Pantheistic reincarnation via timey wimey ball

[Chengjiang]

So I've had this idea for a different take on reincarnation kicking around for a while and I wanted to know what you guys thought of it. Specifically, a way to have a religious "justification" for generalized empathy couched in a peculiar take on reincarnation. In this system, not only does the soul/mind of an individual pass to a new body to be born when they die, but one's next birth need not actually line up chronologically with one's death. One can be born into a new body before one dies. This means that anyone you meet could be another incarnation of you, sometime before or after your current one along your personal subjective timeline. Some thinkers might extend this to all souls actually being the same one soul at different points in its personal timeline, wrapping endlessly around the history of the universe. Everyone you ever meet is an existence you either have experienced before (although, as usual with this sort of thing, you don't remember it) or will experience later. So you'd better treat them the way you'd like to be treated, because that's exactly what you get when you're them.

What do you think? It's kind of cerebral and counterintuitive, so I could see it more as an elaboration of a more standard reincarnation theology by intellectuals, but on the other hand it's not exactly unknown for religions to develop official doctrines that strike their own believers as paradoxical.

[Pole, the]

Related: http://i.imgur.com/NHuYw.jpg

[Chengjiang]

Related: http://i.imgur.com/NHuYw.jpg

I'd act annoyed that I wasn't the first to come up with this, but I'm actually pleased. There's something oddly satisfying about this concept.

[Travis B.]

This also means that people can only become enlightened once, ever. So much for having multiple Buddhas over the course of history.

[mèþru]

Unless if enlightened is taken to have the more general interpretation common among non-Buddhists: simply being very knowledgeable. In this framework, an enlightened one might not break out of the cycle of reincarnation and forgets everything when reincarnated. Therefore their can be enlightenments as long as their is a world on which people can die. It would be interesting if this was reflected in the language in this way: People who are very close to you might be considered to be similar to you and are referred to using a derivation of the first person singular.

[Curlyjimsam]

I've thought about this before; it's always seemed pretty reasonable to me. Why should souls, once free of the physical body, be forced to move only forward in time? => why should the next body they end up in be one which temporally follows the last?

I'm not sure it need be only an idea for intellectuals either; it's not that complicated, ordinary people probably could get their heads round it, especially when it's such an integral part of their culture and therefore something they're constantly surrounded with all the time.

[mèþru]

I wonder how this view would effect the justice system.

[Observer]

I came up with that idea after reading about the One-Electron Universe theory. The application of the same to the soul seemed obvious. However, to develop the religious equivalent idea, a conpeoples would need to be aware of quantum phenomenon, and by the time a species developed that far, the creation of new religions would likely be a thing of the past.

[mèþru]

New (serious) religions are always springing up, even in modern times.

[faiuwle]

Didn't Borges write about this?

[Torco]

I came up with that idea after reading about the One-Electron Universe theory. The application of the same to the soul seemed obvious. However, to develop the religious equivalent idea, a conpeoples would need to be aware of quantum phenomenon, and by the time a species developed that far, the creation of new religions would likely be a thing of the past.

Pretty sure new religions isn't something that's gonna stop: new religions that are about immortal souls and gods, that *could* stop: though it doesn't seem to be. While atheism is on the rise, there's plenty of NRMs.

though this isn't quite pantheistic... it's more like... I don't know, monopsychist? unianimist?

of course, as with all reincarnation beliefs, it has to deal with what exactly is reincarnated. in what sense are the chinese girl and the 48 year old shitty husband the same person. especially if everyone is the same person, and how is that different from no one being the same person as no one else. I guess it could go the trinity route of "that's a mystery", but these mysteries are often things people kill one another over, and since this belief seems like it would be very core to ethics, the particulars of this have potential for doctrinarian schisms and whatnot. like, for example, maybe you *don't* have to treat everyone else well, maybe when you-alice kill you-bob, you're causing yourself suffering but that suffering is good because then you-bob is atoning for the fact that you-alice killed you-bob. so it's kind of all the same in the end.

hell, maybe suffering isn't even bad, but it's an integral part of the soul-monad's journey, so kindness and cruelty are indifferent: this could be interpreted as a pretty bleak and nihilistic doctrine <or liberating, if you're feeling french>. Combine this with the fact that if the soul is going back and forth and time is an illusion everything is determined, so you might as well not worry about any of it. Another thing it could do is like suggest a hierarchy of soul-stages. if the monad-soul is learning and learning then presumably the stupidest, most violent, less virtuous people are all earlier iterations, and the wisest and better are later ones: from this it might follow a very intensely aristocratic worldview.

the idea is interesting, that's for sure.