<p>Pattykk’s post about her amazing nephew got me to wondering…Do any of you intelligent, logical and insightful regulars to the Parent’s forum believe in reincarnation—past lives? Sometimes I think it’s possible that we do “recycle”, but other times, I think the idea is nuts. Whatever your view, why do you believe what you do?</p>
<p>I believe we recycle…but I’m not sure that we recycle into the same reality(life as humans on earth). I believe other existences can be more different than we could imagine.</p>
<p>Que the Twilight Zone music…</p>
<p>I’ll start believing in past lives when people start saying their past life was as a toothless tater digger. Not everyone could have been a royal consort or Aztec priestess.</p>
<p>Curmudgeon, foo. I was Eleanor of Aquitaine.</p>
<p>TheDad, I thought that was you. I lived in the peat hovel right outside the gate. Pete’s House of Peat. Maybe you remember?</p>
<p>Peut etre, mais honi sois la vache qui rit.</p>
<p>Apparently, I was TheDaughter’s big sister in a past life. :)</p>
<p>We all have past lives, although, most of us would prefer not to talk about them.</p>
<p>No, Aries, you’re her big sister, separated before birth, in <em>this</em> life.</p>
<p>I once totally disgusted an entire fifth grade class by pointing out that all of the fresh water on earth contained at least some molecules that had formerly been dinosaur pee.</p>
<p>Given the realities of the carbon, nitrogen, and water cycles, we can all be sure that we are made of recycled materials, and since I personally intend to be cremated, <em>I</em> can be additionally sure that after I am dead, the whole world will eventually breathe molecules that were once part of me.</p>
<p>Mathematically, I don’t believe in <em>soul</em> recycling, since the present population of the world represents more than half the people who have ever been alive.</p>
<p>Reincarnation is a primary tenet of some major world religions, from what I understand. It doesn’t fit with Christianity. Certainly, I was raised to reject the idea, having grown up Baptist in the rural south, but the older I get, the more I like the idea of getting to declare a “do over”, the way we did as kids playing hop-scotch—LOL! </p>
<p>Suppose you could declare a “do over”, and determine the circumstances under which you would return? Where would you live? What sex would you be? What kinds of talents would you have? What kinds of “lessons” would you want to take away from the experience? Maybe I’m a bit of an oddball (my kids certainly think so!), but lately, I’ve begun to question just about every one of my assumptions about the nature of things—what’s true and what’s not. </p>
<p>“Pete’s House of Pete”—LOL! Curmudgeon, you slay me!</p>
<p>Me, if there is reincarnation (which, as I said, I doubt), I want to return as a female blue whale or a spinner dolphin. The blue whale would let me see anything in the ocean that I want, any time I want (no more SCUBA tanks!), and spinner dolphins just look like they’re having SO much fun. (Did you know that spinner dolphins spend approximately one-third of their adult lives in sexual activities?)</p>
<p>PoetsHeart, except that with some religions, the do-over comes with moving up or down the evolutionary scale depending on the degree of virtue in the present life…it look like back to a lesser-fern for me.</p>
<p>
At least be thankful it wasn’t a lesser Ivy.:eek:</p>
<p>I will give up all future lives if I can just make this one last as long as possible.</p>
<p>It is difficult for me to NOT believe in reincarnation. I believe that nature recycles (as we can see in so many ways) and I also believe in the first law of thermodynamics.</p>
<p>Curmudgeon, I won’t have to get you for that…God will. If not the rest of the board first.</p>
<p>Have you ever noticed that when someone talks about a past life it is always someone very famous or important (i.e. in my past life I was Napoleon, or I vaugely remember being Cleopatra in a past life) Just once I want to hear someone say, “Yeah, I was a cashier at Woolworth in my past life.”</p>
<p>you want to hear a real sad story…in my past life I was me! You can imagine my disapointment when on entering this life I realized this.</p>
<p>A psychic once told me that I’m a reincarnated Native American… nothing famous.</p>