The problem I have with a lot of the belief systems around reincarnation and also other kinds of afterlife come to that, is that they always sound so...I don't know...human I think. Going round the life death rebirth cycle, learning each time what you need to learn or haven't learned, always sounds so procedural and bureaucratic to me.

Theyalways sound to me like very human ideas and concepts of how to systemize and organise activities.

.

Going out on a limb here.

Yes, I'm a firm believer in reincarnation.

No, I don't believe that I was Napolean Bonaparte or other such historically significant figure in a prior life.... or a fighter pilot.

Hey bro. Tell us more.

Let me be careful with my wording here....

It seems very likely to me that a prior life was in Nazi Germany opposing Nazis, as a middle aged man. Probably killed as a political prisoner and not in any military service.

It also seems likely to me that a prior life was in Viet Nam, Laos or Cambodia during the war, as a teenage girl. Fighting the Communists with violence and ruthlessness. Possibly tortured to death at about 17-18 years old but died violently.

How have I come to believe that these lives might have been possible? Not through any individual or group's suggestions but through experiences that are too complex to describe right here and now.

I want to believe it.

When I read Brian Weiss's book, I believed it. Its just as likely as any other possibility, so why not?

I used to have glimpses of sighting a sniper rifle through the fog... But that could be a remembered dream.

The thing that makes me think it could be real is when I meet someone new and already know them.

Hmmmm, I dream the same dream everynight. It isn't a past life experience, but actual events that occured on a certain day in 2005. I'm envious and I want to believe in something

Two things:

=- The fact that everyone WANTS this to be true is, ironically, the main reason we know it isn't. We share the stories and the dreams and the desires of this world, more than the reality of it.

==- (The good side: we also share the apocalyptic beliefs of this world in a weird attempt to prepare for the end of it. So if you don't believe in reincarnation, you probably also don't believe that the Mayan calendar predicted an end to the world. It saves one a ton of worry!)

=- The universe does not owe you meaning or any explanation out of your existence. So when you say that a rational explanation can't be true because it means life is meaningless, this is like saying your cat can't be orange because it wouldn't match your maroon couch.

==- (The good side: you don't have to look hard to work out meaning if you look for it. I find meaning in trying to improve the lot of mankind. I find meaning in leaving the world a better place than when I arrived.)

The advanced reader is encouraged to read Camus' "The Myth of Sisyphus" or at least the SparkNotes. Or at least this paragraph:

A third thing:

=- Our mortality and the mortality of our loved ones is horrible and we do not wish to ponder it, but the fact that our lives are finite is something we should find meaning in.

There is a cookie that says: Life is like pinball; you bounce around, and then you drain. Life would not be the marvelous... gift, that it is, if it were everlasting. You would not play pinball if there was no open area for the ball to disappear.

The fact that it ends is something that we should find more meaning in. We get our shot, and that's it. That's what makes our time here valuable -- at all.

Nicely put Undertoad. that was great. Especially the Sisyphus bit. I had heard that a looong time ago, but forgotten.

Also, this is so well put!

Thank you D!

Life is not a "gift" for everyone.

Life is all that there is. Gift or curse, there isn't an alternative.

Rational? What does it mean? Empirical evidence? Mathematics? What I happen to believe is true?

You know what I truly believe? I truly believe that whatever the individual believes is true for them. If you get a nothing after you pass, Tony, that is what you expected and what you get. I do not believe that. I believe the soul goes thru many incarnations until it has learned a/the lesson or does not wish to return. To believe in five senses only, to see thru a mirror darkly-----what about Plato's cave? I am not alone in thinking this is the dream and the real life is elsewhere.

You take a superior tone with me here. At least I hear it. your beliefs are as valid as mine---orange cat/maroon couch notwithstanding. :P (that's a true raspberry, btw, not a fake one)