POLL: Do you believe in reincarnation?

I'll tell you in my next life.

Life exists in many forms
extends in multiplanar hues
the snip of thread is hidden to us
what matters if you change to blue?

I think that reincarnation makes a lot of sense from a scientific standpoint as well as a religious one.

Science states that matter cannot be created or destroyed. Every living (and non-living) thing is made out of matter. When we die and our bodies begin the process of decomposition, the matter that once formed us is being transformed into other objects.

It is quite possible that some of the matter in my body once belonged to a dinosaur. Depending on how literally you take the concept of reincarnation, it seems to be quite valid.

Your sig image is way too big.

Absolutely. I once read a wonderful article about this topic which ended with the words: "We're all made out of the dust of dying stars."

?

how big are they supposed to be?

The Weekly World News had a marvellous headline once that read

"All Our Drinking Water Comes From Dinosaur Wee-Wee!"

-s*

I don't believe in reincarnation. Do beleive in an eternal life with God.

The reason I believe in reincarnation is the idea of energy. In physics, we learn that energy can neither be created or destroy. Energy just changes from one form to another. Since life cannot exist without energy, the energy goes somewhere when you die and your body deteriorates.

Interesting from what I've been reading, reincarnation exist in many religions and philosophies dating back thousands of years. Get this, some even claim the idea of reincarnation and karma is evident in the Bible, the Old testament.

Sorry, didn't mean to bring up the Bible and Christianity. However, searching for anything related to religion and philosophy always ends up with results about Christianity and the Bible. Anyway, here are those links:

http://members.tripod.com/daceg/1/biblerein.html

http://www.near-death.com/experiences/origen03.html

http://www.comparativereligion.com/reincarnation3.html

I could never believe in something as depressing as being stuck in this plane of existence for eternity.

Also, reincarnation might be a bit more believable if everytime I heard someone talking about their past lives, they weren't someone famous, like Caesar or some queen or whatnot. How come nobody in their previous life was just Joe the plumber from down the street?

Um, where are you getting this from? I don't know much about Hinduism, but in Buddhism there is definitely the potential to be reincarnated as an animal. There is also the potential to be reincarnated as a god (god's in Buddhism are not immortal, just long-lived). I've mostly studying Therevada Buddhism, so I suppose there's a potential for it to be different in Mahayana, but I sincerely doubt it since the canon of books that mahayana uses is more or less just an expansion on the Pali Canon of Therevada.

In Buddhism, all living things are affected by Karma, and all living things are in an endless cycle of reincarnation unless they acheive Nibanna, which can only be done as a human (lower life forms lack the capacity to understand the universe and so cannot attain Nibanna and gods lead lives that are far too pleasurable for them to understand suffering, a necessary step to attaining Nibanna).

The main misconception I'm aware of that people hold towards reincarnation is that it's defined by some soul-like entity that exists within a person and provides the continuity between several different lives that is reincarnation. This, I believe, is the Hindu view (where the soul, or atman, is the immortal, indestructible part of a person that truely defines them), but not true in Buddhism (which considers the concept of a soul to be nothing but a safety blanket that people create because the truth is hard to understand).

See the signature guidelines here:
http://forums.macnn.com/showthread....ture+image+size

Thank you much,
this humble being,
too large image
will now be fleeing.

Yes, I do.

Though, my belief in it orginates with Hermetic/Kabbalistic philosophy. Which defines it as:

Our "souls" are fragments of the Whole (or One) which, through cycles of trial and testing, seek to be reunited together. This is the theory of "Reconciliation, or Repair, of the World" (Tikkun Olam in Hebrew).

Well, it seems that some Buddhist believe that we can reincarnate to human and animal form and there are some Buddhist who believe we can only reincarnate into another human form.

For me personally, I don't like the idea of Karma and being able to reincarnate into animals. Imagine my sister from one lifetime now turns into a pig this lifetime. I wouldn't want to have a sister for dinner. Also, if I was to reincarnate into an ant, how would I generate good karma or bad karma as an ant?

What's wrong with being Joe the plumber from down the street? Personally, I'd rather be that guy than anyone famous. Now rich and wealthy, that's another story.

The way Buddhist reincarnation works, it wouldn't really be your sister in any way that you could possible identify. And by killing the pig you'd be giving it the chance to be reborn as a human, a position from which it can then become enlightned (at which point it would then be able to tell you that you had eaten your sister ). Of course Buddhism doesn't advocate the killling of animals (or humans) in order to give them the opportunity to reincarnate into something better (and most Buddhists are vegetarians anyway, so it's really sort of a moot point).

As far as how animals accrue karma, I honestly don't have a clue. It's not one of the things I've looked into, although I may now when I get back to school where all my books are.

But you're not (in Buddhism anyway). The whole point is that it's possible to escape from the cycle of reincarnation.

I thought only Buddhist monks and priest have to be strict vegetarians? I know many Buddhist who eat meat and from what I've read, being a strict vegetarian is not require for a Buddhist as long as long as he/she is not "responsible" for the killing of the animal. Interesting from what I've read, the Dalai Lama had a Big Mac at McDonalds.

You can be a rich/wealthy plumber who's famous. Kind of like Mario Brothers after that middle earth incident a few years back.

And why is it that most people believe they were someone famous or a someone great? Why would they return to present day Earth as MacNN members? Do they use Cable or DSL? AOL or Earthlink? The mysteries of life...

I believe in reincarnation, but I also believe in a separation of the two in the living plane of life where a former existence is unknown to the present existence. Anyone who claims knowledge from a past life is likely a big religious leader blessed with such a miracle, or perhaps just mildly delusional. Which is okay.

The magician Harry Houdini was a firm believer in the afterlife, so much so that he swore to contact the present existence after his death. The story goes that for years his Widow attempted contact through seances, prayers... nothing ever happened.

IMO the worlds are separate and unbridgeable by human means.


BTW great topic.

This all depends on the tradition of Buddhism which one follows. In fact, evidence suggests the Buddha wasn't even a vegetarian. It all depends on one's own disposition. Another of the Buddha's precepts was to refrain from intoxicants. Some take this as not drinking any alcohol; others take it as not being the town drunk. It's all subjective.

Most of the Buddhist teachers I've studied under prefer to use rebirth instead of reincarnation. Reincarnation begs to ask the question: What is being reincarnated? Rebirth is a little more general in meaning. Like in one of nonhuman's posts there really is no soul hopping around to different bodies in the concept of rebirth.

There's no actual prohibition against eating meat for laypeople, I haven't read the full set of laws for monks (there's a lot of them), but I think you're right that they are prohibeted, but it's not a strict prohibition (nothing in Buddhism is an absolute really). There are various anectodes about Buddhist monks eating meat, and it's ok for various reasons. Buddhism is a very pragmatic and flexible religion, though most people tend to interpret the first of the five precepts (refraining from taking life) as a prohibition against eating meat reasoning that by eating an animal you are indirectly responsible for its death. Other say that it's not a problem so long as you don't kill the animal yourself. Of course it also depends on the translation that you're looking at. Some refer to the "unneccesary" taking of life, others simply say "don't kill". For my part, I eat meat and would have a hard time giving it up. I would also be willing to kill an animal myself and eat it were it the only available source of food.

Perhaps saying "most Buddhists don't eat meat" was a little premature of me, but that's my perception anyway. I don't know what percentage of Buddhists are vegetarians, but I suspect it is high, as the commong understanding by non-Buddhists seems to be that Buddhism requires it. In China, pretty much the only way to guarantee that you're going to get a vegetarian meal (i.e. the only way to explain that you don't eat meat that they'll actually understand/accept) is to say that you're Buddhist.

People so readily accept the nothingness from before our births, why can they not accept the nothingness afterwards?

This is the likelihood, anyways; I'm all for something like an afterlife or extralife, but it just seems rather unlikely.

In a previous life I believed in reincarnation, but not in this one.

I'd agree with that to an extent, but I'd also apply personal experience too, which seems to be in sync with Buddhic, and other spiritual thoughts; and to not wholly apply an ancient doctrine, or belief to myself. The problem I see with the Qabbalah, Sufisim, adn the hermetic traditions, is that they are spiritual experiences wrapped up in a past, a time; not to take away from those, but those very same people who might have been enlightened, were not the corpus of spirituality, it's up to us to discover that.
I'd look at this life, and this body as a vehicle for experiencing this physical plane; there is a greater me, which holds all the experiences, and knowledge that is gathered in each lifetime. I believe that I have the choice, after physical death, to either progress through spiritual planes, or to come back here for more earth bound learning. Once the greater me, or soul, has learned what it can, it'll unite then move beyond those planes to whatever it is (God?).

think of it like a ship commanding smaller vessels, all out to sea, but to meet up at the end of the journey, one of those little vessels is just me.

There is nothing in physics to suggest that there is such a thing as "life energy" (all chemical/biological/physical processes that go on inside the human body can already be explained by non-mystical, well defined energies), and if it did exist it would most likely dissipate as heat when you die. So I have to disagree with you about physics supporting reincarnation.

there are more people living on the face of this planet at this moment then have ever lived before so statistically it's impossible unless of course other planets are in on this conspiracy and you rollover your past lives and get interest and find a way to screw the taxman (god/s).

What makes you so sure that a person can't be reincarnated into two or more in their next life?

Then that wouldn't really be reincarnation; in any traditional sense, anyways.

I think it would still work for Buddhists.

Another possibility: not all potential people are necessarily alive at once. Maybe there are several billion potential people, and they just cycle through existence. There's no reason that a person would have to be reborn immediately after dying, there could be a delay of years, decades, even millions of years. So perhaps the fact that there are more people currently on Earth than there have ever been merely means that for some of those people it's the first time around. Each chain of people has to start somewhere.

Now that's the best argument I've hears in a while to support my views

Except that the idea of "life energy" is completely unsubstantiated. See my post above.

Unless that's what dark energy is.

That was exactly my view for most of my life. However, based on my experiences with deja vu and other weird experiences, I'm lead to believe reincarnation might be a possibility.

It is true that there are more people living on earth than say 2000 years ago. This doesn't contradict the idea of reincarnation at all because the life energy in the universe stay the same.

Here is my belief (stuff I made up in my mind a few years ago):

When you die, your life energy gets scatter out into the universal. How and when this life energy get combined into another life form is based on karma (the cause and effect). You might die and not reincarnate until the next cycle of the universe. Base on what most scientist believe, the universe is constantly expanding until a point where it stops expanding. This is the point when the universe will start collapsing on itself. Once the universe collapses, a whole new cycle of the universe begins. As long as energy and life energy stays the same, there is no contradiction.

I guess based on my concept, it's even possible to reincarnate as aliens on other planets. However, I haven't heard anyone mention past life as an alien.

All the way through college and gradual school I never gave half a thought to reincarnation.

Then I happened upon an amazing survey by professors Joseph Head and Sylvia Cranston called "Reincarnation: The Phoenix Fire Mystery: An East-West Dialogue on Death and Rebirth from the Worlds of Religion, Science, Psychology, Philosophy".

Whew! Amazing information on everything from how the Church only started condemning reincarnation in the 6th Century to... Dr. Ian Stevenson's cross-cultural research into cases of spontaneous recall of past lives to... issues seldom considered by those who reflexly reject the idea.

I've never met anyone who was willing to check out Head/Cranston's survey and continued to call reincarnation absurd. As someone once said, "Is it any more miraculous to consider being born several times than it is to consider that we have been born once? Check out Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/t.../qid=1073095477

So there can't be new souls added to the mix? Who says it'd have to be a fixed number?

But, yeah, from what I've heard and experienced, other planets are in on a foreign exchange program.

wolfen

i maybe believe in reincarnation for one silly reason.

you know when people have near death experiences and they say they see a light at the end of the tunnel?

imagine being born and travelling down the birth canal...

ooh. spooooky.

You're kidding, right?

I guess the people that live to tell the tale account for miscarriages!

Honestly, though, I think it's just random synapses firing with those near-death experiences�which you can induce to rather trippy effects if you work at it, I read an article on a book about it once, something about out-of-body experiences and how-to-do-them.

That's fine...except many of them involve viewing the operating room from the perspective of the ceiling. My aunt had this experience. She had died on the operating table and while she was clinically dead she was looking down on the surgeons. One of them yelled "Too much anesthesia!"

They finally revived her. She told them she wasn't going to press charges and the surgeon acted like he didn't know what she was talking about until she detailed just about everything that happened during the 2 minute timeframe in which she was dead.

She also said she also saw a light above her, and many people she knew were there. They told her it wasn't her time, yet.

Lots of weird stuff like that in my family. We're all freaks.


wolfen

Out-of-body experiences are strange things, indeed. You CAN induce them with practice, but I'm not sure just what causes them and the explanation for what they exactly are (if there is one yet).

And it couldn't possibly be that she actually heard them yell that through her ears and just imagined the rest... Bright light? Yes, there tend to be bright lights in operating rooms. You want the surgeon to be able to see. Even if her heart had stopped, her brain was still alive, and therefore capable of accepting input.

They are very illuminating, whatever is happening. There seems to be enough evidence to suggest that it's beyond the dream-state.

Here's one of the best places that discusses the subject, check out the forum, really good.

http://www.astralpulse.com/

http://www.astralpulse.com/forums/

People will believe in anything that comforts them instead of realizing that once you die, you simply rot and dissipate.

From the perspective of the ceiling! Yeah, I'm sure it COULD possibly be that they strapped her to the ceiling during the operation and operated on her upside down.

Wow, how embarrassed I am for not thinking of a more plausible explanation like that. *blush*

Secondarily, your argument hinges on the idea that she was not, in fact, dead. So now you know more than medical science? Here's the hypocrisy...those who don't believe in life after death will argue that when someone died they didn't really die.

Anything to avoid the truth, as you all say.

wolfen

And that's the rub and quite possibly the explanation.

I wonder what happens when I get cloned after I died. Would that be considered reincarnaton?

What if someone made of a clone of me while I'm still alive. I wonder how my concept of "life energy" gets duplicated.

Have a date set?

I'd heard there was one group that put a human woman as one of the lowest things you could be reincarnated as? However I don't quite trust the person that said this... anyone know how valid this statement is?

That said I don't believe in reincarnation, it doesn't make sense in light of the other aspects of what I believe