A good one I’ve heard goes something like this.
She thinks that in a past life she was a Benedictine monk as she can see pictures of monastic life in her mind. She also has friends who have similar things so maybe there is a peer pressure thing going on.
Depending on who you talk too there is sometimes a belief that your next life will be better if you do good in your current one. Your identity may not carry forward, but the investment of good actions may result in a payoff in your next life. Though some believe that remnants of memories their past lives do carry forward.
Cirdan:
Some portion of her body surely was a Benedictine monk. On the other hand imagining things isn’t the same as remembering them.
That hardly seems like a good one. First, your hypothesis that “my memory gets wiped out and my soul goes into a new body.” does not apply for the person in question. Second, “it seems like I have no continuity with my past life.” doesn’t follow from your hypothesis that “my soul goes into a new body.” The soul transferrence is a form of continuity. The reincarnated person per the hypothesis is obviously different–they don’t share the same fingers or conscious memories, but they share at least the same soul.
False. The Earth’s continents used to be arranged altogether differently, perhaps as a supercontinent; the current arrangement of the continents can be explained in large part by the movement of tectonic plates. Catepillars metamorphize into butterflies via a predictable process. Even if you believe souls exist and some entity–or collection of entities–set the above into motion, they need not have a hand in each metamorphosis. Those could be governed by laws or underlings. Indeed, if I were a god, I would structure things so the process was done automatically in most cases That way I could focus on more important things. Y’know, like my golf swing!
An Englishman encountering a zebra for the first time could document his experience with the creature without explaining how those stripes got there. This guy can’t explain what he sees, and so he believes in reincarnation. You can’t explain the world, and so you believe… anyway, I see some similarities between you too.
I don’t expect a meaningful conversation, but it’s always possible someone is listening who is open to revising their beliefs when presented with something better.There’s no meaningful conversation possible with a person like that.
So the possibilities we’re considering are: (1) this is real, (2) this is dreamed/imagine. If it’s really important to you, I would (A) evaluate his knowledge of Benedictine monks as thoroughly as possible, (B) ask him to refrain from researching into them so as not to pollute his memories/dreams, and (C) encourage him to keep a journal where he writes down everything whenever he has an image of this Benedictine monk or his life. Ask him to write down specific words, songs, articles of clothing, architecture, titles of books, etc. that he encounters. The more you document what he actually experiences, the better your chances of an aha! moment where what he sees could not possibly occur or is something he couldn’t have known. This assumes he wants to learn more about this phenomena first-hand, as opposed to following his group’s bible / fitting into his congregation.
Suppose, today, a car runs over you and you die. Tomorrow you awake in a baby’s form in a hospital in Chicago, Illinois. It would be rational for you to believe in reincarnation (and some related beliefs, such as how quickly it occurs.) It would be irrational to espouse a unified theory of how the world was created and how we’re reincarnated, etc. although you could discount any religion that maintained reincarnation was impossible!
But if my identity does not carry forward, then how can you say that “I” am being reincarnated, or that “I” lived a previous life? What is being created is a totally new person.
What do you mean it doesn’t apply to the person in question? That is the central belief of reincarnation. That when a person dies “their” soul begins life again in another body.
No, that is not good enough. It’s most basic problem is that it does not allow for continuity of personal identity.
The person in question claims they remember a past life, so according to their beliefs reincarnation doesn’t imply that their memories were “totally wiped clean”–some traces remain.
danserr, I definitely better appreciate your point the way you’ve now phrased it.
“Formatting” a hard drive or “deleting all the files” actually leaves quite a few traces of the old files–perhaps you realized that when creating the analogy? Pictures, videos, songs, tax forms, and writings all remain to be recovered even if you “empty your recycle bin.” It’s for that reason I destroy my old drives. I can’t afford any accidental data transferral.
What if 50% of the personality is soul-based? It makes sense to call their new identity a “new person”, but not an “entirely new person”. A similar situation occured on the show Star Trek. I remember an alien symbiote who was transplanted from human to human when their bodies grew old and died. They provided 50% of the personality, but not the whole personality. There was continuity, but each new incarnation was also unique. In such a way, souls would have continuity, but personal identities would not. However, personal identity and life choices would be heavily influenced by the soul.
Somebody must decide which soul goes into which body.
LifeIsAbsurd wrote:
False. The Earth’s continents used to be arranged altogether differently, perhaps as a supercontinent; the current arrangement of the continents can be explained in large part by the movement of tectonic plates. Catepillars metamorphize into butterflies via a predictable process.
But the new arrangement of the tectonic plates was unpredictable. Not so reincarnation, in which the soul finds another human body. ( I know some groups in India think the soul can spend a life in animals or even insects, but reincarnationists like Shirley MacLaine won’t buy that. )
Caterpillas metamorphize into butterflies via a predictable process,* but it’s still the same living creature! *
Not so the reincarnated soul which is a new being.
.
What laws and underlings?
That was my question.
What makes the system work?
:coffeeread:
OTOH, the problem is, that also plays into the idea of Pantheism/New Age-ism--------“ultimately, we are all ONE and we are all GOD.”
As an “irrelevant” aside here------------As an aside, the “memory loss” question also exists for Catholics:
When someone suffers from memory loss and their personality changes as a result, would you say their soul had been replaced… or would you say there was more to a soul than memory?
