a new life.

I am not entirely sure what this refers to. Is this in relation to the hypothesis that the energy in the universe is constant? Or is it referring to that we consist of particles, and those particles will be "recycled", for instance as energy metabolised by the worm who ate me? Or does it implicate something more than that, something that would still be an aspect of the person, the indiviual self?

The fact that if a worm eats part of my flesh and thus integrates N of my atoms, is not how the concept of reincarnation is ususally defined. The concept must include a transcendental aspect. The degree of personification of this out-of-body aspect varies, as does the degree of determination, but if no transcendental dimension at all is involved, it is just part of the non supernatural ecosystem.

C Elegans · Post by **C Elegans** » Sat Mar 22, 2003 5:38 pm

Originally posted by Aegis
No. no reincarnation. that would require my belief in a single solitary entity that guides and controls my life. I like to believe in myself, rather in someone's plan. thus, when I die, I'm dead. I'm not being put into someone else.

Theoretically speaking, reincarnation per se does not necessarily have to include a unity that guides and controls your life. You could have a personal "soul" that reincarnates according to some kind of natural system like natural laws, similar to other natural processes that are not governed by any beings. Or, your soul could be part of a universal soul rather than being controlled by it.

fable · Post by **fable** » Sat Mar 22, 2003 6:52 pm

Originally posted by InfiniteNature
Isn't this rather like that heaven and hell thread?

Just the opposite. People who believe in the reincarnation of the self usually don't believe in heaven and hell, and vice versa. There are exceptions, of course.

Nightmare · Post by **Nightmare** » Sat Mar 22, 2003 7:00 pm

This is only the same thread if you believe that we all rot into the ground when we die (which I do believe).

Littiz · Post by **Littiz** » Sun Mar 23, 2003 4:19 am

My opinion has been very simple for years: as others already put it, we die and rot.

Then one day I thought: before I was born, I was, technically, *dead*.
From this state, I've become alive abruptly, for no apparent reason.
Hey, it happened once, who knows. Maybe it'll happen again.
Maybe not..
I'll just live with it