Do you believe in reincarnation/past lives?

[#TheShadowyAbyss]

Reincarnation is the philosophical or religious concept that the soul or spirit, after biological death, can begin a new life in a new body. DO you believe in the concept of reincarnation and past lives?

[Why]

No, it is completely false.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

No. Even if it be possible, it's clearly happening in a manner wherein it provides no informative benefit to a person. Of the various answers to the question "Why do bad things happen to good people?" it is not one of my favorites.

[Young Conservative]

No, I'm a Christian

[Antonio the Sixth]

Not on a factual/material level, but I really like the idea. I actually prefer it to that of heaven, as I find the idea of unchanging eternity a bit disturbing.

[RFayette]

Not on a factual/material level, but I really like the idea. I actually prefer it to that of heaven, as I find the idea of unchanging eternity a bit disturbing.

The standard Christian position is that believers eventually inherit a new heavens and new Earth, and I think Islam has a similar concept, so I don't really think there are any belief systems that profess an unchanging eternity.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I think the idea makes more sense than that of a heaven/hell setup, but I'm creed-bound to confess the latter.

[Lexii, harbinger of chaos and sexual anarchy]

Not on a factual/material level, but I really like the idea. I actually prefer it to that of heaven, as I find the idea of unchanging eternity a bit disturbing.

The standard Christian position is that believers eventually inherit a new heavens and new Earth, and I think Islam has a similar concept, so I don't really think there are any belief systems that profess an unchanging eternity.

That's not the standard position

[afleitch]

I think the idea makes more sense than that of a heaven/hell setup, but I'm creed-bound to confess the latter.

Indeed it is (and on the second part, you're not really, unless you happen to prefer a 'set menu' faith rather than believe things you actually think you should believe in)

Anyway, this topic has came up few times over the past year and this still sums up how I feel about it;

An 'afterlife', places an enormous degree of importance on your actions (or perhaps, irrespective of your actions) in one life, whether you die in an incubator a few days old or just after your 100th birthday. As I’ve outlined before, as a fraction of infinite time it is so miniscule as to be of both no value and of equal value to the largest expanse of time you can envision (which still falls short of infinity). The living have technically no time at all. And yet their destiny is judged on that.

Even if you embrace a universalist position, allowing the consciousness an infinity of time in which to reflect and make peace therefore ensuring no one is placed in ‘hell’, given that no one knows what the standards of the arbiter (or god) are, it could well be that not one person who has ever lived has actually met those aims. Therefore there is no heaven, nor a hell, nor any place of finite rest or if there is, not a single person is there. As eternity has no end, then it may well be the case that we are spiritually chasing a destination that can never be reached.

The afterlife is is not a balanced concept as it is preoccupied with the transition of the soul or consciousness from the living to the not living. It pays little attention to the consciousness prior to it being embodied into a living being. From the not living to the living if you will. Given that the circumstances of your birth are beyond your control, the conditions under which you are born have a very significant impact on your life and the choices you make and can make, it is disjointed to place weight on the decisions that you make in life informing the circumstances after your death, but not place weight on ‘decisions’ affecting the circumstances of your life coming into being.

If I had to subscribe to any form of metaphysics with respect to a persons 'essence', then it would be logical, when dealing with the concept of a soul and knowing of birth and death and projecting onto the life in between the concept of a 'soul' inhabiting the body in life, to deduce that souls inhabiting bodies is something that souls seem to do.Therefore it seems logical (not that metaphysics can ever be logical) that souls need bodies and perhaps by extension that bodies need souls. Therefore if I was spiritually inclined then reincarnation, or if I was a little more masochistic, metempsychosis would seem to be more plausible.

[Mr. Smith]

Nope, the only past I believe in is the pre-mortal kind

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I think the idea makes more sense than that of a heaven/hell setup, but I'm creed-bound to confess the latter.

Indeed it is (and on the second part, you're not really, unless you happen to prefer a 'set menu' faith rather than believe things you actually think you should believe in)

Which I do, although I wouldn't put it that way; actually, acknowledging that there's not a 1:1 correspondence between the things I personally find credible or easy to believe and the things I'm called or bound or asked to confess has empowered me to recognize and admit when I'm not convinced by some aspect of doctrine. Until recently that caused a great deal of stress for me and made me feel boxed into taking positions with which I felt personally uncomfortable.

[RightBehind]

I don't. While it seems like a cool idea, I doubt I was anyone in the past.

[Why]

If it was true I would pity anybody who took over from a failure like me.

[Oldiesfreak1854]

I don't. While it seems like a cool idea, I doubt I was anyone in the past.

[Minstral]

Even if the concept were to be real, it would make little difference. A person usually thinks that the concept is like a re-do for a new life. They think to hit the reset button and "you" will continue. Even if real though there would be no difference between a definite death where there is no feeling and reincarnation.

Most of the philosophies concerning reincarnation hold to the ideal of removing the sum experiences of the life you live, and if you are truly the sum of your experiences than "you" will not exist in the supposed next life any more than "you" didn't exist in the previous.  If someone apply the reasoning in a deist/Christian sense (I've seen it done) then you come armed with the soul in the discussion. But again, if it were an eternal aspect of the human it would still go through a process of removing experiences once you have died. Put a clean soul/consciousness in, dye it, and then bleach it to remove the color. Repeat for eternity.

[RaphaelDLG]

I find the idea of a strictly materialistic rebirth (basically what Mufasa says to Simba in the Lion King) to be both very true and very compelling...

...but find reincarnation to be implausible, because I find the idea of a soul or non-materialistic consciousness, let alone an afterlife in the sense people usually mean it, to be implausible.

For me, it's just that the way you treat people/your actions in a very real way become other people and things after you die - you live on, for better or for worse, and not just as fertilizer.

[Lexii, harbinger of chaos and sexual anarchy]

I don't believe in any kind of afterlife, so no

[Ban my account ffs!]

If it does happen obviously we don't remember it. 

[kyc0705]

I don't believe it, but it is certainly a provocative concept. It does serve quite the incentive—be a good person in this life, so you may experience a prosperous, beneficial existence in the next one.

[Figueira]

I like to believe in it, but I really don't.

[Leinad]

If it does happen obviously we don't remember it. 

Yeah, so from that case it's kind of irrelevent if we had past lives or not. I mean, if I used to be Winston Churchill, but don't remember it, it makes no difference.

Of course, if we all *knew* reincarnation existed and remembered everything from our past lives, we'd have a bunch of fully-educated babies experimenting with fun and dangerous things in different lives--not really afraid of death since it's not permenant. That would be...an odd existence, to say the least.