I'm no guru. I'm kinda lost. Anyway, that's my problem.

One, you don't know there is no omnibenevolent God — Thanatos Sand

I was only comparing religions on the scales of coherence. In this case, Buddhism to Abrahamic religions. I don't know if God exists but Buddhism is a more coherent theory than, say, Christianity, so far as solving the problem of evil is the issue.

Secondly, evil is not just bad deeds catching up with someone, they are also the bad deeds affecting other people. — Thanatos Sand

Yes, but everyone is getting their Karmic reward/punishment. Every person in your life, even the tiny speck of dust that enters your eye, is a Karmic messenger, there to give you happiness or pain based on your past deeds.

Karma is a justice system where everyone is both the criminal and the judge, reward/punishment being handed out in complex BUT perfect ways.

[quoteI was only comparing religions on the scales of coherence. In this case, Buddhism to Abrahamic religions. I don't know if God exists but Buddhism is a more coherent theory than, say, Christianity, so far as solving the problem of evil is the issue.][/quote]

You did say there's no omnibenevolent God, and you don't know that. And Buddhism isn't a more coherent theory than Christianity as far as solving the problem of evil; you just say it is. Christianity, particularly the Medieval theologians, has delved deeply into addressing the problem. A religion thinking it can solve the problem is just hubris.

Yes, but everyone is getting their Karmic reward/punishment. Every person in your life, even the tiny speck of dust that enters your eye, is a Karmic messenger, there to give you happiness or pain based on your past deeds.

Karma is a justice system where everyone is both the criminal and the judge, reward/punishment being handed out in complex BUT perfect ways.

Wrong. Firstly, you have no proof of this. Secondly, if bad people are getting good fortune and good people are getting bad fortune, than your justice system isn't a justice system at all. The Holocaust and Nazis getting away with it shows that. So do plane crashes where everybody who deserve different Karmic results are getting the exact same one.

Christianity, particularly the Medieval theologians, has delved deeply into addressing the problem — Thanatos Sand

Yes and what's there solution?

Original sin? Hereditary sin doesn't make sense.

Free will? What of the evil of natural disasters?

Buddhist Karma quite easily explains evil as retribution for past bad deeds.

Secondly, if bad people are getting good fortune and good people are getting bad fortune, than your justice system isn't a justice system at all. — Thanatos Sand

But...there's a next life where good is rewarded and evil punished. Karma doesn't necessarily mean we have to reap our rewards or suffer punishment in this life.

General comment to topic:

Of course the determination of whether you believe that there is or might be reincarnation is a matter of asking yourself this: What is the origin, cause, or reason for your current life? Will that origin, cause or reason continue to obtain afterwards?

Michael Ossipoff

The traditions that posit reincarnation seem to be saying "What you are is what you get."

Michael Ossipoff

Christianity, particularly the Medieval theologians, has delved deeply into addressing the problem
— Thanatos Sand

Yes and what's there solution?

I'm sure you're aware you need to specify which Christians and/or which Medieval theologians.

Original sin? Hereditary sin doesn't make sense.

Actually, the model of original sin and even predestination makes sense when you consider some of us are born with a greater genetic disposition for anger or Depression or addiction and some of us are given a genetic disposition for well-adjustedness and congeniality, and we haven't even mentioned cultural coding.

Buddhist Karma quite easily explains evil as retribution for past bad deeds.

No, it offers that as an answer. It doesnt' substantially support that, or support it at all, with real-world evidence to bear that out.

But...there's a next life where good is rewarded and evil punished. Karma doesn't necessarily mean we have to reap our rewards or suffer punishment in this life.

You say that's the case, but you have no proof of it. And if people have no memory of what they did in the past, then their suffering is pointless as far as learning. And there's something disgusting about suggesting Holocaust victims deserve what they got because its "Karma" for past misdeeds and the Nazis good fortune is Karma for past good ones.

Of course the determination of whether you believe that there is or might be reincarnation is a matter of asking yourself this: What is the origin, cause, or reason for your current life? Will that origin, cause or reason continue to obtain afterwards?

Its also a matter of asking yourself is the origin, cause, or reason for your current life something spiritual, or is it just the result of many physical & psychological phenomena that have occurred along the way.

Its also a matter of asking yourself is the origin, cause, or reason for your current life something spiritual, or is it just the result of many physical & psychological phenomena that have occurred along the way. — Thanatos Sand

No. I was referring to origin, cause or reason for the fact of your life itself, not about events and causes during your life which have influenced its eventual outcome. Those don't bear on the topic's question.

Michael Ossipoff

Of course the determination of whether you believe that there is or might be reincarnation is a matter of asking yourself this: What is the origin, cause, or reason for your current life? Will that origin, cause or reason continue to obtain afterwards?

No, as you can see, you said "What is the origin, cause, or reason for your current life?" and I addressed that with a statement that bears on the topics questions.:

Its also a matter of asking yourself is the origin, cause, or reason for your current life something spiritual, or is it just the result of many physical & psychological phenomena that have occurred along the way. — Thanatos Sand

No, as you can see, you said "What is the origin, cause, or reason for your current life?" and I addressed that:

Its also a matter of asking yourself is the origin, cause, or reason for your current life something spiritual, or is it just the result of many physical & psychological phenomena that have occurred along the way. — Thanatos Sand

Yes, you addressed something different from what I clearly stated that I was referring to. Before your most recent reply, I had already clarified that what I was referring to was not what you were replying about.

You're talking about "many physical & psychological phenomena that have occurred along the way" (during your current life), which have caused your current life to turn out as it has.

After your first reply about that, I clarified that I was referring to origin, cause or reason for "the fact of your life itself" (in other words, the fact that your life occurred at all).

Different topic.

Michael Ossipoff

No, a relevant dynamic to your proposed topic is not a different topic. But move on with your topic. I well-addressed it and will let my relevant statement stand.

No, a relevant dynamic to your proposed topic is not a different topic. But move on with your topic. I well-addressed it and will let my relevant statement stand. — Thanatos Sand

My topic was the origin, cause or reason for the fact that your life occurred at all.

Your topic was developmental influences during your current life.

The influences to which you refer occurred after the beginning of your current life, and aren't relevant to the origin, cause or reason for that life's initial occurrence.

...or to my post, or to this topic.

But thank you, Thanatos, for providing us with such a classic textbook example of a troll.

Michael Ossipoff

The influences to which you refer occurred after the beginning of your current life, and aren't relevant to the origin, cause or reason for that life's initial occurrence.

Of course they are since they are a possible alternative to how one got to their current life. And you did talk about one's current life

General comment to topic:

Of course the determination of whether you believe that there is or might be reincarnation is a matter of asking yourself this: What is the origin, cause, or reason for your current life? Will that origin, cause or reason continue to obtain afterwards?

Michael Ossipoff

So, the only one who has provided us with a classic textbook example of a troll is you. So, I ask that you stop trolling me. I will not read or respond to any more of your posts on this thread.

I will not read or respond to any more of your posts on this thread. — Thanatos Sand

Promise?

Than thank you for that too.

My previous replies are sufficient, and there's no need or reason for me to continue answering the same repeated confusion.

Michael Ossipoff

But is there a way around such objections? — Banno

I think it depends on what, if any, continuity, one wishes to attach to one's idea of reincarnation. If there is no practical continuity attached, in the form of memories or tangible characteristics, I think one can only make sense of the idea if one believes in Aristotelian essences. Then one can say that one's essence is the same as that of Napoleon, even though there is nothing else of note that is shared. This hypothesis is, of course, unfalsifiable.

If one wants to attach things like recovered memories (I remember the cannons at Austerlitz, the embrace of Josephine) then one might not have to be an Essentialist. But recovered-memory ideas of reincarnation do seem pretty kooky to most of us.

If we discard the notion of the self, like Nagarjuna or Hume, then we can get an idea of reincarnation along the lines that it is simply life or consciousness - the totality of all alive or conscious beings - that goes on. A bit Circle-Of-Life ish, perhaps a bit hippy, but not nearly as woo as 'Reincarnation' usually seems.

an excellent summation; it must be, because I am heading to much the same conclusions.

Discarding essences, the self can be thought of as like a rope in which no strand runs the full length, and yet the rope is treated as a whole.

But even then, what exactly are the strands that go from one life to another?

Souls are then defined as parts of us living in parallel universes?
But why, what's all this stuff for, what's it supposed to account for...?
And how would we differentiate it all from fiction? — jorndoe

This is the point I tried to clarify with Banno. You cannot think of the soul as a part of yourself. Souls have bodies, and bodies have parts. So the soul cannot be a part of yourself. Until you understand the need to assume a soul which to attribute the living body to, as the property of that soul, any talk about the relationship between the soul and the body will appear as fiction to you.

As per my example, you can look above your head, and say "I see blue", and to the person who wants to talk about the sky, you can insist "What sky? All I see is blue, there is no sky to be talked about, only blue". Until you see the need to assume the sky, which is blue, any attempt to discuss the finer points nature of the sky is pointless. Likewise, until you see the need to assume a soul, which has as its property, the living body, any attempt to discuss the nature of the soul is rather pointless.

This is the point I tried to clarify with Banno. You cannot think of the soul as a part of yourself. Souls have bodies, and bodies have parts. So the soul cannot be a part of yourself.

If souls have bodies and their bodies have parts and cannot be a part of ourselves, what are they, how and why do they exist, and what are their connections to us? Using your definition, they sound like Angels or aliens.

This is the point I tried to clarify with Banno. You cannot think of the soul as a part of yourself. Souls have bodies, and bodies have parts. So the soul cannot be a part of yourself. Until you understand the need to assume a soul which to attribute the living body to, as the property of that soul, any talk about the relationship between the soul and the body will appear as fiction to you. — Metaphysician Undercover

What are we talking about? If it's 'something' that is indestructible, unchangeable, immortal, beyond time and space, then how do we demonstrate the existence of such a reality?

Having said that, I don't buy into the idea that you 'have' or 'don't have' a soul. What I think 'soul' means, is really something like 'the totality of the being'. And the totality includes, for instance, proclivities, likings, tendencies, attributes, the past and the future. But it is not an objectively real entity or object of perception.

That said, I think at the root of many spiritual traditiions, is the idea that 'the soul' transcends the physical. That doesn't mean it's a 'substance' in the sense we nowadays understand the word. But in dualist philosophies, the soul is something that is real on a plane other than the physical; it intersects with the physical, but it is not physical, and the reason for the soul's bondage is because it has become attached to or trapped in the physical, by identifying with it.

"What you are is what you get." — Michael Ossipoff

Ok, but do you think reincarnation is true? Does reincarnation require an indestructible soul?

I'm not saying Karma and rebirth are true. As a hypothesis Buddhism is better than Abrahamic religions.

But even then, what exactly are the strands that go from one life to another? — Banno

Religion is inherently about morality. Any moral system is heavily dependent on responsibility, culpability, fairness, justice, reward and punishment. All of these become meaningless in the absence of a person (soul?) that is responsible for an action and that bears the repercussions of the action. Punishing/rewarding Tom for Dick's actions is simply incomprehensible.

How about shifting the burden of explaining this whole business to biology. Biological continuity happens through DNA and I wouldn't be wrong in saying there's an identity I share with my ancestors - they, even if in the slightest sense, live in me. From this angle if I were to suffer/enjoy on account of the deeds of my ancestors it wouldn't be completely incoherent.

Also, the doctrine of Original Sin seems to make sense on this view.

"

Their genes live in you. Their "identities," which are made up of far more than genetic material, do not.

Well, I was only trying to make sense of original sin - that we suffer for Adam and Eve's mistake.

Also, this is a topic where knowledge is scarce. So, I think it's open to speculation.

Also, this is a topic where knowledge is scarce. So, I think it's open to speculation.

It's not open to fantastical or erroneous speculation. It is a fact that our identities are made up of more than just our genes; our life experience and socio-cultural surroundings have a huge influence and part. And there is nothing in Genetics pointing to identities being passed down genetically; so to think otherwise is anti-scientific.

And there is nothing in Genetics pointing to identities being passed down genetically; so to think otherwise is anti-scientific — Thanatos Sand

You have too much faith in science.

You have too much faith in science.

No, I have completely appropriate and rational belief in science. You have too much unfounded faith in the fantastical world you see beyond it.

And Genetics, by the way, is science, so you're relying on science as well, just not as well as you should.

No, I have completely appropriate and rational belief in science. You have too much unfounded faith in the fantastical world you see beyond it — Thanatos Sand

You could be right. I don't know. I've been having strange experiences last few years. Anyway...be rational but leave some room for spirituality. Not an advice, just a suggestion.:)

I completely agree with that advice...:)

If it's 'something' that is indestructible, unchangeable, immortal, beyond time and space, then how do we demonstrate the existence of such a reality? — Wayfarer

The way I see it is that the necessity to assume the existence of a soul is understood by logic. All these different things which are said about the soul, that it is immutable, immortal, etc., are not necessarily true, because no one really knows the exact nature of the soul. And perhaps we cannot know it. This is similar to God. The need to assume God can be demonstrated, but when we start saying things about God, omnipotent, omnibenevolent, etc., it is quite likely that untruths are said because we don't really know the exact nature of God.

Having said that, I don't buy into the idea that you 'have' or 'don't have' a soul. What I think 'soul' means, is really something like 'the totality of the being'. And the totality includes, for instance, proclivities, likings, tendencies, attributes, the past and the future. But it is not an objectively real entity or object of perception. — Wayfarer

The idea that a person "has a soul", is what I argued against, as a misrepresentation, which leads to confusion and the claim that the concept of the soul is nonsense. I think that to properly understand the soul, one must understand that the living body is a property of the soul and not vise versa.

That said, I think at the root of many spiritual traditiions, is the idea that 'the soul' transcends the physical. — Wayfarer

The idea that the soul transcends physical existence is produced by the logical demonstration. To state it very simply, it is evident that the form which the living body will have, precedes the actual existence of the living body. This can be readily observed in the free will act, which is a manifestation of the existence of the soul. The form which the act will take precedes the existence of the physical act.

If souls have bodies and their bodies have parts and cannot be a part of ourselves, what are they, how and why do they exist, and what are their connections to us? Using your definition, they sound like Angels or aliens. — Thanatos Sand

Do you understand the notion of looking at things, and trying to figure out why a certain type of thing behaves the way it does, and coming to the conclusion that there is something underlying that thing which is not immediately evident to your senses, but must be there in order to account for how that thing behaves? We can give that underlying thing a name, an identity, while knowing very little about it, just that it must be there in order to account for the way that the things are behaving. Take gravity for example.