YO! This is the SCIENCE forum/group.

As a Buddhist, I think it's bunk.

I believe when you die you die. There's no divine reprieve in any form. Without a (nonexistent) deity or a (nonexistent) soul, there is no mechanism to allow for a dead person to live again. Even if it were possible, without your memories, experience, and knowledge your reincarnated self wouldn't be you. It just seems pointless.

That's a dead subject.......LOL

I have yet to encounter anyone who can provide science in support of the idea of reincarnation. That being the case, it is difficult to suggest that it is anything more than fear of death manifesting in another form. Until there is evidence and/or science that applies specifically to the issue, for me it remains in the realm of another layer of woo.

I do not dismiss the life work of Ian Stevenson out of hand. Some things are simply mysteries and no one knows the answer.

I feel that our sense of self as a separate person in a body is an illusion, and that if you share memories with a person now dead, that is also illusional. It wouldn’t mean that you ARE that person.

Out true essence is something else.

Evidence exists for The Easter Bunny and Santa Claus. I have never found evidence for reincarnation.

My progression was as follows.
I want to believe in life after death because I can't imagine what it would be like to not be alive.
I guess not being alive is what it was like before I was born. I can accept I wasn't alive then.
But what about reincarnation - what if I was alive before I was born?
Well if I don't share memories or a body with that person then in what sense am I the same person?
And what about exponential population growth?
No, if I want to achieve something then this life is my only chance. Just get on with it!

It is more of an eastern belief and I don't think it is mentioned in any of the Abrahamic religions.
If you look at it from a biological perspective, What is there to transfer to another being ?. As far as we are aware all the memories, thoughts feelings etc are contained in the brain and when that dies and decays there is nothing left. Even if in the very unlikely case that a of a spark of electricity leaves a body when it dies and transfers to another it wouldn't really mean anything as there would be nothing of the original personality in it.

Hopefully no one here thinks they speak for all of us.

It is less of an atheist question than a (a-)spiritualist one. I could easily posit a belief system which includes reincarnation, no god required. I would say they all fall into the "I'll believe it when you can prove it" category, until then, accept the hypothesis that such a thing ain't so.

As an agnostic i see no evidence of reincarnation but I must also be open to the slightest possibility of its existence

As much nonsense as gods and religion, and other forms of magic and the supernatural.
It's all bs to me.

That it's important in the context of Doctor Who, but otherwise not to be worried about.

I take reincarnation as a myth, just like the rest of religion.

We don't. At least, I don't. I find it beyond the realm of possibility within the bounds of My knowledge and no significant evidence to demonstrate otherwise.

This is an especially troubling one for me. When I first began to study the vedas years ago - rebirth was my biggest "hang-up" issue as a skeptic. As a secular seeker I could buy many of the ideas expressed in the upanishads, but reincarnation was just a step too far. I grew up with the typical western ignorance of eastern beliefs so I thought all Hindus worshipped gods and believed in impossible crap like reincarnation.This is why I immediately dismissed other Hindu beliefs and focused solely on the Buddhists (who had a great many secular practitioners).

But after a few years of study and practice as a Buddhist (along with living at the Kopan monastery in Kathmandu) I found myself believing in the self after much meditating. In fact, it was more than a belief because I personally experienced the self. This put me at odds with the Buddhists' views of "no self" so after arguing with them for almost a year I dove into the rest of the vedas and pursued advaita vedanta - the monistic belief within Hinduism.

Hindus freely admit through ishta devata that their gods and the stories are all myth ... and that the devotion and other bhakti practices are more about the psychology than actual mysticism. As a secular seeker this appealed to me. What I did not get was the reincarnation part. Like many of the medical doctors who come to America from India I was having to learn how to filter out the bullshit of Indian beliefs and keep the parts that were feasible. These guys were actually studying and using psychology 3,000 years ago so I found legitimacy in some of their madness.

Over the last 5 years or so I have become convinced that their view of karma is in error and this is the origin of the reincarnation mythos. Obviously there's no god sitting up on high keeping a ledger of immoral things people did. But my experience with the history and other aspects of the vedas has been that there was a small kernel of truth that was warped and blown all out of proportion by ignorant speculation. I think this is where the whole reincarnation thing comes from. Keep in mind that in eastern philosophy and science they start with results and work their way backwards ... thousands of years of results. This is why they have so many stupid sounding biological viewpoints that Indian doctors who venture west are forced to abandon and relearn the real mechanisms through western science. After the renaissance our adherence to the scientific method (which originated in the near east) meant that we relied on knowing the mechanism which was "proven" by evidence of repeatable, predictable results. 2,000 years before that the Indians had their own way to "prove" things (epistemology). But over the years various "experts" would go out on a limb with bullshit speculation and then others would expand on that for centuries. I figure this is where the whole reincarnation bullshit comes from.

Now, that said, I think there is a basis for some thoughts of rebirth. All of those stories, some rather verifiable, of children exhibiting memories from past lives aren't all just coincidence. But I am not convinced that reincarnation is the answer and even the Indians own "3 Pillars" required for proving something werent met by the concept. There is something going on but this convoluted explanation wasn't supported. I do believe that at some point we will find that vibrations somehow form the basis of field theory and those vibrations vary based on emotions and feelings and somehow "color" our self. But for now it's all speculation and all I know for sure is morality is bullshit.

I'm a definitive atheist, but I do see physics, and all existence being the same energy vibrating at different frequencies, to allow for the potential for energy to become imprinted with some form of memory, or record. From there it may be quite a broad leap to a 'soul' moving from one life-form, to another, but since energy can neither be created or destroyed, and merly changes form, if therre is a 'soul-like' imprint? I definitely wouldn't go so far as to say I believe, but there are a number of Eastern religions that seemed to have a few intelligent philosophers of them. Food for thought, and good question.