[thesheriff443]

Well?

[GypsyGoth]

No.

[thesheriff443]

I do, I think I have lived many and been murdered.

[Kazanne]

I sometimes think so.

[mkdfan]

When bad stuff happens to me I think "I must have been a right bast in a previous life".
But not really, I used to be into the whole "past life", "ghosts", "psychics" thing but so many people are proven to be fakes that it put me off. Now I just think you live, you die. There is no heaven or hell just what we have now, so make the most of it.

[GypsyGoth]

But how come there was once a few thousand people on the planet after an ice age, and now there is 7 billion. Where have all the new conciousnesses come from? And if new conciousness are created with lives, what is the point in recycling them? It's not as if we are like spiders being born with the knowledge to make a web, we're born as pretty much blank slates.

[Kizzy]

It's so weird you say that as I think I did, Polish places look really familiar to me but I've never been.
The weirdest thing is my daughter and I were chatting about women who should go on the new tenner, I was convinced Marie Curie had been on a note... She has, in Poland

[thesheriff443]

Originally Posted by GypsyGoth

But how come there was once a few thousand people on the planet after an ice age, and now there is 7 billion. Where have all the new conciousnesses come from? And if new conciousness are created with lives, what is the point in recycling them? It's not as if we are like spiders being born with the knowledge to make a web, we're born as pretty much blank slates.

I don't know all the answers
I think the person that we grow into is already inside us!
hence we don't get to choose if we like boys or girls its just there.

[Redway]

Absolutely not.

[Kizzy]

Originally Posted by GypsyGoth

But how come there was once a few thousand people on the planet after an ice age, and now there is 7 billion. Where have all the new conciousnesses come from? And if new conciousness are created with lives, what is the point in recycling them? It's not as if we are like spiders being born with the knowledge to make a web, we're born as pretty much blank slates.

I don't believe everyone is 'new' I believe we have to keep coming back until we 'get it'.... whatever 'it' is.
I don't like to dwell on the meaning of life too much, I'm scared that if I figure it out I'll drop dead...

[Verbal]

Yes and that I am being punished in this life for past transgressions. I was probably Hitler or something.

Really confuses me that our species has this desire to hang on to some childish notions of life, consciousness, and the "soul".

People who do this actually limit their window to the real beauty of existence. People can believe what they like but recycling existence over and again? How does it follow that people often have similar personality traits to their parents, who have similar personality traits to their parents, and back in a human regression?

How far back did this start happening? Do other apes also have this recycling personality thing going on? Is it all life, or are we humans really that special?

[joeysteele]

No, I have heard some strange things from people so although saying no for myself, I cannot prove it either way so have an open mind on things like this.

[Z]

I once read a really cool thing online, I think someone might have posted it on TiBB (for some reason I have Karl in my head??) about this man who dies and goes to heaven and is told that he must go back and live every life that was ever lived before he can truly understand what life was all about and move on from the world. So he had to live the life of every evil dictator, every oppressed person etc... I really liked that.

[Livia]

Originally Posted by Jesus.

Really confuses me that our species has this desire to hang on to some childish notions of life, consciousness, and the "soul".

People who do this actually limit their window to the real beauty of existence. People can believe what they like but recycling existence over and again? How does it follow that people often have similar personality traits to their parents, who have similar personality traits to their parents, and back in a human regression?

How far back did this start happening? Do other apes also have this recycling personality thing going on? Is it all life, or are we humans really that special?

I don't think it's any sillier a notion than the premise that something as complex and perfect a creation as a human being has one short burst of life with no purpose. None of us know for sure until we actually die, so all the idea about what happens when we shuffle off this mortal coil are both possible and impossible.

Originally Posted by Livia

I don't think it's any sillier a notion than the premise that something as complex and perfect a creation as a human being has one short burst of life with no purpose. None of us know for sure until we actually die, so all the idea about what happens when we shuffle off this mortal coil are both possible and impossible.

You don't think it's sillier that there are a finite number of souls that float around nowhere waiting for sperm to hit an egg before being reassigned? I do, I think it's completely absurd. Life does have a purpose, it's just that the purpose is guided by our genes, rather than anything under our control.

Of course it's both possible and impossible, but that's a million miles away from being likely, and comes from the human desire to be special or separate from nature.

If this theory was put forward for giraffes, but not humans, people would think it's crazy. When mystical pseudo-science tries to interject itself with scientific hypotheses, then you get a mish-mash of blurred thinking, and that's all these scenarios provide. It's just not logical.

[Z]

Originally Posted by Jesus.

You don't think it's sillier that there are a finite number of souls that float around nowhere waiting for sperm to hit an egg before being reassigned? I do, I think it's completely absurd. Life does have a purpose, it's just that the purpose is guided by our genes, rather than anything under our control.

Of course it's both possible and impossible, but that's a million miles away from being likely, and comes from the human desire to be special or separate from nature.

If this theory was put forward for giraffes, but not humans, people would think it's crazy. When mystical pseudo-science tries to interject itself with scientific hypotheses, then you get a mish-mash of blurred thinking, and that's all these scenarios provide. It's just not logical.

True, but people are optimistic creatures and we like to think that by virtue of our sentient ability to be top of the food chain, that marks us out for greater things. It's only natural. It's comforting when a loved one has died and it's something to cling onto when your own life is coming to an end because on some level, most people are afraid of dying because then they'll miss out on life...

[Livia]

Originally Posted by Jesus.

You don't think it's sillier that there are a finite number of souls that float around nowhere waiting for sperm to hit an egg before being reassigned? I do, I think it's completely absurd. Life does have a purpose, it's just that the purpose is guided by our genes, rather than anything under our control.

Of course it's both possible and impossible, but that's a million miles away from being likely, and comes from the human desire to be special or separate from nature.

If this theory was put forward for giraffes, but not humans, people would think it's crazy. When mystical pseudo-science tries to interject itself with scientific hypotheses, then you get a mish-mash of blurred thinking, and that's all these scenarios provide. It's just not logical.

Life is absurd. Some of the greatest minds of humanity have been unable to answer the questions you seem to be so certain about. What's not logical is to assume your own rather bleak ideas are right and everyone else is just rather silly.

If you don't believe there is anything after death, and others do, I don't undestand the need to smash down other people's beliefs and call them absurd.

Originally Posted by Zee

True, but people are optimistic creatures and we like to think that by virtue of our sentient ability to be top of the food chain, that marks us out for greater things. It's only natural. It's comforting when a loved one has died and it's something to cling onto when your own life is coming to an end because on some level, most people are afraid of dying because then they'll miss out on life...

It's not really optimism that drives this emotion, it's fear, as your last few words prove.

Life doesn't owe us anything, and a twist of evolution doesn't mark us out as special in my view. We evolved a set of skills due to the environment we were living in and nature took care of the rest. It's an insurmountably nonsensical leap from that to theories (I use that word extremely lightly) of floating consciousness and the divine communicating with the most ignorant.

If a belief in god/reincarnation gets people through their days, then knock themselves out. Just don't make scientific claims about it.

[Z]

Originally Posted by Jesus.

It's not really optimism that drives this emotion, it's fear, as your last few words prove.

Life doesn't owe us anything, and a twist of evolution doesn't mark us out as special in my view. We evolved a set of skills due to the environment we were living in and nature took care of the rest. It's an insurmountably nonsensical leap from that to theories (I use that word extremely lightly) of floating consciousness and the divine communicating with the most ignorant.

If a belief in god/reincarnation gets people through their days, then knock themselves out. Just don't make scientific claims about it.

Some people choose to mask their fear with optimism; but it's the same thing at the end of the day/your life. Perhaps not, but that is why people think there must be a greater purpose to our lives because we, as a species, consider ourselves top of the pile. I've always held the view that science has come to explain the mysteries of God and that they are in fact one and the same. People have always attributed miracles and plagues and diseases and disasters to an act of a god; but science has come on in leaps and bounds dramatically over the last couple of centuries and has started to explain things that our ancestors couldn't.

Perhaps the end result of all that scientific explanation will be categorical proof that there is no God or afterlife; or perhaps it will prove that there is one. I don't know, I'm not making any discoveries. Like yourself, if people want to hold their beliefs about life and death that contradict my own, that's their prerogative, they are no more right or wrong than I am because we're all still alive and when we die, we're no longer a part of life.

Originally Posted by Livia

Life is absurd. Some of the greatest minds of humanity have been unable to answer the questions you seem to be so certain about. What's not logical is to assume your own rather bleak ideas are right and everyone else is just rather silly.

If you don't believe there is anything after death, and others do, I don't undestand the need to smash down other people's beliefs and call them absurd.

No one knows what will happen after we die, but we see bodies decaying, we can map deterioration in brain function (we are our brains), and we can watch life fizzle out before us. It doesn't take a great mind to philosophise on these matters, but my approach is that we get to see life disappearing before our own observable eyes.

The approach of magical thinkers is that they also get to see life disappearing before their very eyes, but somehow they know that part of us lives on and either ascends upwards, descends downwards, or floats around waiting to hitch a lift on a new life.

My views are actually completely humble to nature, anyone positing about things that happen after death have all the arrogance, and all of the work ahead of them.

[Livia]

Originally Posted by Jesus.

No one knows what will happen after we die, but we see bodies decaying, we can map deterioration in brain function (we are our brains), and we can watch life fizzle out before us. It doesn't take a great mind to philosophise on these matters, but my approach is that we get to see life disappearing before our own observable eyes.

The approach of magical thinkers is that they also get to see life disappearing before their very eyes, but somehow they know that part of us lives on and either ascends upwards, descends downwards, or floats around waiting to hitch a lift on a new life.

My views are actually completely humble to nature, anyone positing about things that happen after death have all the arrogance, and all of the work ahead of them.

Apart from the emboldended sentence, the rest of your post is self-righteous conjecture.

Originally Posted by Zee

Some people choose to mask their fear with optimism; but it's the same thing at the end of the day/your life. Perhaps not, but that is why people think there must be a greater purpose to our lives because we, as a species, consider ourselves top of the pile. I've always held the view that science has come to explain the mysteries of God and that they are in fact one and the same. People have always attributed miracles and plagues and diseases and disasters to an act of a god; but science has come on in leaps and bounds dramatically over the last couple of centuries and has started to explain things that our ancestors couldn't.

Perhaps the end result of all that scientific explanation will be categorical proof that there is no God or afterlife; or perhaps it will prove that there is one. I don't know, I'm not making any discoveries. Like yourself, if people want to hold their beliefs about life and death that contradict my own, that's their prerogative, they are no more right or wrong than I am because we're all still alive and when we die, we're no longer a part of life.

It is impossible to prove that negative, and I don't believe there will ever be a definitive answer to the question. The thing that annoys me, is that people treat it like an equal thing:

Some say this, others say that, ergo it could be either.

No, that's not true, there is no reason to believe any of it.

[Ammi]

..I don't believe in reincarnation as such in that we come back until we get it right..?...but if people do believe that then so be it, I can't disprove it either and nor can anyone else...I do however believe that our bodies expire but our energy does not and is possible 'somewhere'..the thing that makes us, us and unique and that's certainly not our bodies but something else...you can call it a soul if you want, it's only a word and doesn't matter what you call....

...I'm not stupid, naïve whatever..I don't need any comfort blankets when someone I love dies, I say this because I believe it to be true and at least a possibility and to refuse it as a possibility is just as naïve as the reverse is....

Originally Posted by Livia

Apart from the emboldended sentence, the rest of your post is self-righteous conjecture.

How so? I'll ignore the classic ad hominem. Point out which bits of that post are actually untrue?