“Congratulations on your new baby! We wanted to inform you that there’s currently a $213,950 balance on their student loans due from their previous life. We’ve transferred the debt to their name and their credit is already in the toilet.”
Are you kidding me I’m not gonna repeat all the time I’ve already served.
Yes you will.
Life sucks?
Have you tried turning it off and on again?
Shit I’m a dung beetle now…yes that’s why you don’t do that for reincarnation. Though be better than working for my boss right?rimshot but seriously live out your life it’s the only one you’ll ever know even if you get reincarnated. Maybe it’ll surprise you one day.
I’m pretty sure in Buddha, where the concept of reincarnation comes from, suicide would negatively affect the karma, which would affect how one would reincarnate. CMIIW tho
As if religious teachings ever stopped people from doing certain things…
Lmao, who cares about “religion bad” in this thread? I thought we’re talking hypothetical here. We’re talking if it is real, and I am assuming it would be as the scriptures describe.
One step forward, two steps back.
But you don’t retain your memories from the previous life, and what if you are reborn as someone who has a worse life and isn’t aware they can do it again?
Frankly I think there’s already a gap on this with religious belief. If SO many people truly believe in god and an afterlife, there should be more suicides. Okay, it’s a sin. Fine. But then why aren’t people happier when a relative passes? It’s almost like no one actually really believes this shit at the end of the day.
I’ve always said that if I were to believe that there was an eternal afterlife that entry depended on how you lived your relatively short life on Earth, then why would I waste any time in life doing anything other than securing my chances at the good afterlife. Like if you actually believed that, then wouldn’t you live your life as a model person according to how the Bible says you should? It’s shortsighted to do anything else with your life.
There are many religions and it seems likely they all are just different interpretations of the same source idea - that our lives have a higher purpose.
But I dont think you can be sure that its the Bible that is correct. What if the Koran is correct?
You cant really optimize your life by following a book we dont even know how much its been manipulated since creation. So most people are just trying to do the best they can.
Let’s say this life is all you get: wouldn’t you also do a million things to stay healthy and live longer, which most people do not do?
We invented the afterlife because it’s hard to deal with the fact that life is sometimes nasty, brutish, and short. Death is pretty hard to face too. So we lie to ourselves and each other about it. Simple as that.
The problem is that there’s a loophole where you just have to say sorry and all is forgiven.
That’s why suicide is a mortal sin, because you can’t say sorry after.
Although when my step nephew killed himself (didn’t really know him) all they could talk about was that he’s in heaven now.
I am atheistic and agnostic personally, so not speaking from faith but:
People can have two (or more) emotions at the same time, they can be happy and joyfull that their relative is in a better place now and at the same time sad and tearfull that the person is no longer with them. Happy for the dead, sad for themself.
It is not a contradiction, it only shows the very deep and complicated ways of our mind and emotions.
That’s fair - I’d agree. I guess I just don’t see the happy at all.
I think that is because emotions for ourself are stronger and directer then those that we feel in behave of others. The pain and sadness of the personal loss overshadows the happyness that the other person is in a better place.
But this is only my personal explanation, based on my 45 years on this planet but without any hard facts or scientific data to back it up.
I can’t speak for all religions, but in Christianity suicide is a grave sin, so doing that guarantees eternal damnation.
The other bit, people not being happy about a loved one passing, is not really an issue too - it’s just the “logic of faith” vs “emotions of loss”. Even if we knew for a fact that once you die you get reincarnated into a Happy Bunny, people would still grieve, because that’s how our brain chemistry works.
Things explainable with doctrine are explained with doctrine. Things that defy doctrinal explanation are biological or “just because.”
Don’t worry, Chief, I don’t even expect logic from religion, so don’t try.
I have no clue what you mean. Other than stating that suicide is a grave sin, I never touched doctrine or “religion logic”. What are you talking about?
You touched doctrinal explanation when you explained how religious people still grieve for a lost one when their entire religion is about how the afterlife is real.
It does not make sense if you think in the logic of the religion. But we are used to religions not being logical.
Maybe you need to read what I wrote again…?
My doctrinal explanation was about suicide being a sin, which is the reason for people of faith not offing themselves left and right. This has nothing to do with how a person handles grief because it’s a different topic.
In terms of grief, I explained that however people may understand the logic of the doctrine, their physical bodies still react to the chemical signals received, and therefore grief is still present.
I’m baffled at your take that this is somehow a “doctrinal explanation”, mate. It’s literally the opposite, I’m talking about biology here.
I’ve always had the same thought. You’d think funerals would be celebrations for the religious.
In more secular societies, over the last couple of years, people are celebrating more at funerals. Which, IMO, is a better way to remember a dead loved one.
I’d rather they have fun once more on my account when I die than just sit around being sad.
Yeah, I’ve seen the “celebration of life” becoming more popular.
Right? We’d celebrate death anniversaries, not birthdays.
The short story collection/sorta novel Haunted by Pahlanuik ends with the discovery that the planet Venus (I think? Might have been Jupiter) is essentially an eternal awesome orgy heaven, which everyone will eventually end up reincarnating on when they die. So everyone on earth essentially decides to kill themselves. Stores have to start locking up suicide kits because people will just take them in the store and die before paying.
That entire thing is fucked up. I read it somewhere around sophomore year of high school and existentially traumatized me. There are stories in there that somehow 4chan shock image level in just written words.
Pahlanuik has a certain way of planting images in your brain that stay there for decades. Such a weird, brilliant, fascinating and slightly off-putting author. He really captures the ennui, alienation, despair, and absurdity of late-stage capitalism.
stay there for decades
Yeah. I read that book 20 years ago, and I can still vividly remember someone microwaving some meat and discovering that it was their own ass cheek, or a cis woman being accused of being trans and being sexually assaulted, someone falling into a spring at Yosemite, and of course, “Guts.”
He has a schtick with memorable twists, similar to Fight Club. I think Choke was the only novel of his I remember not really having a giant record scratch moment - Lullaby, Invisible Monsters, etc have huge twists. Like discovering the orgy heaven at the end of Haunted which really just serves to punch you in the gut - absolutely all of the fucked up things that the characters were doing to try to be famous was absolutely pointless, because everyone on Earth is killing themselves anyways.
The only fiction authors I can think of that have given me the same level of intense shock and revulsion would be Ágota Kristóf with the Notebook trilogy (which is spectacular and everyone should read) and Samuel Delany’s Hogg (which no one should read under any circumstances.)
For a moment i read Suicide rats would likely rise sharply if reincarnation were ever proven. and i’ll just leave it at that.
Good band name, callin’ it.
If I could be a bumblebee for 12 seconds I’d do it
You can still wiggle your butt and dance, sister!
Oh wait. That’s honey bees. Do bumblebees do anything fun?
They bumble! Bumbling seems fun.
Nah, I tried it and never got any matches
Technically reincarnation is for realsies. Your bits and pieces will be used by nature again.
To be even more technical. You are being reincarnated constantly.
We shed skin and cells and those become something else while our own body rebuilds itself constantly from other life.
The only cells in the body that dont change out are neurons and sensory receptors.
A lot of proteins stay forever though. Like bones, teeth, and probably a lot of proteins in muscles. A lot of others I’m not listing.
But the cells themselves are always dying and being remade (except neurons and receptors).
Flesh of Theseus.
Theseus of Theseus
I’ve been vegan for over a decade, so with constant cell regrowth I’m photosynthesis with extra steps.
Every animal is photosynthesis with extra steps, some just have more steps.
Well yes, that is technically true. It’s just not as funny to say.
thats like the concept of buddhist reincarnation, there is no “soul”, ego is illusion in buddhism
like a stream of consciousness constantly travelling through cycles
I think about it in a slightly different way.
Once I’m dead, people will keep being born. When I think real hard about it, it’s pretty much the same as reincarnation except there’s no need for some kind of immortal soul.
There’s no functional difference between my experience of being born and someone else’s after I’m dead. In both cases, a new person wakes up inside a meat suit and thinks “this is me.” This is already reincarnation without a hard drive and a rating algorithm.
even moreso. ever meet people that are a type. where several are really similar. I have even seen and met my own type. not only will people continue being born but ones a lot like you.
I don’t want to live forever through my work. I want to do it through not dying.
- Woody Allen
You’re actually right on the money. Reincarnation based on certain systems is exactly that, when look at it from it’s proper philosophical framework. But you can just pull it out from it’s framework, cram it to a completely different framework (like one that believes in individual souls) and then claim it doesn’t work.
From the perspective of nonduality, everyone is a reincarnation of everyone, always. It’s internally coherent. Also a great reason to practice compassion. Of course people don’t super love the idea of being the reincarnation on people they don’t like, dead or alive. But that’s one of the many reasons nonduality isn’t for the faint of heart.
Is that like how we are all a single consciousness simultaneously inhabiting each person across space and time? That idea appeals to me. Don’t know that I’d say I believe it, but it appeals to me.
Not quite. We have the appearance of (what we call) individuals within one single consciousness. It appears to reflect upon itself from what we take to be individual vantage points (people). That is an imperfect characterization though, try as I might. I’m pointing to consciousness before any thoughts - before you think there’s a you, separate from anyone or anything. Pure experience, before thinking ABOUT it.
Good point. What even is reincarnation if you can’t remember a thing?
If the universe/multiverse is actually infinite, then just regular reincarnation is real as well, from a continuity of consciousness point of view.
Which means we’re all the same being, a.k.a Nature, among many other names.
Some dinosaurs have been waiting for a loooong time.
Dinosaurs reincarnated as all sort of species later on, including human. This manifests in multitude of ways, for example when a furry person has a weird kink for dinosaurs - it’s very likely they were one in a past life.
If I had to go through my childhood and resulting alienated adulthood again, I’d try to delay death as long as possible to NOT go through it.
It would depend on how reincarnation works. Do I know I’ll be reborn in a better life? They say the grass is always greener, everyone has problems and perceives others as better off. My old guidance counselor’s husband said that if everyone sat in a circle, wrote down their problems, put them in a hat, and randomly drew other people’s problems, everyone would want their own problems back
It would be a lot like speed runners in games. You just keep resetting until you get a good spawn.
There’d still be a five or so yeah buffer on it, and who’s to say that won’t be worse. Fun fact I read a pre fall of the eldar fanfic with this basis, it just kept getting worse until Slaanesh was murder fucked into existence.
This assumes you don’t get stuck as something that can’t kill itself to re-roll.
But you’d have to suffer through infancy and childhood until you’re old enough to have the capability to kill yourself
No wonder toddlers are always doing the most dangerous shit
I read a short story back in college about a woman who helped people remember their past lives. Somehow she gets transported to a universe where reincarnation is completely real and everyone remembers all their previous past lives. Suicide was rampant and the world generally sucked. She somehow transitions to helping people forget their past lives to make the world a better place. I really wish I could remember the title of the story.
For some reason this makes me think of something I read in a junior high English class. A group of surfers is driving to the beach when they drive through a tunnel and emerge into gridlock traffic. They inch forward for hours and it gets really hot. The driver finally flags down a passing cop and asks what the deal is. “Oh, you guys died in the tunnel back there and now you’re in hell.”
The story was called The Jam.
Maybe it does and the queue is so long we just forget about our old life by the time our number comes up
The existence of a queue sparks the follow-up question: What happens if something is born while the queue is empty?
Donald J. Trump.
Miscarriage?
Mushrooms.
They came before the queue got started and will be here long after it finishes.Pillars of Eternity happens.
I read a short story once that there’s only one person constantly reincarnated simultaneously, and everyone you (I) meet is actually me (you) and only realizes it after death before being born into the next person’s body,
That’s interesting. I’ve had that same thought before, it might be cool to see someone else’s take on it. Do you remember the name of the story or author?
The Egg, by Andy Weir.
It’s also on YouTube in various forms. Kurzgesagt, for example, has a version in their animation style.
Oh my god. That was Andy Weir?!
I don’t actually believe this, but it’s the perspective I try to have in life. Always treat others how you want to be treated because maybe one day it will be you.
I’ve found myself having to use something like “try to treat people how they want to be treated” as a perspective. Being autistic I’ve learned the hard way what I want is usually very different from what most people around me want, which means I can’t really rely on myself on these matters. It’s easy to think through ourselves, but considering others through ourselves doesn’t always end up being the best course of action. Though I guess just being compassionate gets you pretty far either way
In my story, Maizy’s Tails, I made it so that souls had to be aged for 1000 years before they could be reincarnated. Otherwise the lingering attachment (which makes souls weightless) won’t allow them to enter into a new body.
The 1000 years is just a nice, round figure the gods use as a safe baseline. Some souls might only need 200 years while others might need 950 or so. Best to just place them all into balloons and let them age in batches 👍
Come on big money, no whammies… awww sheep liver fluke again
