Past Life Experiences

Quick question:

If we do get reincarnated AND the total world population is increasing exponentially (i.e. more people being born than dying), where are all the new souls coming from?
Is one born the exact second someone else died?
If so, what if no-one was dying when i was born?
Arrgg, the possiblities!
 
Since when does reincarnation necessitate the existence of souls?

From a physicalist (no souls) POV everything is being "reincarnated", or "recycled", to put it more clearly.

If you try to apply that kind of logic to religious concepts of rebirth and souls and ZOMG bullshit, tho, you're bound to suffer.
 
Yeah i suppose :P
I think what i meant was less soul persay and more "essence" or whatever you'd have to have to be reincarnate. You know, if you were once someone else, are you gonna say that your conciousness or whatever was and this was transfered and reincarnate OR that from a physicalisy POV that your mother once at a sandwich that formed you, which was made from wheat which was nourished by the decomposed body of General Eisenhower, (No offence intended).
For the idea of reincarnation to work, despite you views - doesn't there have to be something that was there in the first case that it passed from body to body. in which case i reinstate my original question - were is the new "essence" coming from?
 
Lazarus Plus said:
I woke up at 10:ish AM, looked at the clock, and went back to sleep. Waking up again, I thought to myself: "I'd better get up, it's probably about 11:08 right now."
I looked at my clock.
It was 11:08.
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Are you sure, you didn't twitch your eyes while asleep to unconsciously acknowledge the time in your clock, so you just thought that you were asleep, while unconsciously awake. :D
were is the new "essence" coming from?
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Hell, from HELL. Thought some of the people think that they are recycled from the dead animals(humans too) and so on...
 
:shock: persay= just a preposition witch means to say something like, as such.

And if you won't get that, then you can presume that it is something edible. :lol:
 
Jarno Mikkola said:
:shock: persay= just a preposition witch means to say something like, as such.

And if you won't get that, then you can presume that it is something edible. :lol:
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No. "persay" is not such a word. In fact, it does not even exist.

The Latin phrase "per se" (roughly "by itself") OTOH is quite common and sounds similar to the average English speaker.

But apparently it's better to be able to use lots of phrases rather than to actually know what they mean.

[/rant]
 
I have to admit that I am not that keen on the idea of nirvana as nothingness. I was doing some meditation training lately and the instructor- a buddhist- was keen on this notion of nothingness, but it seems that there is an assumption built in that the world and the human mind is fundamentally corrupt and selfish, whereas the idea of nothingness seems to void out that "I" aspect of perception. This leaving you at peace with the rest of the world- without expectation or desire. That said, so much of the meditative process seemed to be self directed. Seems contradictory- but then the instructor said I think to much. Bah.

That said, I'm not sure if nothingness is the way to happiness. Rather, it has more to do with our types of interactions with the world around us.

As for hell and nothingness, from what I recall one can be reincarnated as a denizen of Hell. So the two ideas reincarnation and Hell are not contradictory. In fact, again from my recollection, one can even be reincarnated as a God, however you can't reach nirvana, that special state of nothingness, as a God. For that you have to become a human being again.

As for me, I once thought I was a pit fiend on the 237th level of Hell but got kicked out because I was having too much fun.

I've also wondered if perhaps I wasn't a trader in Far East in the 19th century but died from both opium addiction and sexually transmitted diseases.

Good to see Elvis is back with us.

Being a dog might be fun, but I think being a worm would kind of suck.

As would being the cabin boy on a pirate ship.
 
What is wring with beeing a worm, nothing but eating all day until you die. And if you are lucky you end upp in a compost heap. Endless food.
 
If the early bird gets the worm,
If you are worm, better to sleep late.

Based on my limited fishing experience, I found the best part of being a worm the cool giant teeth like things that come before it's mouth.

Alternatively, being a worm in Frank Herbert's Dune, might be kind of cool.

But being picked by bird to feed its young, or being stuck on a hook and then fed to fish- kind of sucks.
 
One of the things that put me off from Buddhism during my buddhist phase in highschool was the nothingness that comes as a reward in the end. I found the whole idea very unpleasent. The other thing was the passiveness of the religion.

But it wasn't all useless.. I did acquire a certain calm during that phase which came in handy later on.

Plus the girls seemed to like it... :mrgreen:
 
DirtyDreamDesigner said:
I found the whole idea very unpleasent. The other thing was the passiveness of the religion.
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As a (non-universal) rule Eastern religions tend to be very, very self centered: the rejection for material wealth and all for PERSONAL happiness and PERSONAL ascension out of the cycle of reincarnation.

There are exceptions, but I generally prefer the Abrahamic-Zoroastrian faiths because they tend to come bundled up with a positive social doctrine.
 
Bah, who needs other people when you can have eternal nothingness.

Being a physicalist atheist and thus not believing in reincarnation (well, not direct soul-moves-to-new-host reincarnation anyway -- physicalism tends to be quite incompatible with that view), I guess I've won Buddhism.
 
welsh said:
Good to see Elvis is back with us.
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The Elvis has always been with us. :D

I get the sense that most of the Buddhists mean that there is a HELL, but it's here on earth not in the next state of your consciousness after you dye.

"I was taking a bath and I slipped, the only thing that now bothers me of that situation is, why did I dye.
Was it because as I slipped and I hit my head to the bathtub rim,
or was it because I drowned,
or cause as I fell, I hit a rack and the hair dryer fell to the water and electrified my,
or cause the poison in my drink got me coughing and to step to the soap,
or was it cause the electric current from the hair dryer, fired the gun, I had loaded it to shoot myself thought the head, cause my wife had been cheating my." :twisted:
 
Don't forget though, that in Buddhism, the person who reaches enlightenment returns in order to bring salvation to the rest of the world, till all living things reach nirvana.

That said, the four noble truths are not bad and do fix a lot of life's problems + the 8 fold path isn't bad.

The question of the self, and the "I" paradox is central to the belief system.

I think religions, and their doctrines, are often creature of historical social settings. Islam's emphasis on justice and submission to God may have something to do with the number of other Pagan faiths in the Middle East at that time, and the harshness of the environment. Likewise, Christianity's emphasis on Love may also be a form of non-violent resistance to colonial rule. In that sense, Buddhism is merely a revision of Hinduism, with a stronger notion of salvation without perpetual reincarnations.

Ah Religion- the opium of the masses.
 
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