Reincarnation...

[dandandamdandan1111]

Originally Posted by rzr

Sure thing.
Children are said to to be the most innocent of all humans. Reincarnation is based on the thoughts that if you have done too many bad deeds you keep coming back until you get it right (super simplified version). If a child is the most innocent then they haven't commited any bad deeds. That means the child, if they died as a child, would not be reincarnated. So if a child has insight to his previous life, could that mean... what would that mean based on the thoughts and facts I just layed down?

EDIT: If this is a double post, pleased devonin, don't kill me. CT threads aren't usually this active so I'm trying to answer and reply to everything as quick as I can without knowing what's been posted since my last reply or lack there of.

Accordding to the belief of reincarnation, the less bad deeds you have done, then the better off you will be in the next life. A person who has not committed any bad deeds will come back as a person of more respect.

[devonin]

Fun fact, though, Dev, there are more people alive today than have walked the Earth in total. At least from what I've heard.

This is true, and like I said, I admit the possibility that I've coincidentally NEVER met a reincarnated person, but I've also never seen ANY compelling evidence from anybody in the world ever that they are a reincarnated person with full or even partial memories of a past life.

The vast majority of people claiming to have past life knowledge claim to have been someone famous, can answer many questions about that person (All available from publically accessable sources) and can say virtually nothing about day-to-day life in the setting they claim to have been from.

I have neither met nor heard tell of anybody wil compelling evidence that they can support the idea of reincarnation, so I can assume a few possibilities:

1/ Reincarnation doesn't happen
2/ Reincarnation happens but nobody remembers past lives
3/ Reincarnation happens, and coincidentally in 24 years of knowing people, and following world news, and studying religion I have simply never happened to come across a single solitary person who was ever reincarnated, only brand new souls

Not only are 1 and 2 both far more likely conclusions, both 1 and 2 support my original premise, and meet with basically all available evidence on the subject.

If a child is the most innocent then they haven't commited any bad deeds. That means the child, if they died as a child, would not be reincarnated.

Not quite. Most of the beliefs of reincarnation I'm aware of don't go "You find enlightenment automatically, unless you do bad things" The process is supposed to be long and arduous. You earn your way up by doing good things, not just failure to do bad things. In fact, Zen Buddhists were treated largely as heretics for claiming that you could go directly to enlightenment without having first been born Brahmin. An untouchable child didn't get nirvana, they more than likely were reborn an untouchable.

[MixMasterLar]

Premise: I have never met any person in my entire life with memories of a past life

I have. And JKPolk makes a good point.

But I would say that the thoery of when you die you help someone else live is more likly then reincarnation. I would die and before the end of time I would help the next person born live out his life. It's a good theory about why you just know not to/to do something sometimes or why people have memories of past lives

But to be 100% honest, I dont truly believe any of that. I am a Christian who also believes a few taoism thoeries. That's another thread tho

[rzr]

To elaborate on Devonin's statement, yes, Buddhists are said to achieve enlightent through great suffering and trial.
Like I said, Buddhists monks and nuns starve themselves for fasting rituals, but also when are not fasting are given (generally) no food from their monastry (sp?). They are made to beg for food and are [again, like I already said] that while begging for food and money, are not aloud to look at their donors. Doing so reflects making the act menial rather than spiritual.
In addition they are to endure long and gruelling hours of study. All that together makes the process of enlightenment agonizingly difficult to achieve.

@ dan: That doesn't answer my question. I suppose what I'm really asking is if a child can see into his past life does that mean children could be used to prove the existant of reincation?

[TD_m0nster]

I want reincarnation to exist. That would be such a cool thing. Being rewarded for your good deeds is great...

I mean if you had the choice of being another human (or animal) or living in an afterlife, what would you choose? Human life is great.

[rzr]

No offense but that statement is invalid because once your good deeds are completed ending the cycle of reincarnation you do not live an after-life. Your individual soul is united with a world or universal soul.

Personal note: that would be cool though ^^

[Grandiagod]

Originally Posted by rzr

No offense but that statement is invalid because once your good deeds are completed ending the cycle of reincarnation you do not live an after-life. Your individual soul is united with a world or universal soul.

[citation needed]

[atalkingcow]

Originally Posted by devonin

I most certainly didn't say it was pointless. I said it was individually meaningless. There is a huge difference there.
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If it is impossible for me to know whether I've lived any previous lives, whether I have or not becomes meaningless. Even if I do poorly in this life and will be reincarnated in a lesser incarnation, that one won't remember that it slipped up to know it needsto work harder, in fact any possible lesson can't be learned, because all information was lost.

The theory of Reincarnation that -I- was taught claims that:
You CAN remember important lessons from past lives.
All memories of your past lives are there, you just have been conditioned by society not to be able to remember them.
At some point, you will learn all that you needed to, and become part of "God" (or some variety of universal conciousness)
All living beings are an extension of "God", and thus actions against others are essentially actions against yourself.
All actions have lessons, and there are no "good" or "bad" actions, as long as something is learned from them.


In this line of thought, reincarnation is NOT individually meaningless, as:
a) there really are no individuals
and b) you retain all of your knowledge in your "soul", but not in your current body's brain.

[rzr]

All of my religious figures are from a particular text book I have from freshman year. I apologize, I only took the pages that interested me (the 9 pages of religious summaries) and discarded the book. If anyone thinks they may have a similar text I can describe the book, the pages I have, and the citation the book has for reference.

[TD_m0nster]

Indeed it would be cool. I would just love a life where you are reborn again...and don't know it. I say this now, and I could've said this in my past lifetime. And I say it (again). This is why im a proclaimed agnostic.

[rzr]

I'm quite suprised nobody questioned my percentiles in my second post of the Buddhist population in seperate regions. I realized I made a mistake, the world's Buddhist population is not 0.2 as I misread, but actually 6 percent. These figures are based on a 1998 estimated figure of a world population of 5.9 billion people. That source was The World Almanac.

I'll be back in a minute, I'm going to make that new thread I mentioned. Pretty much all of my religious knowledge and opinions will go into it.

[atalkingcow]

Originally Posted by TD_m0nster

Indeed it would be cool. I would just love a life where you are reborn again...and don't know it. I say this now, and I could've said this in my past lifetime. And I say it (again). This is why im a proclaimed agnostic.

I really don't think the discussion at hand is about whether or not it would be "cool", but more about whether or not it would be feasible (sp?).

However, I agree with your implication from the statement..

Originally Posted by TD_m0nster

I say this now, and I could've said this in my past lifetime. And I say it (again).

History repeats itself ^_^

[devonin]

You CAN remember important lessons from past lives.
All memories of your past lives are there, you just have been conditioned by society not to be able to remember them.
At some point, you will learn all that you needed to, and become part of "God" (or some variety of universal conciousness)

Well I continue to claim that I have both never met nor even heard of anybody who has provably retained memories from a past life. Virtually everyone I'm aware of who has forwarded such a claim (which includes psychic mediums who claim to divine your past lives) has invariably been found to be making it up.

I'm not saying it is impossible, I'm saying it is highly unlikely, and even if possible, most likely to be done in a way that we cannot actually tell that it is going on.

[atalkingcow]

@ devonin : Could you please edit your quote to include the statement that those ideas were what I had been taught, not just me spouting out personal ideas as solid fact? ^_^

Originally Posted by devonin

Well I continue to claim that I have both never met nor even heard of anybody who has provably retained memories from a past life. Virtually everyone I'm aware of who has forwarded such a claim (which includes psychic mediums who claim to divine your past lives) has invariably been found to be making it up.

I'm not saying it is impossible, I'm saying it is highly unlikely, and even if possible, most likely to be done in a way that we cannot actually tell that it is going on.

And again we reach the inevitable quandry of religious discussion:
Unfortunately, the fact that we cannot PROVE it, doesn't prove that it is false.
While I myself have never put much stock in psychics and mediums...(anyone who seeks monetary gain from religious beleifs is unsavory in my opinion.) I myself have experienced Deja Vecu, on multiple occasions when there was no feasible(sp?) way for me to know what was going to happen. (Deja Vecu is a version of Deja Vu involving premonitions of the immediate future due to seemingly normal stimuli. E.G.: Hearing a line in a movie you've never seen before, and getting the feeling that the phone is about to ring with very bad news.)

Deja Vu is tied into reincarnation under the idea that you may have to live almost the exact same life multiple times until you "get it right".
(I have been to a medium just for S&G, I was informed that in a past life I was burned as a witch. Made me giggle a bit.)

Basically, Reincarnation is just another of man's attempts to explain the unknown, and just happens to be the one I choose to believe.

[rzr]

Oh Jesus Christ [insert long venting swear-filled message] I had so much written up just now and somehow lost it all! There's no freaking way I'm re-doing it all.

Well, anyway, let me ask you guys something: is it actually true in saying that just because nobody you've met has mentioned knowing anything about their past lives mean that they don't actually know it? I mean, thy may have just not said anything about it to you.
Personally I remember nothing of any life before this one. In fact, I have difficulty recalling certain childhood memories to begin with. But does that mean that I never had one? No. I had a childhood. I may not remember it, but I still know the lessons I learned.
For example: studies have shown that fear is induced at a very young age. When an infant is given a vaccination it feels the pain of the needle and learns to fear it.
Now does every person remember getting shots? No. But do they still know to fear them because they've always hurt? Yes.

So if an infant can learn a lesson and forget how but still know the lesson itself as an adult, why can't a person remember lessons learned in a past life without remembering how they learned them?

[atalkingcow]

Originally Posted by rzr

Oh Jesus Christ [insert long venting swear-filled message] I had so much written up just now and somehow lost it all! There's no freaking way I'm re-doing it all.

Well, anyway, let me ask you guys something: is it actually true in saying that just because nobody you've met has mentioned knowing anything about their past lives mean that they don't actually know it? I mean, thy may have just not said anything about it to you.
Personally I remember nothing of any life before this one. In fact, I have difficulty recalling certain childhood memories to begin with. But does that mean that I never had one? No. I had a childhood. I may not remember it, but I still know the lessons I learned.
For example: studies have shown that fear is induced at a very young age. When an infant is given a vaccination it feels the pain of the needle and learns to fear it.
Now does every person remember getting shots? No. But do they still know to fear them because they've always hurt? Yes.

So if an infant can learn a lesson and forget how but still know the lesson itself as an adult, why can't a person remember lessons learned in a past life without remembering how they learned them?

Omg...Beautiful!
*deletes rzr from the internets and steals his analogy as my own!*
That is such a perfect way to put that...

Sorry about your data loss though...I was looking forward to something else to read. ^_^

[rzr]

It's ok. I use my phone for the internet so the more I write the slower it gets. I wrote so much when I made an error and hit back space is deleted everything I'll semi- repost it because I'd like to talk about it too.
I had sooo much! 8 basic religions, their individual sects, symbols, population/world populations, deitys, beliefs, leaders, founders, holy books!! Ahhhh! lol.

[JonXia]

I just belive it is man trying to get out of believing that there is nothing after death. Same with heaven and hell and other places we concieve just so we try to avoid what might be truth.

[atalkingcow]

Originally Posted by JonXia

I just belive it is man trying to get out of believing that there is nothing after death. Same with heaven and hell and other places we concieve just so we try to avoid what might be truth.

The issue with stating that there is nothing after life is that it also implies that there was nothing before life. Which leads to...If we just spontaneously appeared, what the hell is the point?

[Zythus]

Originally Posted by rzr

You're saying reincarnation is an unproven part of another religion. But all religion is unproven because there is no physical evidence to support any beliefs. If there was physical proof, it wouldn't be a religion.

And this is exactly why we have this thread. I already foreshadowed your agonostic thread closing. And no, the data is not lost, only locked for a good reason.


Cow, religion defines the meaning of life to only some people, it depends on the inidividual yet again.
Personally, throwing religion aside, I believe my meaning of life is to prove my existence and signifigance using morality. Not to prove it to anyone else, only to myself. On the basic level, a human is no more than an ant. You are both in this reality, you are both alive, you are both going to die. The difference (If you are going to just argue with me about the superiority of this, then don't bother) is that humans have the ability to think and precieve and to be concious that they are alive. If one would just live and die as a cycle, you are nothing more than an ant because you are a speck in insignifigance. This also applies between humans. What makes you different and distinct from the person next to you? You aren't. But out of the insignifigance of this world, only morality that you yourself hold justice defines the difference between you and the facelessness of the rest of this world. That, in my opinion, is to proven the existence, the unique existence that only belongs to you alone, thus the meaning of life.

Morality, does not mean the generic morals of society, however it can be. You do not need to be special to prove existence, but morality is something that only you hold dear and just.