Comments | beraht: My Own Writer's Block

beraht

My Own Writer's Block

Dec 08, 2009 19:34

Inspired by a question on the Straight Dope Message Board:

Would You Choose to be Reincarnated?My answer is no. My understanding of reincarnation is that you are reborn without memories of your previous life, which defeats the whole purpose of reincarnation to me. In my mind, your "soul" is the intangible sum of your personality, memories, and ( Read more... )

thinky thoughts, reincarnation

Comments 7

redcoast December 9 2009, 01:47:40 UTC

Interestingly enough, Buddhism (or at least one version of it) accepts reincarnation and is all about escaping the cycle of rebirth; but it definitely rejects the idea of a soul.

beraht December 9 2009, 04:15:23 UTC

So if your memory is wiped clean, and there's no soul, what is being reborn?

redcoast December 10 2009, 16:12:40 UTC

That's a good question. I'm not entirely sure. I mean, the Buddhist idea of the soul is more like a stream of continuity - something made of parts that can be rearranged, maybe take on new parts or lose old ones (Buddha compared it to a chariot). So that stream of continuity, when a person dies, rearranges itself and comes back together to form a new person.

Personally, I don't believe in reincarnation as such, but if you think about it, bad or good stuff that happened before you were born does affect you.

izzygee December 9 2009, 04:54:19 UTC

That is a very good question. I dont know if I would want to be reincarnated. I don't want to be someone else.

beraht December 10 2009, 01:08:26 UTC

That's part of it, too. I may not be my biggest fan, but this is who I am, and the idea of being replaced by some fake me is a little disquieting.

elenia28 December 9 2009, 20:06:52 UTC

Hinduism is all about reincarnation, which basically translates to: you keep being reborn until all of your debt of karma is repaid. It has good points and bad points. One of the best good points is it is not an evangelical religion because everyone gets to be Hindu at some point in their existence; and all paths lead to God and Eternal Unity with the Divine Creator anyway. Bad is, too many times it's assumed that if you have bad things happening to you in this life it must be because you are paying for your sins, or bad karma, in your past life. So people don't try to improve their lives, and others even try to keep them down, saying it's all deserved. Everyone has an answer as to "Why evil?", I guess ( ... )

beraht December 10 2009, 01:07:40 UTC

I don't believe in either type of karma, but I appreciate it as an idea and try to lead my life in a karmic way. I try to pass on niceties, and actually console myself with "Well, this is just payback for when I was a dick, or did that thing I shouldn't have done" when something unfortunate befalls me.