Do you believe in reincarnation?

I know we are talking about reincarnation in the mystical sense but what about this:

- You die
- You're buried
- Your body is attacked by bacteria and insects
- It withers away along with your coffin
- The energy and atoms of your flesh is used to create new bacteria and insects

In that sense, aren't you reincarnated? It may be pleasing to some to know that all of the Carbon and Calcium in our bodies was once created in a 'supernova'; an exploding star. Plus, many of the atoms that make up our bodies now were probably part of other organisms at some point in history.

hi there

don't wanna double post, so i'll just post the link here to my poem about reincarnation in the poetry section...

http://psychforums.com/viewtopic.php?p=120386#120386

I also have other posts about reincarnation in other sections. But yes. once i was a tiger, once i was a lamb. once i was a bunch of microbes, once i was a dinosaur. once i was a patch of ground. but those are just my physical bits. i'm fairly certain that the soul also comes into play and actually does 'reincarnate'. it is after all, energy, and energy does not dissipate, just changes forms. and before any of that, we were all a part of the same super-condensed singularity. then BANG! it expanded out into the nothing, and filled that nothing that had previously been empty. i also posted something about this. take a straw, blow a bubble into a sink, that's the universe, raising inexorably towards the surface tension, the top of the 'nothing'. what happens when it reaches the top and bursts through? but since time is but an illusion, whatever is going to happen, has already happened. all things happen at once. our perception of them happening in sequence is a gift, we are the eyes of the universe, as it percieves itself throughout its stages. boy, ramble. i'm a rambling troll.

back to hiding under my bridge,
Dam0 the troll

Dam0cles wrote:I'm fairly certain that the soul also comes into play and actually does 'reincarnate'. it is after all, energy, and energy does not dissipate, just changes forms.

If this were the case, the soul's existence would have been proven long ago. Beyond the matter and energy derived from our physical bodies, there is no evidence of anything else, matter or energy. If the soul exists, it has no mass or energy- and as such, can effect no impact upon the real world.

hey digital,


I get what you are saying. however, the presence of all kinds of energy bouncing back and forth between the hemispheres of our brains HAS been proven, but we do not yet completely understand what that energy is or what it does. Everyday, science is learning more and more. If they find some sort of coherent energy matrix within our bodies/brains that makes up a large portion of who we are and maybe even accounts for 'free will' someday, will they call it a 'soul'? or will they call it something else?

I choose not to set absolutes for the things I believe in, rather to face all possibilities with an open yet diligent mind. I have yet to see concrete proof of a 'soul', documented and catalogued in the annals of science. I have yet to see proof that it DOESN'T exist either.

Of course, I talk like I already assume it does, and maybe I do, maybe I want to believe in it. So I'm not gonna make an absolute judgement one way or the other, but I still choose to believe in it, I've had personal experiences that I cannot prove to you or anyone else but that spoke volumes to me, and beyond that, I guess I feel 'compelled' to believe. maybe that compulsion is a product of my very active imagination and desire to believe in something, or maybe its actually something more.

Anyways, thanks for sharing your views and debating these things with me. For playing the "Skully" to my "Mulder" if you will...

Dam0cles

I think an interesting experiment would be to test the validity of out of body experiences, which some people claim to be able to induce voluntarily.

Unless I'm missing something, simply put the person in a locked room with whatever comforts they need to OBE and ask them to identify an object in another locked room. If they can do it consistently then, as long as cheating can be ruled out, a soul seperate from a physical body would have to be taken seriously (I think anyway).

Of course, this assumes the soul can move through a solid wall like it's supposed to be able to.

i'll give a direct answer - No.

digital.noface wrote:

Chucky wrote:If the spider could, it would kill me without hesitating; and I have no problem with that thought.

The 'right to exist' that I speak of should not be given much thought. We are simply matter interecting with other matter. Everything is quite the same when you break it down to simple particles.

Exactly, so why should you hesitate to kill the spider in lieu of it's 'right to life'? It would do the same to you, there is no valid 'right to anything', and ultimately we are just a collection of atoms interacting in an unusual way.

The spider may kill you without hesitation if it could. Neither of you have any right to "life". Knowning that, just because you can kill the spider, just because it would do the same to you, doesn't mean you have to kill it just because... Why kill it? Why not let it live and do its thing.

digital.noface wrote:Reincarnation is one of those things we wan to believe in, just like religion in ways. It gives a sense of immortality, and thus takes the edge of the fatalistic nature of reality. That being said, the notion is about as ridiculous as religion too.

What precisely would be getting reincarnated? Your 'soul'? What is it, where is the evidence of it's existence, and what relation does it have to you anyhow? If it is separate from your individual personality, why would it matter if it lived on, seeing as *you* would still die with the body. Furthermore, how does the theory of reincarnation deal with a fluctuating world population? Is there an ethereal 'soul' reserve bank to deal with population increases and decreases? How and where are souls manufactured in the event of a massive population boom? Also, is reincarnation limited to species, or earth-life? What decides what your reincarnation will be, and why?

That pretty much sums it up. I don't believe in reincarnation. I don't beleive in any form of afterlife. There is no evidence for forms of life beyond death. Why should there be? Why do we need to repeat this experience called life? Because we are conscious now, we feel as if it has and can always be this way?

Consider yourself sedated on a drug that completely knocks you out. I go into the dentists to get my wisdon teeth pulled. They put the mask over my face, and start to ask me when I can feel it. Next thing I know I wake up. It felt like an instant to me. I didn't feel, dream, think, or remember any of it. It was like I skipped through time, several hours with no recollection of anything. This is what death will be like, except you just won't wake up. This is what it was like before you gained consciousness, before you were born.

People like to beleive that there is just something larger than life. It gives them motivation and a sense of "immortality" as noface mentioned. A sense of justice, to right all the unpunished wrongs. Most people just can't except that once your done, that is it. They want to beleive, they'd like to beleive because those ideas are so appealing. Certain notions of afterlives whether an alternate reality like a heaven or hell or some form of reincarnation just seem like they should be. They seem beautiful to some or just the way things ought to be. To have balance or justice.

But we really should have no reason to beleive in this stuff. Does the tree have a soul, a spirit? Does it get reincarnated or go to some eternal perfect garden of eden? What about the ants, dogs and baboons. The protozoa? Why do we get to live after death? Because we can think? HA! The notion of a soul or spirit just doesn't make sense or match up to the way things work in the real world like noface mentioned as well.

"furthermore, how does the theory of reincarnation deal with a fluctuating world population? Is there an ethereal 'soul' reserve bank to deal with population increases and decreases? How and where are souls manufactured in the event of a massive population boom?"

These ideas we come up are not consistent with the processes of life. What happens when something is cloned? Does the clone have a soul? What about mass extinctions? Again like noface said, all too many questions with alluring answers. We'd be better putting our lives to good use and doing better and being better people for the sake of being better and getting more done. Not because we fear divine retribution for misdeads or want to live forever in blissful paradise forever.

Oh well. I don't usually like to debate this stuff because neither side is going to convince the other. Everyone is set in there ways and there is no way to "prove" anything when it comes to spirits, souls, afterlives, divine beings and what not.

nope, definitely don't believe in riencarnation, definitely do believe in a better life after deat.h though, of course.

Iron Angel wrote:The spider may kill you without hesitation if it could. Neither of you have any right to "life". Knowning that, just because you can kill the spider, just because it would do the same to you, doesn't mean you have to kill it just because... Why kill it? Why not let it live and do its thing.

I agree. However I was playing devils advocate to demonstrate that there is no reasons not to kill the spider as suggested, merely a lack of a reason to kill the spider.

That pretty much sums it up. I don't believe in reincarnation. I don't beleive in any form of afterlife. There is no evidence for forms of life beyond death. Why should there be? Why do we need to repeat this experience called life? Because we are conscious now, we feel as if it has and can always be this way?

Consider yourself sedated on a drug that completely knocks you out. I go into the dentists to get my wisdon teeth pulled. They put the mask over my face, and start to ask me when I can feel it. Next thing I know I wake up. It felt like an instant to me. I didn't feel, dream, think, or remember any of it. It was like I skipped through time, several hours with no recollection of anything. This is what death will be like, except you just won't wake up. This is what it was like before you gained consciousness, before you were born.

People like to beleive that there is just something larger than life. It gives them motivation and a sense of "immortality" as noface mentioned. A sense of justice, to right all the unpunished wrongs. Most people just can't except that once your done, that is it. They want to beleive, they'd like to beleive because those ideas are so appealing. Certain notions of afterlives whether an alternate reality like a heaven or hell or some form of reincarnation just seem like they should be. They seem beautiful to some or just the way things ought to be. To have balance or justice.

But we really should have no reason to beleive in this stuff. Does the tree have a soul, a spirit? Does it get reincarnated or go to some eternal perfect garden of eden? What about the ants, dogs and baboons. The protozoa? Why do we get to live after death? Because we can think? HA! The notion of a soul or spirit just doesn't make sense or match up to the way things work in the real world like noface mentioned as well.

"furthermore, how does the theory of reincarnation deal with a fluctuating world population? Is there an ethereal 'soul' reserve bank to deal with population increases and decreases? How and where are souls manufactured in the event of a massive population boom?"

These ideas we come up are not consistent with the processes of life. What happens when something is cloned? Does the clone have a soul? What about mass extinctions? Again like noface said, all too many questions with alluring answers. We'd be better putting our lives to good use and doing better and being better people for the sake of being better and getting more done. Not because we fear divine retribution for misdeads or want to live forever in blissful paradise forever.

Oh well. I don't usually like to debate this stuff because neither side is going to convince the other. Everyone is set in there ways and there is no way to "prove" anything when it comes to spirits, souls, afterlives, divine beings and what not.

However it is easy to see which opinions are blatant and overt coping mechanisms and which are limited observations, unprovable as either may be.

digital.noface wrote: However it is easy to see which opinions are blatant and overt coping mechanisms and which are limited observations, unprovable as either may be.

This sentence intrigues and baffles me.

Are you trying to say that;

A: What I wrote is a blatant and overt coping mechanism (which it is; cynnical intellectualization based on personal observation)

B: The idea of an after life is a coping mechanism (also true)

C: just a statement saying what people say and beleive can be either a coping mechanism or just a passive "limited observation".

D: Both A & B

E: All of the above or some other combination

F: None of the above. You are trying to say something else that I failed to comprehend.