Reincarnation Poll

[mayflow]

What are our thoughts on reincarnation?

 

[Rigpa78]

Methinks that even if you don't believe in a transmigrating soul, your former body still ends up as grist for the critter-mill, thus transferring (some degree of) your energy to those creatures, etc. So in a sense I don't believe that we ever cease to exist - that we're ever truly gone in the first place.

But a few weeks after I cease sucking wind, is an INFJ baby going to be born somewhere and act all emo like me?

I hope.

Reincarnation might seem difficult to grasp, but who can begin to grasp the mystery of ever being born in the first place?

 

[IndigoSensor]

I strongly believe that everyone reincarnates after they die, this is an overview of what I see (I am likely to sound offbase or I will miss points):

+ We chose this life for ourselves before we came here, with a set of conditions and goals to go for, along with new or old atritbutes. and it is up to us to get there. How we do that and if we do that is mostly up to us, of course, there will be some "divine planning" involved

+ We create our own reality, and it is very very hard for people to come to terms with this, and may take many lifetimes to do so. What we believe is ultimately what we will get, sorta.

+ When we die we sort of have a "life review" to see how we did and plan out what is next.

+ This isn't the olny "world" to incarnate to, there are many many many others. that being said, this is one of the most diffucalt ones there are.

+ We may spend time "out of 'life' " for a while for other lessons or reasons.

+ We will exsist on forever, and it is very rare for someone or something to be reabsorbed into the cosmos.

That is a rough overview, there is way more to it acording to how i see it.

 

[mayflow]

Wow. These are really interesting responses. Giving me a lot to think about.

@ Rigpa - the name... have you read Sogyal Rinpoche's "The Tibetan book of living and dying?" It's a wonderful work.


@ Indigo. Have you ever read any of the Edgar Cayce stuff? In some of his trances, he seemed to indicate much of what you were saying here.

 

[IndigoSensor]

Have you ever read any of the Edgar Cayce stuff? In some of his trances, he seemed to indicate much of what you were saying here.

The name sounds familar, but no I have not.

 

[Duty]

I have no justification to defend that we have "souls" in the first place, let alone that our soul reincarnates. This isn't to say we don't have such a thing, it's just saying that I don't know, have no good reason to suppose they do exist, and probably will never know if they do exist.

So none of the choices really fit me.

 

[civilianjones]

Wow, I'm the first one to vote:
Yes, we reincarnate until we reach a certain level of transcensional enlightenment

+ We chose this life for ourselves before we came here, with a set of conditions and goals to go for, along with new or old atritbutes. and it is up to us to get there. How we do that and if we do that is mostly up to us, of course, there will be some "divine planning" involved

I agree with this, although it is also possible for you to *not* plan it all. Ya know, only give the reincarnation-computer very simple parameters. "Earth! Sometime after industrialization! Go!"

+ When we die we sort of have a "life review" to see how we did and plan out what is next.

AGREED! I call this the "smokey jazz bar after life". You can chill with everyone you knew in that life. You know how people talk about board games, and what their strategies were after the board game is over? They can be totally honest with what they were doing and what their objectives were because it doesn't matter anymore. That's the kind of discussion that can happen at the smokey jazz bar of the after life.

+ This isn't the olny "world" to incarnate to, there are many many many others. that being said, this is one of the most diffucalt ones there are.

Right on.

+ We may spend time "out of 'life' " for a while for other lessons or reasons.

But... who's to say the time "out of life" in another spiritual realm isn't just a really weird form of life? I agree with this, I only disagree with your wording.

+ We will exist on forever, and it is very rare for someone or something to be reabsorbed into the cosmos.

One Hindu creation story is that God existed, totally as one. But God got bored, and he knew the answers to all the games he played with himself.
So he split himself into tons of tiny little pieces! He is slowly discovering himself again, which is the best game of all. When a soul joins that Godhead, then that is when they are "reabsorbed into the cosmos", and that is when their reincarnation ends. It does, however, TAKE A LONG TIME.


I had a vision about my lives. I saw three lives into the past and saw three lives into the future. Those 7 lives (if you include my own) contained a "storyline" of how I would work with other people to defeat a dark god. (Not actually a god, keep in mind, just a very powerful soul who wishes harm on us.) I did not get absorbed into the Godhead after that, and I have no idea what will be coming after.


Also, Indigo, did you get your name from the series written by Louise Cooper?

 

[MyPetZombie]

I strongly believe that everyone reincarnates after they die, this is an overview of what I see (I am likely to sound offbase or I will miss points):

+ We chose this life for ourselves before we came here, with a set of conditions and goals to go for, along with new or old atritbutes. and it is up to us to get there. How we do that and if we do that is mostly up to us, of course, there will be some "divine planning" involved

+ We create our own reality, and it is very very hard for people to come to terms with this, and may take many lifetimes to do so. What we believe is ultimately what we will get, sorta.

+ When we die we sort of have a "life review" to see how we did and plan out what is next.

+ This isn't the olny "world" to incarnate to, there are many many many others. that being said, this is one of the most diffucalt ones there are.

+ We may spend time "out of 'life' " for a while for other lessons or reasons.

+ We will exsist on forever, and it is very rare for someone or something to be reabsorbed into the cosmos.

That is a rough overview, there is way more to it acording to how i see it.

I agree with all of this. Just as various insects and other creatures morph into something else, who is not to say we don't as well? I've always felt that my soul is simply too big and powerful to end once my body does.

Duty, while I can understand your POV, isn't the simple fact that we are HERE (in spite of all odds or evidence to the fact that sentient species simply should not be here, evolution et al notwithstanding) evidence that there is *something* going on that is beyond our comprehension?

I highly recommend the film Contact. Even Carl Sagan, that profound agnostic, was willing to give both god and science the benefit of the doubt.

 

[Duty]

Duty, while I can understand your POV, isn't the simple fact that we are HERE (in spite of all odds or evidence to the fact that sentient species simply should not be here, evolution et al notwithstanding) evidence that there is *something* going on that is beyond our comprehension?

Odds don't mean it shouldn't have happened, only that it was unlikely. Just because we beat the odds and evolved into a sentient species does not mean there's anything else to it (and this is IF it was against the odds...scientists' best estimate atm is that there are actually several million sentient species in the galaxy).

Take a game of roulette. Say you place your chips on the big 0. The chances (in American roulette anyways) of winning are 1:38. Say you win and put your chips on 0 again...and win again. You've just beaten 1:1444 odds. It's VERY unlikely for this to happen, but just because it did doesn't mean there is something beyond our comprehension going on. We say you got "lucky," but this isn't evidence of luck either...we can easily explain with modern physics how the roll of the ball, the centrifugal forces of the wheel, etc etc produced the same result twice.

So no, I don't think the unlikelihood of a sentient species evolving on a planet that is one planet in one of 300,000,000,000 solar systems, of which are in one of billions upon billions of galaxies is evidence of something else beyond our comprehension. Are there things beyond our comprehension yet? Oh, for sure...black holes are still largely unexplored, for example. We've yet to come close to the light barrier. For all I know, reincarnation and souls and whatnot are reality...but I have not enough justification to warrant an honest belief in these things.

I highly recommend the film Contact. Even Carl Sagan, that profound agnostic, was willing to give both god and science the benefit of the doubt.

I've seen it...good movie.



Although my INTPness loves to debate, I understand INFJs aren't always in the mood for such a thing. If you want me to shut up and leave your thread I would understand. I guess a thread about reincarnation really isn't meant to be visited by nontheists in the first place...so I apologize on that account.

 

[Rigpa78]

@ Rigpa - the name... have you read Sogyal Rinpoche's "The Tibetan book of living and dying?" It's a wonderful work.

Yup, it's in a box somewhere here in the house.

 

[Lurker]

I just don't know, maybe so, maybe not. I like the concept but it's one that I'm not gonna find out till my last day.

Guess I can't vote :noidea:

 

[IndigoSensor]

Also, Indigo, did you get your name from the series written by Louise Cooper?

No, I came up with it all on my own. I don't know who that is.

I highly recommend the film Contact. Even Carl Sagan, that profound agnostic, was willing to give both god and science the benefit of the doubt.

Seen it, and for this reason is why I love it. When it comes to this kind of stuff, and religious belifs. I fuse my knolage of science with spirituality to explain and make myself understand all of this to the best of my abillity.

I just don't know, maybe so, maybe not. I like the concept but it's one that I'm not gonna find out till my last day.

Guess I can't vote :noidea:

I don't know if this is an INFJ thing or not. But for me, when it comes to big stuff like this, I HAVE to think about it, and draw SOME kind of conclusion, I feel very unconfortable until I do.

 

[Lurker]

I don't know if this is an INFJ thing or not. But for me, when it comes to big stuff like this, I HAVE to think about it, and draw SOME kind of conclusion, I feel very unconfortable until I do.

Maybe a combination of NF (drawn to spiritual) and J (needing closure)??

 

[ZenCat]

I am attracted to the possible plausibility of reincarnation, but I haven't yet found a theory described that fits my musings about it. None in this poll fit for me.

 

[amanda952]

I am very much a strong believer in reincarnation & am very curious about trying to learn about my past lives. I also have to agree with what some of you guys just mentioned about how you review how your life has turned out & then decide what life you should have next, but I also believe that God has some input in that decision as well & that he makes the ultimate choice about what life you live next.
Also here are some videos that I found on youtube about reincarnation. They don't exactly prove it or disprove it, but you have to admit that some of the things mentioned have to be more than a buch of mere
coincidences.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EWwzFwUOxA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5965wcH2Kx0

 

[alcyone]

I've come to the ambiguous conclusion that at death, you create your own afterlife. If you believe you're going to hell, down ya go.

Believe you get to come back at another time. or a different world...or as a character in your favorite book/movie in a different dimension.....


Believe that you reincarnate based on the actions of your previous life...Here ya go...Life as a frog! Yeah!

 

[Shaz]

I don't know if this is an INFJ thing or not. But for me, when it comes to big stuff like this, I HAVE to think about it, and draw SOME kind of conclusion, I feel very unconfortable until I do.

Mhh... My problem is that I feel sort of uncomfortable about not getting to a conclusion, but I feel like I cannot do so, because things are so uncertain. I can't just believe in something. Bit of a problem with faith in general for me. I feel the need for a strong spirituality but I cannot just accept human interpretations of it. It seems way to big to me for anyone to have figured it out completely. I have hints of intuition about it, but then, what am I? Just a very limited living thing. Wonder how this will evolve as I grow up.

I didn't vote either.

 

[ZenCat]

I've come to the ambiguous conclusion that at death, you create your own afterlife. If you believe you're going to hell, down ya go.

Believe you get to come back at another time. or a different world...or as a character in your favorite book/movie in a different dimension.....


Believe that you reincarnate based on the actions of your previous life...Here ya go...Life as a frog! Yeah!

This reminds me of the movie What Dreams May Come (which was also a novel, but I haven't read it).

I think this would be a fabulous afterlife, provided you understand that you have a choice, and that you wouldn't be allowed to live a life of evil and cruelty, and then opt for an afterlife filled with with sunshine, butterflies and verdant meadows.

 

[Satya]

I would say that there is just as much subjective evidence to support reincarnation as other spiritual beliefs. For example, people who have memories of past lives. It wouldn't surprise me if the spiritual world is more complex and wondrous that we could even conceive.