I mean, if there are no gods or demons that do some things, not saying that there aren’t but the “dead is the same as before you’re born” is usually secular, so if it’s before you’re born, doesn’t that mean reincarnation according to that theory is 100% true? Of course your memories will be “reset”.
What do you think of this? Do you think that reincarnation does through to other species, meaning that you’ll probably reincarnate trillions of times as bacteria or short-lasting insects before you get to reincarnate as a half decent animal or even human? What about, do you think you can reincarnate as something in the past? What do you think about the “everyone is a single ‘soul’” idea that it’s just the same person/animal/plant/cell/etc reincarnating over and over again as the first bit of life in the universe to the last bit of life in the universe? Do you think that the cycle would stop in whatever cycle the universe is finally destroyed?
Why not? I thought most people thought that death is like before you were born, right? So that means that when you die, you are just in the state of “before you are born”, meaning you must be born again. I mean, what is going to stop you from being born again? For that to happen there would have to be some sort of controlling entity…
It’s nice to think of. Combined with the theory/principle of Karma, it makes for a convenient little package. I seriously doubt any of it is possible unless you begin as a human and work your way down.
Well when I said “reincarnation”, I wasn’t going for the classical Buddhist idea, I was going for a more, errr, “colder” idea that you are just randomly reborn as various beings at least until time or whatever completely runs out. Because, otherwise, can someone explain how death is the same as before you are born, yet somehow you are never born again? That makes no sense to me. I highly doubt that all dead people get a “sticker” on their soul saying that they’ve already lived one life and cannot be respawned. How on earth would that be possible without a intelligent god?
You are making assumptions not based in fact. First off, having a soul. Prove it. Seriously, point to any study that purports to finding anything remotely close to a “Soul”.
No, I don’t mean a magical soul that is actually conscious of itself or anything. I just mean errr some sort of holding unit for all lifeforms. You have still not proved how the universe/whatever can differentiate between a person that’s never been born before and is about to be born versus a dead person. What is the difference of the time before you existed and after you existed?
When people say “death is like before you were born”, it means you don’t exist. You didn’t exist before you were born, and you don’t exist after you die. That’s all it means. You don’t need a “controlling entity” for something not to happen.
But… surely if you exist when you are alive, yet you didn’t exist before you were alive, and you supposedly don’t exist after you are dead, then shouldn’t that mean that you would be then begin to exist as something else? I mean, that’s how I see it…
Huh? You are assuming the existence of a soul that exists separately from the body. Your “holding unit for all lifeforms” is exactly that, a fancy term for a soul. Since I don’t believe in souls I also don’t believe that there is anything for the “universe” to differentiate between the times well before birth and well after death (phrasing it that way to avoid arguments about the exact time a life begins or ends). In both cases the person simply does not exist.
It’s like zygotes and gametes and shit beforehand. It’s like dust and decay and worms and shit afterwards.
But snark aside… I see where you’re going with this. And I was steppin’ out of my buddhist robe when i said you gotta start as a human. Random chance -as you proposed- would be great, but i feel there’d have to be some carryover. Otherwise you ain’t “you”.
But yea, finite amount of souls + mortal bodies probably should require a type of reincarnation/recycling. But we’re assuming the finite number of souls part. Hell, we’re even assuming the *soul *part, itself.
No, it does not mean that, regardless of how you see it. When something doesn’t exist, it doesn’t exist, and nothing is acting on it to make it spontaneously begin to exist as anything.
I thought a classical soul was either a spooky transparent white sheet that took revenge on old people and gave them heart attacks or made them fall down stairs, or a carrier form that would take the person to some form of god, or something like that.
Ummm… by “soul” I sort of meant some sort of thing that is basically one disorganized consciousness that takes control of all life either in the universe or on earth and where every living thing is actually just the same thing over and over again, but is completely (physically) unaware of the cycle, excluding of course any beliefs the being, if capable of believing might have…
I mean, otherwise you’d have to experience nothing forever, but you can’t experience nothing, so surely you must get reborn as something else? I mean, to be honest I’d much prefer a proper god or some sort of mastermind, instead of just a endless cycle of utter pointlessness.
Why is it so hard to accept that you just are what you are? The sum total of you is your physical being and its chemical signals and electrochemical impulses. It may seem to be greater that the sum of its parts – it may even actually be more than the sum of its parts – but if you take too many parts away, you cease to be.
Consider, for instance, the person that you were ten or twenty years ago. Largely similar to the person you are now, but, still, not quite the same. Before you came into being, there were the building blocks of the parts that ultimately formed you; as a zygote, embryo, fetus, child, et cetera, those parts gradually changed, and even after you reached adulthood, they have continued to change, so that you, right now, are a transient cross-section of the temporal serpent that comprises your life.
Once the parts break down and go their separate ways, you will no longer exist in any form. Entropy suggests that all those parts that once made up you will almost certainly not recombine in some way to reconstitute you, so your existence totals nothing more than all that you now are, have been and will be (plus any lasting effects you have upon those around you).
A “universal mind” is an interesting idea, but the evidence for it consists in large part as a song by the Doors, based on some random brain flatulence by a swami or two. Not very convincing.
The problem is that you made an assumption as to what people mean when they say that after they die it is the same as before they are born. Did anyone who defined death in this manner actually give this explanation for what they meant?
