Why reincarnation is a load of bunk

[Deja Q]

In your next life, it's still your life. You're the same. There's no difference; the hell remains the same.

[SteppingRazor]

1. As opposed to all those other theories about the afterlife...

that are certifiable fact? :P

[Deja Q]

4. No, but our existing life is pretty much bunk too.

[SteppingRazor]

5. It is? Well, your life is bunk, maybe, but I know mine's a-ok...

Cogito ergo sum, and all that

[Deja Q]

6. Glad yours is a-ok...

Hubris is karma's calling card too... :evilgrin:

[SteppingRazor]

8. Bah... karma's as bunk as reincarnation...

Bad things do happen to good people, and for the people that really deserve to get their teeth kicked in, life is all too often nothing but fine and dandy, wine and candy

[johnnie]

2. But does energy have a life?

Or is it forever?

If energy is continual then it isn't really considered "life" because life has a beginning and an end.

[Deja Q]

3. But all things living need energy. And energy is consumed.

It only seems forever where there's still a shitload of it around.

If only we could adapt hydrogen from outer space...

As if I give a fuck about energy anymore...

[Taverner]

7. Well considering there are more people alive today

Than ever lived in the past....there's no way it could work unless the souls could live twice concurrently...

[tjwmason]

9. Reincarnation doesn't preclude the creation of new "souls"

I use the term "soul" simply because of the lack of another one.

Population increase is irrelevant.

[AlienGirl]

10. Actually, there are not more people alive than ever lived

http://www.snopes.com/science/stats/dead.htm

Besides, why couldn't new souls be born, maybe through some sort of ectoplasmic mitosis? And why wouldn't it be possible for souls to be coming in from other species--maybe animals, maybe extraterrestrials?

Tucker

[johnnie]

12. True

Some "souls" that just haven't "done their time" here yet.

[Oeditpus Rex]

13. I was hopin'

you'd show up.

:hi:

[AlienGirl]

15. Howdy! You really need to chat more often!

:hi:

[NMMNG]

24. There is no "soul" that gets reincarnated

But according to those who believe in reincarnation, humans can be reincarnated as animals (or even insects) and vice-versa. That's why it's very important to treat other living creatures with respect--that cow may be your deceased great-grandmother. Furthermore, you must collect lots of good karma in this life to avoid being reincarnated as a "lower" life form.

[Squeech]

14. No, I think this is how it works

Souls need to grow and mature too, through many incarnations. They start out really low level: insects maybe, or plants. They gradually accumulate consciousness and ascend up the evolutionary pyramid. Once they achieve the facility of making moral decisions, they incarnate as humans. So the human population explosion doesn't exhaust the population of souls, it just means a bunch of former cattle and bears have made it to human status. (I'm told semi-authoritatively that once you make it to human you never revert to animal-- which is too bad, I wanna be an otter in my next life!)

Then you have several incarnations as a human to learn how to use your brain and your moral sense. Most authorities think that the incarnation you currently inhabit is at least partly tailored to get you through a specific problem you're having. I can only conclude that the human race collectively seems to have a specific problem right now with pointless aggression.

[wildhorses]

19. there are old souls and new souls

one can tell the difference...

[AlienGirl]

11. Why would you be the same?

You might start out with propensities to be similar, and a similar personality structure, but there's still always room to grow and to change old habits and bad patterns...even in this life.

Tucker

[Conan_The_Barbarian]

16. Actually the part that weirds me out that most

Do each one of my skin cells have their own souls so that when they die they have just as likely of a chance of coming back as a human as I do? If that's how it goes than you likelihood of even coming back a multicellular organism are infinitesimal! I sure as hell don't want to be no ones skin cell when I die :crazy:

[rasputin1952]

17. Hmmmm...Everyone I've ever met, or read about that believes

in re-incarnation, seems to think they were someone important in a "past" life. Since there are only so many "important" people what of the scullery maids, the guys who cleaned up after the horses, those that became dinner for some beast, etc?

If there was a "choice" in coming back, why would anyone want to?

What if I was Hitler in my most recent past life?...:scared:

Since there are some 4.5 billion people on this earth today, where is the "soul hatchery"?

Who, or what, controls this process, (if it exists)?

If this whole process is a "learning experience" to become 'better' beings, why do we fail so miserably? Seems to me, we'd kind of have this pretty well under control by now.

Like all theories, this one might have validity...but until there is some proof, any kind of proof, I'll have to pass.

Besides, I really don't want to know what I did in a "past life"...must have been really bad to put me in the one I have now...:D

[hfojvt]

18. so then maybe you were

Hitler in your past life :spank:

I thought there was some author, what was her name, where she had fairly mundane past lives. She wrote about St. Luke. I think her name starts with an A, B, or C, but all I can think of now is Taylor Caldwell. (edit, maybe because it was Taylor Caldwell I just googled it).

[wildhorses]

20. I just finished her book Testimony of Two Men

about the medical field at the turn of the century

[AlienGirl]

22. Most of the people I know who experience past-life memory were ordinary

Most lives are ordinary; most past-life-memory experiences are also ordinary.

If you don't actually have problems with intrusive possibly-past-life-related memories or recurring nightmares or anything, it's best to leave the whole thing alone, anyway.

I don't think it's a "learning experience." I think it's just part of the way consciousness works, and as value-neutral as going through puberty. I think the evidence collected by Dr. Ian Stevenson is pretty interesting.

On edit: And now you've met me, and I use the reincarnation model to explain certain things in my consciousness, and none of it leads me to think I was ever anyone extraordinary.

Tucker

[Bossy Monkey]

21. Yeah, you used to tell me this all the time in our last life, when we were

cornflakes, and I'll tell you now what I told you then: reincarnation isn't bunk; it's trundle! :P

[everythingsxen]

23. I am going to attempt...

to give forth the everythingsxen Theorem de la Reincarnation, aka the ice cream buffet theory.

Ok, under my theory all life (and possibly all "non-life" like rocks and dirt and air) are all made up of energy at some quantum level right? Well, I believe all that energy pools into one big tub of "souls" or in this theory "ice cream" as it were. When something new comes into existence, a "scoop" is drawn out of the "ice cream". Like Neapolitan ice cream the scoop gets a little bit of each flavor of soul. So what that translates to, in practical terms, if someone dies, their energy, the sub-quantum energy that was unique to that individual goes and mixes with others, and when a new person is born, their energy will be a composite of other pieces of energy and a unique individual piece of energy. So, in life that person may, and no doubt will, feel certain feelings about places and things many of which will be different. This would include dreams "deja - vu" and other feelings which a person may have in regard to individuals of other times and even memories.

I realize how bizarre and abstract an answer that was; further I realize your real meaning is that even if reincarnation is real, which as I have stated is real (and is essentially meaningless in the larger picture), it is of no matter, since every time you reincarnate you are back in the same crappy world. On that you are right.

[ForrestGump]

25. I've seen this thread before

Actually, I recently watched Defending Your Life and it turns out that reincarnation is a fact and that dead dudes ride around in buses and eat at excellent buffets while they wait for reassignment. Sounds cool to me...I don't know why I came back, in that respect (I mean, the buffets were excellent), but then I look around at certain aspects of my life and I think, yeah, I'm in the right place at the right time, after all...

And there're lots of buffets here in Vegas, if I should so desire. Buses, too.

[lildreamer316]

26. One answer:

Energy is a conserved quantity: it is neither created nor destroyed, but only transferred from place to place or from one form to another.