Maybe animals know that, and that’s why livestock are so docile about their situation.
The short story collection/sorta novel Haunted by Pahlanuik ends with the discovery that the planet Venus (I think? Might have been Jupiter) is essentially an eternal awesome orgy heaven, which everyone will eventually end up reincarnating on when they die. So everyone on earth essentially decides to kill themselves. Stores have to start locking up suicide kits because people will just take them in the store and die before paying.
That entire thing is fucked up. I read it somewhere around sophomore year of high school and existentially traumatized me. There are stories in there that somehow 4chan shock image level in just written words.
Yeah and get reincarnated as a stink bug, roll shit all day. And since you don’t have sentience you won’t be able to kill yourself again.
I highly doubt it. Believers say that when a person dies, their memories are pretty much obliterated. So even if someone is going to be reborn, who they were no longer exists.
If I had to go through my childhood and resulting alienated adulthood again, I’d try to delay death as long as possible to NOT go through it.
Life sucks?
Have you tried turning it off and on again?
Shit I’m a dung beetle now…yes that’s why you don’t do that for reincarnation. Though be better than working for my boss right?rimshot but seriously live out your life it’s the only one you’ll ever know even if you get reincarnated. Maybe it’ll surprise you one day.
I don’t follow. Is reincarnation not usually effected by the life you lead?
We’re not talking about a stage production, movie set, nor a DJ performance; you meant “affected”, not “effected”.
That’s a yes in Hinduism
Frankly I think there’s already a gap on this with religious belief. If SO many people truly believe in god and an afterlife, there should be more suicides. Okay, it’s a sin. Fine. But then why aren’t people happier when a relative passes? It’s almost like no one actually really believes this shit at the end of the day.
I can’t speak for all religions, but in Christianity suicide is a grave sin, so doing that guarantees eternal damnation.
The other bit, people not being happy about a loved one passing, is not really an issue too - it’s just the “logic of faith” vs “emotions of loss”. Even if we knew for a fact that once you die you get reincarnated into a Happy Bunny, people would still grieve, because that’s how our brain chemistry works.
Things explainable with doctrine are explained with doctrine. Things that defy doctrinal explanation are biological or “just because.”
Don’t worry, Chief, I don’t even expect logic from religion, so don’t try.
I’ve always said that if I were to believe that there was an eternal afterlife that entry depended on how you lived your relatively short life on Earth, then why would I waste any time in life doing anything other than securing my chances at the good afterlife. Like if you actually believed that, then wouldn’t you live your life as a model person according to how the Bible says you should? It’s shortsighted to do anything else with your life.
Let’s say this life is all you get: wouldn’t you also do a million things to stay healthy and live longer, which most people do not do?
We invented the afterlife because it’s hard to deal with the fact that life is sometimes nasty, brutish, and short. Death is pretty hard to face too. So we lie to ourselves and each other about it. Simple as that.
There are many religions and it seems likely they all are just different interpretations of the same source idea - that our lives have a higher purpose.
But I dont think you can be sure that its the Bible that is correct. What if the Koran is correct?
You cant really optimize your life by following a book we dont even know how much its been manipulated since creation. So most people are just trying to do the best they can.
The problem is that there’s a loophole where you just have to say sorry and all is forgiven.
That’s why suicide is a mortal sin, because you can’t say sorry after.
Although when my step nephew killed himself (didn’t really know him) all they could talk about was that he’s in heaven now.
I’ve always had the same thought. You’d think funerals would be celebrations for the religious.
Right? We’d celebrate death anniversaries, not birthdays.
Come on big money, no whammies… awww sheep liver fluke again
What is reincarnation without memory? It’s nothing. The same as it is without reincarnation. The same nothing as exists now.
It’s an escape hatch of your current existence is shit, play the lottery and try again for a better luck, even if you don’t remember your pervious attempt
The argument is that there is no “you” without memory.
It would depend on how reincarnation works. Do I know I’ll be reborn in a better life? They say the grass is always greener, everyone has problems and perceives others as better off. My old guidance counselor’s husband said that if everyone sat in a circle, wrote down their problems, put them in a hat, and randomly drew other people’s problems, everyone would want their own problems back
It would be a lot like speed runners in games. You just keep resetting until you get a good spawn.
There’d still be a five or so yeah buffer on it, and who’s to say that won’t be worse. Fun fact I read a pre fall of the eldar fanfic with this basis, it just kept getting worse until Slaanesh was murder fucked into existence.
This assumes you don’t get stuck as something that can’t kill itself to re-roll.
But you’d have to suffer through infancy and childhood until you’re old enough to have the capability to kill yourself
No wonder toddlers are always doing the most dangerous shit
I read a short story back in college about a woman who helped people remember their past lives. Somehow she gets transported to a universe where reincarnation is completely real and everyone remembers all their previous past lives. Suicide was rampant and the world generally sucked. She somehow transitions to helping people forget their past lives to make the world a better place. I really wish I could remember the title of the story.
Back in our AD&D 2e days my buddy would name any character whose rolled stats were sub-par “Cliff” and then will l try again. Guess where Cliff went?
FATAL lets you generate a character with negative health that dies instantly. It’s funny to imagine someone popping into existence and then immediately realizing the setting and offing themselves.
Cultists are already kinda like that, even christians that believe in the afterlife. They don’t care if they’re destroying the environment, because the real life begins after the current one.
Trouble is they want to take the rest us with them. See how they attacked Iran.
I know a lot of Christians, and they have normal views on pollution and the environment. They are about as apathetic about the issue as the rest of us.
…they make similar arguments about atheists. “Since they don’t believe in sin, they are selfish and violent.”
I started thinking that it’s crazy that those who do believe in reincarnation always seem to think they are gonna end up back here on Earth. If that shit was real, it would have to be a part of the laws governing the entire universe. Maybe it is real, but nobody on Earth has ever reincarnated back to Earth. They became an alien on another planet trillions of lightyears away.
They became an alien on another planet trillions of lightyears away.
That sounds like an improvement.
If this were the case, what if your soul also had to adhere to the speed of light on its way to reincarnation. So iw you were reincarnated into a creature 1000 LY away, it wouldn’t happen for 1000 years.
imagine it’s FTL.
We manage to preserve messages between reincarnations.
Gets studied to bits by science. Someone develops FTL communication by giving someone a message, offing them and them delivering the message at the new place.
Except that there are a ton of potential places to reincarnate at. So every message needs massive redundancy to properly deliver
reincarnation based FTL communication
Gotta kill 10,000 people just to get a message to one place.
What if it didn’t and the spiritual space your soul inhabits between bodies is discovered and exploited as a means for faster than light travel.
So you’d have a non zero chance of being run over by a starship on your way to your next corporeal form
What happens if you die in transit? Could you? 🤣
Now we got a book idea. 😃
