Reincarnation

[Piotrek]

Recently, I've been watching and re-watching some documentaries on reincarnation/possible past life cases, especially the ones focusing on the research done by dr. Ian Stevenson. I was greatly impressed by the scientific rigour he applied to his studies

and while I have no firm opinion on the matter of past lives myself, I do think there is something odd about those cases, whether it be reincarnation or some alternative explanation. What do you think about the idea of past lives?

 

The materials that I watched:

A presentation given at the University of Virgina by the dr.

 

 

Here's another by dr. Jim Tucker, a collegue of Stevenson's.

 

 

[Moophie]

Past lives we can't remember are pretty pointless. It would be much better to be able to recall so we don't keep messing everything up over and over without end.

 

But yeah... no.

[Guest]

I don' believe in reincarnation. Western people don't understand its whole idea because Western reception of reincarnation consists on reincarnating as humans only while in Eastern cultures it's a source of suffering and the main goal is to achieve nirvana. So, incarnations are result of sin. Moreover it's a background of discrimination. All studies on reincarnation show people with past life memories become from cultures/families where this believes is common. Much of past life researches are based on very weak proves.

Now we can see that past life memories are a kind of false memories and connected with brain functions and some disease like f.ex. epilepsy.

I don't doubt life after death is true but it's sth different from this all the religions, both Eastern and Western ones .

[Ruru+Saphhy=Garnet]

Yeah... I personally don't believe in reincarnation. 

[WhenSummersGone]

It is fun to think about, like if your pet was a certain person in a past life, but otherwise I don't believe in it.

[The Joker]

I don't believe in reincarnation because I fail to see anyway in which it is physically possible.

[Guest]

.

[Piotrek]

48 minutes ago, The Joker said:

I don't believe in reincarnation because I fail to see anyway in which it is physically possible.

Same here. I just can't wrap my head around the mechanism in which this could work. Yet, interesting things can still be discovered even if the original object of the research is something else than it was hypotesised at the beginning. That's why I like Stevenson's approach.

[sindi]

The possibility of re-incarnation freaks me out - I don't want to spend another life on this earth.

[SorryNotSorry]

I must have been pretty horrible in my past life, judging from all the shit I've had to put up with in this life.

[Anthracite_Impreza]

1 minute ago, Woodworker1968 said:

I must have been pretty horrible in my past life, judging from all the shit I've had to put up with in this life.

I feel like this a lot. I hope I at least enjoyed being evil and didn't get those pangs of guilt villains always seem to do.

[Guest Jetsun Milarepa]

The only reincarnation I'm hoping to do is become a jolly good bag of compost for some other things to grow in.....

[Gloomy]

Until proven otherwise I mostly believe that after you die, you stop being conscious and aware forever since your brain ceases to function. Past life memories can be explained as false memories; even one's memories of things that actually have happened to them are not 100% accurate and it's been proven memories can become very distorted.

[RK800]

I'll post what I said in a similar thread.

11 hours ago, ~Syl~ said:

I try not to actively "believe" things, I'd rather know instead. So to answer the OP's questions I suppose no; I don't really believe reincarnation just like I don't really believe in any other afterlife, but I'm fairly agnostic to the idea.

Now I do have a very vivid memory that I know, through asking my family, didn't happen to me. I've been told by some it's a "past life memory" but of course the skeptic in me says it's more likely a false memory.

 

And since the whole "soul weight" thing has been brought up it's been debunked. The weight change was caused by trapped gases and fluid loss.

[Skycaptain]

Preincarnation, I escaped from the year 2499

[m4rble]

On 1/16/2017 at 10:05 AM, The Joker said:

I don't believe in reincarnation because I fail to see anyway in which it is physically possible.

Well, if you imagine the universe as a computer(or something equivalent) then at death the brain files could be saved but disconnected from the physical world. They could later be attached to a new body. I'm definitely not saying reincarnation is real, just sharing a way I think it could be physically possible. 

[Perissodactyla]

I just realized there's more than one discussion thread about reincarnation. Perhaps there are even more than two.

 

Since I posted a longish entry on the other thread, I won't paste it here.  But here is the thread, if you haven't already seen it:

 

http://www.asexuality.org/en/topic/151289-does-anyone-believe-in-reincarnation-or-metempsychosis/

 

That thread is just one day old... while this thread is 3 weeks old. ha

 

I think this shows evidence that there could be re-incarnation of threads.

 

 

 

[Guest]

If reincarnation did exist, I'd come back as a bird, and crap all day on vehicles that are poorly parked.

Parked in two spots--that means two deuces. One on the hood, one on the windshield.

 

I'd fine tune my aim, for those who wedge inches behind vehicles, in tight parallel parking spots. I'd go for their door handles, and windshield wipers.

[ôÿē èîęēú ïė ēôēįîûôø]

I have watched a man on YouTube named Bob Sanders. He says he believes we only have one incarnation, explaining that instances of someone claiming to remember past lives is actually the result of someone remembering the life of another person who is part of their oversoul, to whom they are connected.

 

A woman named Dolores Cannon said she believed that we first start out as something simple, like a raindrop, then gradually get more advanced until we reach the level of human.

 

I, personally, do believe in reincarnation and evolution of the soul. I think it explains why some people are more mature at a younger age.

[Epitaph]

I treat anything related to death as I always have. I'll find out when I get there. In the meantime, I can't take an affirmative stance either way.

[Nima]

I sort of like the idea of reincarnation. Like leaves on a tree. And once we finally get it right, we reach a higher spiritual plane. 
I remember people calling me an "old soul" when I was a kid. so, who knows?

 

[Karoushi]

I always thought reincarnation to be an interesting topic but new body, name, and environment, would you really be you?? especially if you can't remember you past life? and if you do come back in another life, how far in the future do you go before you're reborn? it's interesting to ponder about but also brings up that good old mortality that I dont like to think about so naw. 

[Epitaph]

18 hours ago, Karoushi said:

I always thought reincarnation to be an interesting topic but new body, name, and environment, would you really be you?? especially if you can't remember you past life? and if you do come back in another life, how far in the future do you go before you're reborn? it's interesting to ponder about but also brings up that good old mortality that I dont like to think about so naw. 

 

I think that touches on the replaceable broom anaology. Take a broom, replace all the parts. Is it still the same broom? The same principles apply to our atomic structure. We're constantly losing and exchanging energy at an atomic level. What fascinates me there is how then can our memories persist while we're alive if the atomic structure that even allows them to exist in the first place can be completely swapped and replaced?

 

I already commented in here earlier but I suppose this line of thought is relevant. I thought to myself the other day that the worst possible thing we could ever discover scientifically is something beyond death. That includes reincarnation.

 

Because if you could scientifically measure or detect something beyond death, that opens the door to the next step. Manipulation. My cynicism won't allow me to smile at the thought of manipulation of "after death life." Imagine all the havoc we'd create. It'd be akin to the atomic bomb all over again.

[Polygon]

I love the idea of it, way more than the heaven/hell thing. I don't have any belief or disbelief in it, because there's not much one way or the other to support it, but if I wanted any kind of afterlife reincarnation would probably be my choice. I'm a sucker for second chances, I guess. 

[Epitaph]

22 hours ago, Karoushi said:

I always thought reincarnation to be an interesting topic but new body, name, and environment, would you really be you?? especially if you can't remember you past life? and if you do come back in another life, how far in the future do you go before you're reborn? it's interesting to ponder about but also brings up that good old mortality that I dont like to think about so naw. 

 

And as a side note. In my particular readings of reincarnation, your thoughts on the matter are actually inverted. Down here in the world you're only a fraction of yourself. Just a shard. The monks that seek enlightenment aren't neccessarily seeking to achieve heaven, they're seeking to achieve reunification with themselves as a whole while still mortal.

 

Through the lense of reincarnation, the you that you see here and now isn't actually you. It's missing completion. Only after you are dead(free of mortal chains and restrictions that house the shard of your consciousness) are you reassembled as a whole on another plane of existence. Then I guess after that you can choose to stick around in your godly form or spin the wheel of fortune for shits and giggles and head back down here.

 

It's a very loose adaptation to the philosophy of reincarnation, I'm sure. It's just what I've gleamed from talking to folk and doing light reading.

[overturn overturn overturn]

It's a question about development of human brain.  Simply,  no one can remember ''soul record'' starting from an infant brain.

And everyone learns again, from the beginning.

Later, 'talents' can be discovered in certain persons. It's a code of soul, it has nothing with genetic or ancestors.

 

 

[Guest Jetsun Milarepa]

Oddly enough, early Christianity embraced the concept of reincarnation, before it was outlawed @Guest.

There are some studies into the 'tomb of God' in that it's supposed that Jesus spent some time in the east before pitching up again in the middle east after he had to flee as a baby., then returning there to live out the rest of his life after the crucifixion.

Unfortunately the local authorities won't allow genetic analysis of the remains ....

[Karst]

Personally, I don't believe in reincarnation. However, I don't like to argue with others about their spiritual beliefs.

[Ms. Carolynne]

Perhaps in an indirect sense. I may be here by chance, and perhaps I'm just a feedback loop within the universe itself. That is, I am a part of the universe which became conscious and self aware, the universe observing itself.

 

I will die, but others will be born and existence will continue. The same process that brought me here will continue. I might not live again, but life will happen again.

 

Death is imperceptible. So is our coming to existence. Sometimes I wonder what happened before we were born and how our consciousness came to be, rather than what happens after we die and our consciousness ceases.

 

Of course, that's just a musing I had, from a certain angle. There could be some meta, something beyond this world, a thing spiritual in nature.

 

As far as beliefs go, I'm an agnost of sorts. I have some ideas, religious / spiritual beliefs even, but I won't claim to know the full nature of the universe. Perhaps that cannot be known as things are now.

 

 

[thylacine]

I read a lot of books on reincarnation and I think it's very interesting.  There is no way to really prove it, however.

There was one (supposedly true) story about a little boy who remembered being a fighter pilot in WW2 and remembered being shot down by the Japanese (look it up; it was a fascinating story).