Rebirth? Reincarnation?

[Perndog]

I love how making a remark you know will upset the forum's biggest troll incites everyone that agrees with you to speak up.

EDIT: This isn't worth a whole new post for itself, but anyway: I tend to use "troll" to label anyone online who's outright antagonistic, not just someone looking to stir up trouble. That's what I meant; I know Vinth means what he says.

EDIT 2: Oh, and I don't just bait people either; if I wanted to do that, I could think of far more offensive things to say.

[The_Rorschach]

Vince is an easy target, whether you're the first or the last of many, it takes little effort of intellegence to contest him.

In any case, I believe you're mistaken in calling him a troll. Regardless of his obvious hostility and belligerance, he seems to be wholely sincere.

[The_Rorschach]

Double post

[Brandon]

Nietzsche makes an interesing contrast of Buddhism and Christianity in The Antichrist. Even though he has disdain for all "religions of decadence," he nevertheless flatters Buddhist doctrine for it's positivistic, realistic nature:

"Buddhism does not promise but fulfills; Christianity promises everything but fulfills nothing."

[VinceZeb]

Yeah, you just got me back to talk to you, Pern. Man, you made me look bad.


I saw something stupid that you said, which is par for the course from you. I gave my piece and that is about all that needs to be said about it. I also wouldn't call me a troll... because I have seen a lot of the pictures that this message board posts of themselves and I haven't seen anyone that doesn't look like a McDonald's worker or a janitor on this board. I can see why you all spend so much time on it.

[Spectre X]

Originally Posted by VinceZeb

I also wouldn't call me a troll...

Of course you wouldn't you idiot, you're oblivious to the outside world.

Now, you go back to your little happy dream world where the Catholic Samurai roam the world free and beat the crap out of all those filthy rich buddhists

[VinceZeb]

Are you blabbing incoherently again, Spectre?

[pjalne]

I'm sorry about going off-topic on thi sone, but there are a couple of things I'd like to point out. First of all, Vince admitted he was wrong about something, which as far as I know is a first.

Originally Posted by VinceZeb

Edit: Forgive me. Buddha went into a forest and climbed a tree and sat.

Let's see if he can do it again:

Originally Posted by VinceZeb

I saw something stupid that you said, which is par for the course from you. I gave my piece and that is about all that needs to be said about it. I also wouldn't call me a troll... because I have seen a lot of the pictures that this message board posts of themselves and I haven't seen anyone that doesn't look like a McDonald's worker or a janitor on this board. I can see why you all spend so much time on it.

It amazes me that after we devoted an entire thread to defining what an internet troll is and using Vince, who joined in the discussion, as an example, he still doesn't know what a troll is.

[Spectre X]

Originally Posted by VinceZeb

Are you blabbing incoherently again, Spectre?

while to you it might sound incoherent, seeing as your, well, abominably weak mind can't handle grown-up talk. But, let me assure you, the vast majority of people who go to these forums are in fact able to read what I type, perfectly.

[pjalne]

On a serious note, I don't see what the point in reincarnation would be. If we are reborn, we don't remember it. It's obvious our personalities are shaped from genetics and our environment, so none of that is transferred into the new body either. What's left except some vague 'life force'?

[Vibecrewangel]

This thread made me giggle

Doesn't that assume merely one planet, nay, one dimension? While I can see the wisdom of pragmatically believing what you can only see empirically, but I'd like to believe there's more "out there" than this. Who's to say that while our population is increasing that there isn't some other planet and/or dimension suffering some catastophic, violent end thus freeing up more souls?

This is why I likes you so much!

Those that are truly enlightened are no longer tortured and their souls are not reincarnated.

But they can choose to come back and teach others to achive the same state.

Therefore, people didn't want to keep living the lives they had there, and would rather not exist. Buddhism should have no place in the mind of a person who is able to enjoy his life.

I disagree. I completely enjoy this life. I want to learn and take in all I can from it. When I am ready I will let go and will have the opportunity to come back and learn more from a different point of view. If I am lucky enough to become enlightened I will definately choose to come back and teach others. (This DOES NOT mean as a human teacher either) Just as I am sure many have taught me.

Seriously, If you can't remember something that happened in your past life (hypothetically), how can your conciencness exist?

You need to get past the view that conciousness is "human"

"enlightened" with no proof whatsoever

And proof of God? It's all faith. Don't knock others when you yourself follow the same type of concept.

"Buddhism does not promise but fulfills; Christianity promises everything but fulfills nothing."

I think that what Christ taught would also fulfill. Chirst, Mohamed, Buddha, (insert many others here)....all great men with great wisdom to impart. Sadly....it is those that come after that tend to corrupt what these people gave to the world.

[kahljorn]

Reincarnation is entirely "theoritical", so to speak, you know with "Theories" you are allowed to speculate and make outrageous variables with details so rich and deep they seem to make sense in some fashion. I could do that now. Instead, a psalm, of non-biclical proprtions:

One, two and everything
My first and last are nothing
For it to be one
It must be everything,
All must be individual
My karma is mine, as yours is yours
My rebirth is all of mine and mine befores
Multiple possession of a single moment
Possession and mine, that's not part of the line
As if my only anchor is made of Gold
Unswaying in the coarsest weather

Everything is Individual
What does this demonstrate
That epic universe, this pulsing existence
Words to define what no man can Divine
My chronology is everywhere, an inconstant fiber
Everything as one, destroying everything I've done
That's for another place, later and before
One and everything equals two
A co-existence of opposites?
A means to achieve?
Is this the enlightenment our soul seeks
Suicide of my regrowth, it's mine
Insert clots here
Could you imagine these colors
no more strive to live, just time to die.
Chronology all over again
the unchanged changed
The unmentionable stretched beyond mentions
Filing cabinets locked away
Oceans drowning under it's own weight
Now our final confusion will commence:

The everything, the one of everything
If he truly were the such
And his words were true and truer
and yet false and falsest
for the greater good, the greatest good
Mass illusion contours, an irony there
Perhaps a trick of words, a small corruption.
Then death of old conceptions rebirthing into new
The conception flowing with it's newest form
Flirting with destiny, collisions reinforced
A universal invention for man-kind
Everything being one, itself
No need for redundancy
The tide pulls me to mention
That the wind has stalled
but the scent still drifts
perhaps attempting to understand the ocean
so he could inherit the way of a fish

The Two, of course, is interchangable
It shares factors, and eats cheetahs
Just as one and everything
Can still hold hands in the depraved mind of eyes
Mostly I would tend to mention
That ignorant breath before you exhale
Inhale with control, but don't you ever understand
Just let it flow, stand still and watch
But destroy your intuitions
And forget your inspirations
Still in that first one of everything
But someday you will succeed to another one
Only the enlightened can know, only they can save?
A flash of nirvana, a man takes a bullet for his fellow man
Ungrateful liars of time; with cactus arms
Destroying material incarnation for all your love
But only the enlightened can know
Although all are to be free(as to me they appear to be)
Hide from your growth, stay in the shade
You may still be in that parade
Apart from the unwise, the one's who eternally bleed.



It's crappy but it stemmed from a conversation like this one...

[Perndog]

I've started to wonder..what do pagans think of all this? Of the few I know personally, it never occurred to me to ask them about their religion (because they don't seem to make as big a deal of it as Christians and Jews, except for holidays), so I never got their views on what happens after death. Anyone know?

[kahljorn]

Half of the pagans are morons, just like half the satanists are. They just want to fit into a religion. Other than that I believe pagan is just a way to say, "People outside of the Christian Church". Check the dictionary We had a brief encounter over this word not too long back

[Perndog]

So I'll clarify myself by including only those who are genuinely into their religion and that belong to various Neo-Pagan nature loving religions (generally, when someone who is not a fundie says pagan these days, it's understood to mean a member of one of these groups), otherwise known as white light mystics, Wiccans, druids, etc. etc.

You're right though - it's so hip and New Age to dabble in witchcraft, paganism, and Satanism. Fucking yuppie posers.

[Brandon]

I think that what Christ taught would also fulfill. Chirst, Mohamed, Buddha, (insert many others here)....all great men with great wisdom to impart. Sadly....it is those that come after that tend to corrupt what these people gave to the world.

Buddhism, for the most part, has stayed true to what the Buddha taught. Christianity, however, has been perverted beyond belief by the church founders. Quotes attributed to Jesus in the New Testament are vastly different in their philosophy than the sort of "Christianity" Paul propogated.

To quote Nietzsche again: "There was only one Christian, and he died on the cross."

[Vibecrewangel]

ArtificalB -

I agree, but since I am for lack of a better term a Buddhist, I try not to let that color my judgement when thinking of how teachings have been changed or misinterpeted or badly translated.
And I have unfortunately met several people who claim to be Buddhist but have no understanding of the philosophy past karma, reincarnation and enlightemnment.

[Skulhedface]

The most interesting secular theory I've heard on the subject is this:

Indirectly, we all come from the Earth. As time passes, your mother and father take the Earth into themselves by eating, absorbing the Earth. Then, after time passes, a baby comes into this world, from the Earth, but with your parents as the "middlemen", so to speak.

When you die, you get buried, cremated, whatever, but you do not disappear. Your consciousness ceases, but your body, nutrient ripe as it is, is absorbed back into the Earth, to continue to fertilize the land, sprouting food or feeding livestock, whatever the case...

It's one of the most farfetched theories I've heard, but oddly enough, I find it more believable and natural than stories about a spooky man in the sky with an attention whore complex.

Regarding the Bible in that respect... I won't rattle on about proof, after all, I agree, a little faith is good if you need it or if your life is lacking otherwise, more power to you. But doesn't anyone else find it quite odd that with all the AMAZING SUPERHERO TYPE STUFF that happened in the past, according to the Bible (rivers turning into blood, fire from the sky, etc.) that we don't see any of that shit nowadays? Or that, in the last documented 500 or 1,000 years, not one bush has SPONTANEOUSLY COMBUSTED?

Food for thought. But I'm still curious as to why God suddenly decided to give up around the turn of the first millenium. And moreover, why God suddenly had a massive change of heart between the OT and the NT. Did God create Prozac at that point?

[Perndog]

Plenty of people have witnessed miracles since Biblical times. The problem is, the Church grew up and started labeling people heretics when they said God talked to them. So anyone who was confronted by a burning bush after the time of the apostles got burned himself or went off to found his own religion (Islam being the only one that has flourished to this day).

[Brandon]

Food for thought. But I'm still curious as to why God suddenly decided to give up around the turn of the first millenium. And moreover, why God suddenly had a massive change of heart between the OT and the NT. Did God create Prozac at that point?

More interesting is how God's role so easily shifted from being merely a tribal deity to the supreme creator and god of all mankind. Smells like pure public relations to me.

[Jeanette X]

Brandon is back! WOOHOO! I thought you had vanished off the face of the earth.

[Skulhedface]

Originally Posted by Perndog

Plenty of people have witnessed miracles since Biblical times. The problem is, the Church grew up and started labeling people heretics when they said God talked to them. So anyone who was confronted by a burning bush after the time of the apostles got burned himself or went off to found his own religion (Islam being the only one that has flourished to this day).

People still hear voices and claim to talk to God. These people are called schizophrenics, or they're suffering from delusions of grandeur. Nice to see the 20th Century has ways of explaining it.

Originally Posted by ArtificialBrandon

More interesting is how God's role so easily shifted from being merely a tribal deity to the supreme creator and god of all mankind. Smells like pure public relations to me.

[kahljorn]

I watched a documentary about how God/Angels were really Aliens, it explained a great many of the wonderous miracles.

WALKING ON WATER? Let's see, in the middle of a fucking desert, shiny sand surrounding you, suns out, what happens when the sun hits it? Flambingo, mirage.

MOSES PARTS THE SEAS OF CHEESE? THat was said to be like, anti-gravity thrusters gigantic thrusters on a ship blaring down or some shit.

HALOS AND BRIGHT LIGHTS SHINING UPON ALL TILL HOS ARE BLIIINDED? Put your head in between the person you're talking to and the sun. Contrary to popular belief, the sun hurts your eyes. I just saved so many poor abused eyeballs.

I can't think of anymore There were alot of them, it was interesting to see. There was even some more scriptural things, even beyond the obvious(they came from the Heeeavens).
And you guys have an addiction with Christianity, it's funny to watch your attachments. hardy har, my name is yar.

[kellychaos]

Energy never disappears, it just takes another form. Comments?

[Helm]

Yeah, fuck you.