Posted by GreenKronic
If this has been posted sorry please delete if not..I would like to hear other members thoughts....I cant see how this could turn into a flame war but where there is a will there is a way...Lets try not to.
I do believe in reincarnation......My theory is . We are made up of energy and energy never dies it only tranfers so I think after are mind goes the energy has to go somewhere....If you think this is a dumb @$$ theory tell me and let me know your take....
Posted by axxxr
I don't believe in reincarnation at all,think its a silly thing to believe in that somehow we will return as a sheep or a dog or something,but everyone is entitled to their believes and should be respected.
However i do believe that we might go to some other world after our body dies,but where we go i have no clue...Its just one of those things you can think about for the rest of your life and in the end you will only find out when your six feet under.
Posted by *Jojo*
@green - Yeah, I do believe in reincarnation . . . . in modern times it is widely called as - cloning ! Kidding aside, sure there are some reincarnated peeps in the past who are living in our midst, say the likes of: Washington, Hitler, Beethoven etc.
Posted by SsTiTcH
That could be. Though I think once your dead thats it endgame. As the world would be alot more crowded if there was reincarnation. Death is the Grand Finale with no return ticket.
Posted by axxxr
Yeh if ever man perfects cloning of humans or re-animation of dead people which im sure will never happen.
Posted by max_wedge
actually the world would more likely be less crowded if reincarnation was true - since if people die and come back straight away, how could there be a higher population on the planet than there was 200 years ago? Were do all those extra billions of people come from?
The only answer (my personal belief) is that reincarnation is true, but that some of us reincarnated from other planets! That means not only are peeps like Washington, Beethoven etc in our midst, but aliens as well, in human bodies!!
Posted by axxxr
| Quote: |
|
I completely agree....Death is a one way ticket no return no refunds and no cancelations.
Posted by axxxr
| Quote: |
|
oh my,and people call me the conspiracy theorist!
So you think we (humans) came from aliens?...yeh i met beethovan down my local chippy last week,i swear he had a b/o and halitosis...luckily it was my neighbours dog.
Who knows maybe your right!
Posted by max_wedge
copying someone via cloning does not copy the person's experience or personality traits gained from experience. A clone born and growing up will have none of the memories of the individual they were cloned from, they will also develop their own personality and individuality. Even identical twins, who are in affect clones of eachother, still have unique personalities.
If you don't believe in a spirit however, and if you believe that a technologically speaking they can kill someone without damaging the brain or body, then bring them back to life later, then it would be no different to when someone dies on the operating table but get's brought back. You don't get some completely different person. A person brought back from death on the operating table is still the same person. The big problem with this is that when one dies, unless operated on straightaway, unrecoverable brain damage results. So there is only a few minutes window of opportunity. I believe that if someone was frozen, then brought back to life successfully a hundred years later, the body being reanimated would attract a spirit to it, but not the same spirit that was originally born into that body at conception. That spirit would however inherit all the memories and personality of the body that it is entering. So to all intents and purposes it would think of itself as the "same" person.
Posted by solidsingh
wait another 65 years or so - when i die ill come back on esato and post
Posted by *Jojo*
| Quote: |
|
By that time . . . . Esato HQ will be in Jupiter already . . .
Posted by loyal2thegame
| Quote: |
|
I don't understand these statements surely if people die and come back then more people will exist, because people still living can reproduce other people as well as the ones you refer to as coming back straight away or are they the only types of people being reproduced in which case life is just a cycle and no "new" people will ever exist and everyone has always been recycled.
Posted by max_wedge
new human bodies are created by physical reproduction, but not spiritual bodies (aka souls). A person's spirit is eternal. So if there was a billion people on the planet 100 years ago, what were the other 5 billion doing at the time (since there is now 6 billion on the planet)? Just sitting around in purgatory?
Or perhaps they were living in bodies on other worlds ie: "aliens". However I also believe on the other side (when we die - where our spirit lives) you can't count souls. There are an infinite number of spiritual beings, so no "new" spirits need to be created to fill the growing population on earth.
Posted by whizkidd
Things sounding impossible (and stupid) today might be common in the future. Its like flying. Imagine telling a guy in the beginnin of the century that he could reach london to Ny in 5 odd hours and he'd have laughed at ya..
Remember the quote by lord Kelvin which he said in the late 1880s.....?
"Every thing that could be invented has already been invented"
Btw, being a Hindu, i believe in "karma" and hence reincarnation.
Posted by loyal2thegame
@max Ahhhh inifinite number of souls, I wasn't thinking in that light, thanks ok I think I understand your points now...intresting...your points carry the most comprehendable reasonings someone has expressed to me about reincarnation...i totally disregarded it before...my brain has been exercised a lot today!
Posted by max_wedge
@loyal, thanks! I've enjoyed the discussion too. I'm no expert, but I think about this sort of thing quite a lot
@whizz, what a thing to say "Every thing that could be invented has already been invented"
The sad part there are still people around like that. For example scientists who completely deny there could be any means by which astrology could work. This despite the fact that it does actually work, a fact that anyone who has seriously studied it can attest to, just as assuredly as we don't need "proof" to know that the sun makes us feel warm. The proof is in the fact that it does makes us warm, it's subjective proof, but no one argues about it. We all know the sun makes us warm. The influences from the other heavenly bodies aren't as obvious, but when you look at the meanings that planetry transits have, and then look at your own life, you always find that it correlates.
But yet I don't know of a single scientist who has studied this AND STILL DENIES the existance of astrological affects.
Posted by Pradhika
The subject explains a lot. Reincarnation is a random act of souls getting into different shells(bodies). Rain showers with lot of sources that in turn enter into all those eatable grains and fruits etc.. All on earth eat them and generate more lives. (The souls continue the cycle till they surrender to the Almighty. That is possible through human bodies only. Hence the completion of the cycle.) I didnt say anything.
Posted by mario2002
Why do some people feel the need for reincarnation? What exactly does one mean when talking about a 'soul' ? Where does the 'knowledge' in a book go when it is destroyed/burned? Got the point?
Posted by max_wedge
the knowledge in the book always exists, whether the book does or not. Likewise, your spirit always exists, whether you have a body or not. Get it?
_________________
Get free themes from my themes site
[ This Message was edited by: max_wedge on 2006-01-27 07:50 ]
Posted by mario2002
The question was: where does it go ? Your answer is irrelevant :-( read my previous post and try again ;-) otherwise sit down and let someone als try :-) Greetings from South Africa. Mario.
Posted by brix25
Judging from the two previous posts I sense a flame war coming.
As an atheist I don't believe in reincarnation..like others said before
me death is the final step. Even if they, for instance, cloned Einstein today there's no guarentee that the cloned version would be a Nobel-winning scientist.
Posted by mario2002
Hey Brix, you people have one of the best believes in the world - from my personal experience. Is easier to believe in something one can directly relate to. Is a pity you've decided to be a atheist. And yes I like adding some 'spice' to the topic. Gets more people 'involved' :-) Greetings from South Africa. Mario.
Posted by scotsboyuk
Reincarnation is something that is defined differently by different people. Some may believe that when one's mortal dies one immediatelt reincarnates into another body. Other may believe that a certain amount of time passes before one reincarnates. Still others may believe that reincarnation is a combination of both of those ideas.
Earlier someone raised the point about there being more people in the world today than there have been in the past. I do not see that such a situation necessarily invalidates a belief in reincarnation. How are we to know how many souls/spirits exist? Perhaps there are hundreds of billions, trillions or perhaps there are an infinite number. If such were the case then any number on incarnations could be possible across the universe. One might also consider the idea that ultimately we are all part of a single whole that divides up into seperate beings in the physical world. Again this would allow for there to be any number of incarnations.
I believe that certain Buddhist traditions use practical examples to prove that a person is a reincarnation of someone who had previously died. The reincarnated person takes tests to prove that he/she was the deceased person in a previous life e.g. demonstrating knowledge about the deceased person that they could not know.
There have been a number of cases of people recalling information about previous lives whilst the relatives of the deceased person are still alive and able to verify the information. It is difficult to explain where such information would have come from, especially if the reincarnation and the deceased person's family have neve rbeen in contact with one another and the information is of a kind that would either not be available easily or at all.
My own beliefs do not advocate a belief in reincarnation per se although they do not necessarily rule it out either. I believe that all life (and everything else for that matter) is part of the Tao and that as such we are eternal; our physical bodies may die, but our essence, that which truly makes us alive, does not. The Tao Te Ching says of Death and Renewal:
| Quote: |
Empty the self completely; |
To say that there is nothing beyond physical death with any sort of certainty is foolish in my opinion and ironically it is often said by those to claim to live their lives by science. Where do they get such a view? Certainly not from science since science can only deal with that which can be observed and measured and as yet there is no absolute proof that there is not some form of afterlife. In another twist of irony aetheism is therefore governed by belief too because without quantifiable evidence to say that a God or an afterlife or reincarnation doe snot exist all that one can do is believe that they don't.
If one looks at the universe around us one can see that nothing ever truly dies, all the energy that was in the universe when it first formed is still here now. The particles that made up long gone stars are all around us and inside us just in a different form. We can create our own strands of chemicals that form life; we can even clone life to produce exact copies, but what we cannot do is create that which turns a collection of molecules into a living being. We understand the physical side of it, but we do not know what actually makes something alive. At which point do a group of cells stop being a chemical reaction and turn into a life form? The answer is we do not know. Why is paint not alive? It is a collection of atoms just as human beings are, so why isn't it alive? We can give an answer involving chemistry and physics, but we cannot say what it is that makes something more than just a collection of atoms.
It was Tennyson who wrote:
| Quote: |
Theirs not to reason why, |
To an extent that is true; we will all die, that is inevitable so we should get on with our lives and not worry about it. However, we do have the capacity to reason why because we are more than the sum of our parts. There is something in a living being that is more than just molecules and chemicals, there is something that takes those elements beyond being inanimate, unthinking particles and turns them into something capable of emotions, thought and feelings.
_________________
"I may be drunk my dear woman, but in the morning I will be sober, and you will still be ugly." WSC
[ This Message was edited by: scotsboyuk on 2006-01-27 09:32 ]
Posted by joebmc
I don’t believe in reincarnation, when you die, you die (imo like when you sleep and don’t dream).
But if it were true do you think you are reincarnated only into another human or a random animal. Do bad people get reincarnated as crap things like bugs and stuff?
Posted by leeboy13
why are bugs so crap - imagine how big the world is to them lol
Posted by max99
Posted by max_wedge
| Quote: |
|
read my previous post and try again that's my point - the knowledge in a book is simply an imperfect representation of something real. The actual reality of the information exists whether the book exists or not. So the answer "where does the information in the book go" well the letters and pages of the book go to dust, but the information the book represents remains unchanged. In the same way, when your body dies and goes to dust, your soul lives on. Your soul exists independent of the body, so no matter what you do to the body, the soul and it's memories live on. You body is like the book, it only represents, in an imperfect way, who you really are. The real "you" is the spirit, which is eternal. Your soul can write pages in the book, but nothing that is done to the book has any affect on the soul.
That is only my view, but it is certainly releavant to your analogy about books, even if you don't agree with my points.
Posted by mario2002
Huh buddy, you still seem not to understand what I am saying. The issue is not about the information per se, but about the moving/direction thereof ! Let's make it even simpler. I burn a yellow piece of paper. Where does the 'yellow' go ?
Posted by max_wedge
the yellow on the page doesn't exist anymore. Neither does your body when you die. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. But the concept of "yellow" lives on. Likewise your spirit lives on when you die.
Just the same as "yellow" manifests in many different forms, so too does you soul. The spirit of "yellow" always exists. Your soul always exists.
I understand fully what you are getting at, I just don't agree with you
Posted by maki101
I undertand it in this way (its very simple): when you die you become dust, from that dust its become grass, some animal eat grass so you become part of them also and so on everything is fill full with each other and that is a proces of reincarnation... The all spirits are making one big spirit of the earth.
Posted by mario2002
Now you eventually got the point
'concepts' are made by (living) humans for the (living) humans. If there are no humans there are no 'concepts'.Only the ashes of the paper and the 'gone for ever' yellow. Greetings from South Africa. Mario.
Posted by absinthebri
| Quote: |
|
Buddhists tend to believe in 'rebirth', which is something different from reincarnation. Buddhists believe in anatta (the concept of 'no-self') and anicca (the concept of impermanence).
Wiki expalins it quite well: Buddhist rebirth.
Posted by MsJ
If u'v got digital tv. Sky, Freeview, Cable etc. . . Channels such as LivingTV, FTN, Sci-fi (in UK) show programs covering many different paranormal topics. . On FTN the other night i watched 'Jane Goldman investigates' she looks into finding proof 4 things such as reincarnation, past life etc...
Posted by max_wedge
| Quote: |
|
Good points I agree.
A human body is just a book. However the spirit that inhabits a human body is more permanent. For example, yellow has existed since the first stars flickered into existence. Back then, "human" only existed as an idea in the universal mind, but yellow existed. Yellow predates humanity, but back then it didn't have the name "yellow". There was no human to "judge" or "categorise" yellow, but nevertheless a frequency of light that carried the colour yellow existed.
Go back before the first stars, in the first few milliseconds after the big bang, and even then the colour yellow existed. It didn't exist as a colour that human eyes would percieve as "yellow", but the nature of the colour yellow existed many octaves lower than visible yellow, as a deep vibration in the dense mass of particles. For example, the attributes of the colour yellow, exists as sound in the note of E, on a lower octave than visible light. The concept of yellow is something innate to the physical universe. It is encoded in the universe by God. Our souls are like colours; an innate, eternal element of the universe.
The yellow page however, is like our human body. The frequency of our eternal soul is often encoded in the physical universe but at a much lower octave, ie: as a human being. By encoding (incarnating) ourselves into the physical universe, we choose to limit the true power of our spiritual being. What is encoded is not a true representation of the reality of our spiritual self. In the same way the yellow paper is not a true representation of all the many manifestations of "yellow" that are possible.
Posted by scotsboyuk
| Quote: |
|
The yellow doesn't go anywhere because it never actually existed in any form of reality other than our mind. Yellow is a human perception of a certain wavelength of light; there is no 'yellow' in nature. The wavelength of light corresponding to the human concept of yellow exists, but 'yellow' is a human construct that exists within our minds. Your burning a piece of yellow paper does absolutely nothing to the concept of yellow, it does alter the observed wavelengths of light though.
Information cannot be destroyed because it always exists. Hypotheticaly someone could destroy everything yellow in the universe, but that would not destroy 'yellow', just its perceived physical manifestation. Similarly if all knowledge of how to write were to be somehow taken away from us, the concept of writing is not destroyed, just the physical manifestation of that concept (which could be re-learnt).
Information does not go anywhere because information is not tied to the physical world. Likewise a living being is more than the sum of its parts. A dog may very well be a collection of various elements grouped into molecules, which are in turn grouped into various structures, but then a house could be described in the same way. What is it that makes the atoms and molecules that make up a dog different to the atoms and molecules which make up a house? In physical terms one can only really differentiate based upon chemical makeup and interaction. But such an explanation doesn't actually tell you why the dog is alive and why the house is not; it merely tells you that they are different and behave in different ways, it says nothing of why the same basic building blocks that make up both entities i.e. atoms/quarks are able to make up two very different things, one of which is considered to be alive. It says nothing of what 'alive' actually means beyond chemical processes.
There is something beyond the physical building blocks that both the dog and the house share that serves to make the dog alive. We don't really know what that is; some might call it a soul, a spirit, etc, but we have no definite idea of what it is or how it works. Is it an emergent property of matter? Is it a supernatural force outside of the universe we know? We don't know. What can be said is that there is something which serves to impart what we call life to certain groupings of matter that serves to differentiate that matter from that which does not posess whatever that something is.
Posted by mario2002
Huh buddy, did you tippe all that on a cell's keyboard ? You are thinking to 'deeply'. You don't see the forest because of the many trees 'in the way'. Look at the things at face value. Ever heard of 'Occam Razor' ;-)
Posted by God
One goes to Heaven or Hell,Amen.
Posted by JK
What about that guy that talks to the dead - croosing over with...??? (I forget his name.)
Posted by scotsboyuk
| Quote: |
|
I shall defer to your superior knowledge of Buddhism here since I know you are a Buddhist and as you know I am not. I was using the term 'reincarnation' in its more general sense in my earlier post so your point is well received.
| Quote: |
Huh buddy, did you tippe all that on a cell's keyboard ? You are thinking to 'deeply'. You don't see the forest because of the many trees 'in the way'. Look at the things at face value. Ever heard of 'Occam Razor' |
I used a PC, it's simpler (and easier) than using a mobile to type that much text.
It is interesting that you should say I was being too complex since the relatively simple point I made is actually in agreement with an earlier comment you had made about human concepts. Your post seems to be more in step with a march to refute my post by simply saying it is too long and/or complex.
The simple fact of the matter where reincarnation is concerned is that we do not have any scientific proof for or against it. Whatever one's opinions on the subject may be they will invariably be beliefs, not scientificaly proven facts.
_________________
"I may be drunk my dear woman, but in the morning I will be sober, and you will still be ugly." WSC
[ This Message was edited by: scotsboyuk on 2006-01-30 09:00 ]
Posted by mario2002
Yeah, you are right buddy :-) Greetings from South Africa. Mario
Posted by scotsboyuk
@mario
I know that it's off-topic, but I rather like the fact that you include 'Greetings from South Africa' in your posts. Such a wonderful country, I have fond memories of being there.
_________________
"I may be drunk my dear woman, but in the morning I will be sober, and you will still be ugly." WSC
[ This Message was edited by: scotsboyuk on 2006-01-30 09:02 ]
Posted by absinthebri
| Quote: | |||
| |||
Rebirth is a tricky concept to grasp (I certainly haven't). It is taught, and some Buddhists believe in the concept and some do not. It's not reincarnation as there is no belief in anything tangeable surviving after death; no 'soul' or 'spirit' survives us.. One example used to explain it is that of a candle about to go out. If one lights a new candle with the dying flame is this new flame the same as the old flame? No. Is it a different flame then? No.
As you have mentioned in other posts, who knows what happens when we die? I may be reborn in this realm, or a heaven realm, or a hell realm, or not reborn at all (as in die in the absolute sense - I think nirvana needn't expect me anytime soon!). Buddhists tend to concentrate more on the here and now rather than speculate on what might, or might not, happen. I know this is not a concept alien to you.
Posted by scotsboyuk
@absin
Yes Taoism, especially the Tao Te Ching, has a strong focus on the 'here and now' as it were. Religious Taoism incorporates various traditional Chinese beliefs so there is more attention given to gods, spirits, etc there. That isn't to say that Philosophical Taoism prohibts belief in an afterlife or in life after death, it's just that, as far as I am aware, they aren't given as much attention in Philosophical Taoism.
EDIT: This post got me thinking about the question of an afterlife in Taoism and I found the following quote, which I think is useful here:
| Quote: |
How do I know that the love of life is not a delusion? That the dislike of death is not like a young person losing his way and not knowing that he is going home? |
The quote is by Chuang Tzu and is from here.
_________________
"I may be drunk my dear woman, but in the morning I will be sober, and you will still be ugly." WSC
[ This Message was edited by: scotsboyuk on 2006-01-30 10:08 ]