who here belives in it? who thinks its a bunch of bullshit??

I believe in it.

a bunch of bullshit and as selfish as expecting a heaven.

i do think we're all just local knots in some larger universal consciousness, and it probably gets recycled when you die..

quote: Bill Hicks

Today, a young man on acid realised that all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration. That we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively. There is no such thing as death, life is only a dream

and we are the imagination of ourselves.

Here's Tom with the weather.

quote:Originally posted by bitplane:

a bunch of bullshit and as selfish as expecting a heaven.

i do think we're all just local knots in some larger universal consciousness, and it probably gets recycled when you die..



Well, if there was one universal consciousness(completely possible in my book, I have had time to think about these things and I like this idea) that probably gets recycled when you die, isn't that reincarnation? A recycling of the knot on the universal consciousness to be used again?

Personally don't belive in it, as I don't belive in souls. Never the less, I find the idea of reincarnation much more appealing than that of Heaven.

quote:Originally posted by Graemy:

Well, if there was one universal consciousness(completely possible in my book, I have had time to think about these things and I like this idea) that probably gets recycled when you die, isn't that reincarnation? A recycling of the knot on the universal consciousness to be used again?

what i'm talking about is like in 200 years time when part of what was once your nervous system is now part of an ants, another part is part of a birds, another part is part of a fish, etc

the traditional selfish form of reincarnation assumes that the soul is an indivisible unit that lives in every living thing, while i tend to believe consciousness is an underlying property of the universe inherent in every particle, and can be recycled in a non-personal and non-mythical sense.

this whole indivisible soul nonsense will come to an end when we start linking brains together using science and technology

You can like the soul to an underlying property of the universe. Well, all I am trying to point out is that the ideas are similar on a grand scale.

I believe in it. But I'm not sure in what way. Buddhist think there is no such thing as a soul, but believe that the karma and memories generated during life continue on after death. Eventually resulting in a re-birth(technically), not reincarnation. The main difference being that a person is not reborn again and again. It's the accumulated karma and memories(which, upon re-birth, are often forgotten) that are re-born, not the person or self identity.

I've heard different theories and studied enough to think that reincarnation of some kind does exist but haven't studied enough to just accept one.

I dunno reincarnation is hard cause when I think about it, I think about the way I want it to be. I guess thats how it is for everyone. But I think that itssort of how buddhism explain it but thatn not quite. I dont like the idea of no true self. I like to think that when I die my soul(or consciousness, whatever you want to call it) is reincarnated into the same thing, maybea different body but the same mind and consciousness. The part about our karma going with us always in buddhism makes sense in this way.

Reincarnation makes more sense to me than eternal judgement. Although the Egyptian afterlife is AWESOME.

quote:Originally posted by Pyroyoshi:

who here belives in it? who thinks its a bunch of bullshit??

Having delivered babies, at birth they look like little wrinkled old people, so makes ya wonder? I can't recall any past lives but lots of people claim to be able to, however I do think it would be a healthier belief than heaven & hell, or oblivion. If more people believed they would have to keep coming back here over and over they might just take a little more care of what we have.

Peace http://www.totse.com/bbs/smile.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/smile.gif)

well although i'm a buddhist i dont really believe in reincarnation as such. Sorry to bring up the lion king but i kinda believe it like that. with the whole circle of life thing.

The Romans believed in reincarnation, and because of that weren't afraid of dying. They were vicious in battle.

^ Others believed in reincarnation, and because that they lived like the should, they cherished everything and everyone as if they would someday experience their own affects on them/it, from their/it's point of view, instead of their own.

quote:Well, lo and behold, at the same university -- they have some chutzpah over there -- the University of Virginia, Ian Stevenson is now retired from the psych department. He's not a Buddhist, he wasn't a Hindu, and he didn't believe in reincarnation. Forty years ago he heard anecdotes of children maintaining that this wasn't their first life and giving detailed accounts of their alleged memories of past life experiences. So he started studying it. On a shoestring budget, he and a team of researchers did this for about 40 years. And about halfway through, he wrote a book called "Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation." He scanned thousands of accounts of children, throwing out most of them because they were either false or the child could have heard about it from parents, relatives, television and so forth. He then selected 20 cases where the accounts given by the child wound up being true when they were subjected to objective corroboration. He couldn't see any way the child could have known this information. But he also said in that book, "I don't believe in reincarnation. But I don't know what else to do with these twenty cases because I can't see any other way to explain them."

And then he did another 20 years of research and wrote another book, "Where Biology and Reincarnation Intersect." It showed the empirical findings of more cases of children giving these very detailed accounts of past life experiences. And usually they were not glorified, like I was Cleopatra or Einstein or somebody spectacular. No, [it was like,] I was a philanderer, and one of the husbands of the wives I had sex with shot me dead because I cuckolded him. So that's not very glamorous, but that was the recollection of one of these children. This is empirical evidence. It should be scrutinized rigorously, but not thrown out dogmatically.

http://community.livejournal.com/convert_me/825637.html#cutid1



Anyone here knows about Ian Stevenson's work?

Not yet.

Sometimes I wonder if when one dies, one's energy is dispersed and assuming time is infinite, eventually(and it may be trillions of years) ome's energy will be brought back together in another form.

Also, what if you could be reincarnated into something like a rock. It's hard for me to comprehend. You wouldn't be aware of the fact that you are a rock and you wouldn't think in the sense that we think as humans. It wouldn't be boring to be a rock. There are none of the 5 senses. It would be so different that you wouldn't be able to understand. It's like trying to think of a new color. You simply cannot understand it.

quote:Originally posted by psychedelicious:

Sometimes I wonder if when one dies, one's energy is dispersed and assuming time is infinite, eventually(and it may be trillions of years) ome's energy will be brought back together in another form.

Also, what if you could be reincarnated into something like a rock. It's hard for me to comprehend. You wouldn't be aware of the fact that you are a rock and you wouldn't think in the sense that we think as humans. It wouldn't be boring to be a rock. There are none of the 5 senses. It would be so different that you wouldn't be able to understand. It's like trying to think of a new color. You simply cannot understand it.

I like to think that the energy that makes me up isnt separated but transfered to the next life. Also I dont think reincarnation would work by u reincarnating into a rock. Think about this, a rock that is say out in space has been there fo billions of years and will continue to be there. But trees die everyday, animals die, grass dies, the smaller things we dont even realize die off. I believe these smaller things lives, aswell as past human lives make up our reincarnation.

That's what I think at the moment, like time is never ending it's infinate and matter is finite so eventually the same everything is bound to come together in a similar enough matter that a conciousness is recreated. I have for some reason a hard time believing that I can be here right now collectively made of many many particles in a complex manner yet function as if I am one particle and cease to exsist when I die, over life my particles are constantly changing from being small to growing up and even though you aren't physically the same as you were born you still have the same conscience, and if conciousness is all based on DNA how can twins exsist at the same time, yet be two seperate entities. But also at the same time I don't believe in God in a Christian sense but life itself being god, and the whole universe being a collective conciousness or one being, afterall the earth IS alive so the Universe probably is too.



quote:Originally posted by psychedelicious:

Sometimes I wonder if when one dies, one's energy is dispersed and assuming time is infinite, eventually(and it may be trillions of years) ome's energy will be brought back together in another form.

Also, what if you could be reincarnated into something like a rock. It's hard for me to comprehend. You wouldn't be aware of the fact that you are a rock and you wouldn't think in the sense that we think as humans. It wouldn't be boring to be a rock. There are none of the 5 senses. It would be so different that you wouldn't be able to understand. It's like trying to think of a new color. You simply cannot understand it.