Well, sort of- I obviously have no proof. I just really wish it could be true. I feel like this is a symptom of mild depression/stress though. Before I jump into the following I should state that I am not, I repeat, NOT suicidal or anything. I’ve just been having serious post college financial problems which my parents can’t really help with, and sometimes I wish I could just curl up in a ball and wake up in another life.
Obviously these thoughts occur in my spare time- I am actively trying to change my situation such as looking for a better job and considering moving.
But I guess it’s just so hard to accept the finality of death for myself…I feel like if I were to truly go bananas and jump off a bridge, I should wake up again as someone else. I know that’s as crazy of a thought as jumping off a bridge is, but I can’t help it. I’d be terrified though that I’d be born again as someone in a third world/war torn nation or something like that. Financial problems aside, I realize how lucky I am to be living this life that I have and that compared to other people’s problems this is trivial (who doesn’t have financial issues at this point? And that’s ignoring the plight of those who actually DO live in third world war torn nations).
This is truly mundane and pointless…I hope this makes sense to some degree…maybe this is just my bizarre coping mechanism?
That reminds me though of something Penn said on Bullshit**, during the Alternative Medicine episode someone was like, “But why can’t we just let people do it if it makes them feel good?” and Penn was like, “Yeah! Why don’t we just snort cocaine since it makes us feel good!”
I know you weren’t being sarcastic like Penn, it just reminded me of what he said.
You’re depressed? Then why don’t you kill yourself? I mean, you’ll just wake up in a different body, right? Might as well keep trying until you wake up as a millionaire.
Edit: I’m not trying to insult you. I’m illustrating a problem with just believing whatever makes you feel better.
I realize you’re illustrating a point (as Penn was with the cocaine), I just thought I should point out that I don’t actually believe that…I just wish very hard for it to be true.
I guess I wasn’t making sense. Logically I understand that there is probably no such thing as reincarnation, when you’re dead, you’re dead and that’s it. But a part of me has difficulty accepting that, and were I to be on my death bed part of me would be half expecting to become someone else.
It’s like the part of me that wishes there were a god(s) even though I’m an atheist.
I never really understood the appeal. I’m pretty sure that if I came back with no memory of my former life and was raised under different circumstances, with different genetics, I’d basically be a different person. The old Simplicio would still be dead.
While I don’t believe in heaven either, I at least understand the appeal. I don’t see the up side with Reincarnation.
I totally believe it’s some kind of coping mechanism. Lately I’ve been fantasizing about being a mountain man, living in the woods, alone and sometimes heading to town for supplies. I’ve been having a lot of stress in my life lately, and it’s just a coping mechanism for me. As for believing in woo, I know exactly what you’re saying. For instance, I’m deathly afraid of ghosts. It’s one of my phobias. Intellectually I know there’s no such thing as ghosts, but there’s a conference room at work I hate going in to because I feel like it’s haunted. I go in there anyway because it’s, but I don’t do it alone. I feel silly being afraid, but the feeling is there.
Without reincarnation we have only an unreliable tendency for what goes around to come around. If reincarnation is real, karma could be an immutable law. the implied idea of universal justice appeals to me. If you don’t get what you deserve in the present life, you could get it in the next life. The concepts of heaven and hell could also provide for universal justice but they are much less believable than reincarnation, at least for me.
I guess, but again, its hard to see how punishing/rewarding me in my next life is really punishing me, its a person who doesn’t remember me, was raised in a different setting, has different genetics, etc. Its like telling me that if I’m not good, some unrelated person in Japan will get kicked in the nuts. Its not particularly motivating.
If it makes you feel better, there is some serious research on reincarnation and at least some tentative evidence of past lives. This is research which is published in peer-reviewed journals and carried out by tenured professors like the late Ian Stevenson and Jim Tucker at the University of Virginia. I wouldn’t say I believe in reincarnation but I find this reseach highly intriguing to say the least.
IIRC, it doesn’t work that way. If you kill yourself, you incur penalty points and you wake up worse off than you were before. You’ll be a roach or a spider or something and have to work your way back up the ladder.
I know what you mean. Accepting something intelletually isn’t the same as accepting it emotionally. I’m a pretty firm atheist, but I sometimes think as if everything I do is observed.
Thanks guys…I’m glad I’m not the only one who thinks these things.
I feel the same way too…I’ve been in apartments that scare the shit out of me and other people I’ve been with have brought up (without me saying anything) that they feel like, “something or someone else,” is there with us, but I realize rationally that it must be something physical that’s making all of us uncomfortable.
Wait, why? Sure you might end up a worm, Mac product owner, or something else bad, but eventually you gotta cycle through and be a bird. It can’t get any better than being a bird.