A philosophical question about all this

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I hope this doesn't reak of wishful thinking too much but its another one of those possibilities that's occured to me when taking a look at this board, a lot of angles of humanity, how personalities interact, and how the whole societal dynamic is set up.

Reincarnation is one of those concepts I've always toyed with. When taking this world strictly for what's in front of me it would be very easy to feel that we are all apes, as soulless as every other organizm on this planet, and that intelligence is just a self-delusion. However, when you look at the emotional and seemingly spiritual depths as well as the intensity of emotion and even the seeming value of certain things that aren't about getting food or water, prestige, wealth, high, or sexual, it seems like reincarnation is the only thing that really explains such sharp inequities as well as a lot of personality and other attributes - when you think about it we have way more going on inwardly than an animal really *should* have, almost enough for us to question our own value enough to rub ourselves out of existence one day if we all got ourselves thinking that deep.

When a lot of people tackle the idea of reincarnation they look at it from the standpoint that everything that happens in your life is something you set up for yourself to endure. Best way to explain that one is the movie Paycheck - life is like that envelope full of apparently useless junk but its like you were able to look out over the whole entire span of it, know exactly what would trigger you to do what, what would cause changes if you wanted them at some point, and in general its like you put yourself on one pretty much stuck path through life while just giving yourself the illusion of really having a freewill experience. Also, going from that premise and the reason that I'm bringing this thought to the relationship folder - I also really wonder that if your someone who is a very old soul and who wants off this squatrock as fast as you can, it's not just the fact that picking a harder life for yourself gets you out faster but I really also wonder about procreation. In our society, just by the way the norms are going, you see a lot more people essentially cleaving their genes from the gene pool and of course this happens because the relationship world is indeed a very narrow and rigid fit and it's based on so many factors that a person can't particularly change.

Keeping that in mind I wonder if part of actually putting the coupe de grace on the whole rebirth cycle is indeed living a life where you end up pretty much assuring yourself you won't have kids. If you think about it, it's the only way the system could assure that everyone had to go through it - whether that's the experience of being an eccentric, having an autism-related thing, having downs syndrome, maybe dying at war or of violent crime before they had a chance....this list of possibilities just goes on. Although having kids is not necessarily a sign that life has treated you better it may mean a person still has future lives to live, more experiences to go through and more things to learn before they can jailbreak this place.

Again, I don't know if it's just a trick of wishful thinking but still - it's something worth thinking about. No matter who we are in this or what we are or aren't going through we really can't let our experiences (no matter how deflating life circumstances or people in general may get) because questions like this are still out there and while this is one of those things you can't scientifically quantify or prove it makes an eerie amount of sense at the same time.

Last edited by techstepgenr8tion on 18 Jul 2006, 1:14 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I will come back to you on this one

Having kids give you an after life as one of the decendence ? I though of that one time but there is no logical reason it to b, so I just disregarded it.

As for as reincarnation goes I do believe in it, but I strongly believe that your before life is Not link to the new one. When you are dead your body become a dead bit of meat and your software gets deleted. When you die, there will be a time when you are reborn afresh just the same way you have been born already. The chances of you being born on this planet could be slim because there could be more planets that support life in the universe then there is sand on SouthEnd beach. You could even be born in another universe assuming there is more then one, a bezillion years from now. Or you could be born after the death of the universe the bezillionth universe that is reborn after it. So long as life continues to exists, you will eventually be reincarnated as something.

Religion has ideas that if you do good in this life then it will improve your after-life some how. If you have a mind for the truth, then don’t believe it. It is just religions being manipulating you to become a good citizen. It might be a good lie, but it is a lie nun the less. I as a person with Aspergers syndrome has a special interest in the truth.

Well, maybe maybe not. As for us though, we may have to deal with being here our entire soulspan and maybe if there are all kinds of other life out there they have to stay on their own planets just for the sake of preserving continuity and conformity more? I'd kinda think that if you did have that much criss-crossing you'd have a much wider variety of people.




Well, for me as I mentioned I pretty much believe that a lot of things a person feels compelled enough to do in their lives may well just be those situations that they set up at another time before they came here. With religions talking about goodness in this life effecting your next life, as much as it sucks I feel like I'm just wired to be a good person no matter how much I wish I could change it - it's something I can't undo.

according to the hindu tradition, to escape the cycle of reincarnation one must achieve moksha, a state of universal and unconditional love which involves transcending the ego and material reality. celibacy is generally a requirement of this, various strains of belief believe there are other necessities, such as perfecting certain forms of yoga, attaining pure knowledge and suchlike.

similarly, buddhists aspire to the state of nirvana, similar in some respects to moksha, in that tanha (worldly desires) must be overcome. For instance siddhartha (buddha) refrained from earthly desires in his pursuit of enlightenment. although certain buddhist traditions hold that sexual energy itself can lead towards enlightenment, tantric buddhism, for instance. although there are tantric adepts who follow celibacy, utilising sexual energy as a means to explore the nature of human existence, but not indulging in sexual acts per se.

certain gnostic sects, in particular the cathari, believed that material existance is inherently evil, created by the demiurge, a confused and troubled offspring of the true god (the cathari in particular equated the demiurge with yahweh, the god of jews and christians) and the adepts and high priests would refrain from sexual procreation, believing that the procreation simply leads to the divine spark of consciousness being further trapped in the gross matter of the physical body.

sorry if this is not related directly to your original topic. but yes, celibacy and the refrain from procreation in general seems to feature strongly among many belief systems which believe in reincarnation and eventual transcendence of the birth-death cycle.

You know, I have dreams about famous dead people being resurrected. One of these dreams is about someone who I like very much.

He was a very capable person. As he got older, I didn't think his hairline would recede at all. He looked ageless to me. I don't think all of us know what the most popular thing he did was. What I do know is that those of us who do know have that memory stood out in our minds forever and ever.

This person had fun doing what he did, and I'm sure those of us who do remember it had fun thinking about it. There is one moment that I'm sure he regrets that it happened. He knew it was his fault, but he knew it was not the end of the world.

Five years ago, he retired from doing what he did best. Even though he had a lot of confidence in himself, he had not enough to continue the activity that he enjoyed.

He had a lover who was 22 years younger than he was. Unfortunately, he and his wife both died on the same day.

However, he taught us all a lesson, and this lesson was not to do something.

Even though he cannot be resurrected, we should appreciate him for what he did. This is just an example of how we can thank great people for what they do. Gratitude is very important.

I just wanted something positive to come out of this.

Kids? What for?

Interesting



This is kinda why I don't stick to dogma too much - I think you can do just fine having material things, it probably depends more on what part of the world you live in, what the exceptible societal norms and pathways are, but most importantly what your attitude toward material things is (especially your attitude toward your own material posessions) rather than do you have them.



I think in addition to what your saying here and about the gnostics, when your a parent or are in a family unit, your need to conform to societal norms and even effectively chuck many or most of your most defining personality traits and desires (especially your individual dreams). It's the fact that when your in a family unit your a huband/wife/father/mother as your most defining trait, then your professional identity - then what little room you have that doesn't conflict with the other identities can be you in private. For a person to really achieve much enlightenment under those circumstances, while doable, would probably be many many times harder than if they were single.

Lol, whats more positive than enlightenment and getting off the 3rd Allin' from the sun

I was referring to another prior post I had made.

On the apes thing.......I wouldn't call any animal souless.

Every living being has a soul. A personality etc etc etc. All we are is an animal. A highly evolved animal and we walk this planet as part of nature. Just another aspect of the worlds biomass and we walk with all other species as just part of the worlds ecosystems. Part of the complex cycle.

Remember, if you believe in evolution, every mammal on the planet came from tiny shrew like animals. Prior to this we all came from jellified blobs. Every creature is endowed with souls.

We only came up with this 'souless' stuff so we didnt have to feel guilty about exploiting the natural world!! !! !! ! And also so the early christians could further distance themselves from the Pagan religions, which honoured nature, natural cycles and our place within it above all else.

Evolution however has allowed new wires in the circuit board of the brain to be forged as evolutionary development grows higher. Deeper and more complex thought is able to occur. Who knows what an elephant thinks for example? I believe theres a lot more to elephants than people allow themselves to think...........seeing their close social interactions and relationships etc.......
For all our attempts to seperate ourselves from the animal world, every thing we do is related in some way to natural basic insticts and animal needs. We are just gifted with tha ability to internalize and make deeper thoughts about it all. (And I'll bet elephants can make even deeper ones!! !! !! !! !! !! !! !!)

Another thing people do is assume lower intelligence andlack of soul because of the automative nature of many animals. We forget the personality and the manifestation of actual interests and joy can only come out in an environment devoid of earning a living. A Shrew for example can die of starvation in three hours so must spend its whole life hunting and fighting. It has no time for recreation. A Pride of Lions must alternate between breeding, hunting, defending territory and lieing up for hours to avoif the hottest parts fo the day. Very little time for proving any kind of personality.

Look at your pet dog. Freed from the constraints of the fight for survival it is able to remain in mind a puppy for life and do all it wants to enjoy itself.

Whales and other sea mammals show a lot of apparent enjoyment as do Chimps. Otters, you cannot deny that they have a damn good laugh!

Look at an adult Human, working full time in a miserable...say a factory job. All it really does is work, come home, and plonk itself, dead eyed in front of the telly.........for any outside observer it would be easy to dismiss this pitiful creature as nothing more than an automative, instinct led blob of flesh and bone...............