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If the world was to end, what would happen to rebirth?
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This question works in reverse of the OP question. Imagine, if you will, a transportation device like the one used in the science fiction Star Trek story. A device which scans the molecular makeup of your body, dissembles (destroy) it, and then beams the information necessary to recompile it on a world in another part of the galaxy. In this case neither the "mass" nor the "emergent property" travels to another world, just information. But, there is an obvious causal sequence. Isn't that interesting?!
If conciousness is simply a product of the brain then literal rebirth isn't true, period. Any argument that says interplanetary rebirth can't happen because of physics in that context makes no sense. If conciousness can exist apart from the brain then we don't really understand it or its properties scientifically and any argument that says interplanetary rebirth can't happen because of physics also doesn't make any sense.
How does interplanetary rebirth make any sense at all?
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I guess I don't understand what you are saying at all. It seems like you are saying interplanetary rebirth can't happen because of some kind of transportation problem.
*sigh*..... :rolleyes:
People just want to believe their life is everlasting.
We've all heard many arguments from a certain banned member that must not be named here why rebirth doesn't happen from life to life. I can live with that. What didn't make sense to me are the arguments for it specifically not to occur across the universe.
He was banned for his attitude not his ideas. There are lots here that don't believe in rebirth from life to life. I'm not trying to argue for rebirth I'm arguing against yours that deny it.
@Federica I am having fun.
who, or what has ever told you or implied, why and when, that 'a certain banned member .... must not be named..?
If this thread is now impinging on a work of fiction for impact and content, then it's obviously more fun than I thought!!
Awareness is not the thoughts..
Oh no not voldemort! We better find all of the harucrux :P
There is a direct causal link between us is there not, between our lives? I write a message and you respond, etc. Cause & effect, a direct and obvious relation. And our communication does not occur across planets (I don't believe that you're on another planet, though I don't actually know). Thus my response. I hope that makes sense.
But speaking of a personal attack, in the form of an ad hominem, the incessant insistence that we're "having fun" makes us appear insincere and our dialog therefor irrelevant. That supports the position that the topic is "meaningless." Know who I'm talking about? lol
I recently listened to a dharma talk in which it was said that every atom in the universe mirrors every other atom. I didn't listen to the whole thing and to be honest I am not sure what I have learned
But speaking of a personal attack, in the form of an ad hominem, the incessant insistence that we're "having fun" makes us appear insincere and our dialog therefor irrelevant
- is your perception, which is quite wrong.
My point is that this discussion is without conclusion, and as such, really, you're just going around in circles, coming to no definitive point of reference at all. there is nothing insincere about your dialogue, and if it has any relevance, it is to illustrate that my earlier point was accurate.
But I really do hope you're having fun.
The similar principle applies not just to firewood and ash but to everything else: for example you do not say summer turns into autumn and autumn turns into winter - summer is summer, autumn is autumn, distinct and complete in itself yet each instance of existence time contains the past, present and future in it. So the same applies to birth and death - birth does not turn into death as birth is the phenomenal expression of birth and death is the phenomenal expression of death - they are interdependent yet disjoint, unsupported, complete. Accordingly, birth is no-birth and death is no-death... Since each moment is not really a starting point or ending point for a entity - without the illusion and reference of a self-entity - every moment is simply a complete manifestation of itself. And every manifestation does not leave traces: they are disjoint, unsupported and self-releases upon inception. This wasn't dogen's exact words but I think the gist is there, you should read dogen's genjokoan which I posted in my blog."
http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/2011/06/unborn-dharma.html
Reading this discussion this blog post came to mind.
I think I understand the source of the disagreement now. I hold to the more traditional view of karma complete with the metaphysical element. There is a view of karma without metaphysics and I think that is what you hold to. I think its a coherent and workable system, I don't have a problem with it.
I've run into this same issue a couple other times recently. Someone starts talking about causation from one point of view and I read it from the other and it doesn't make much sense.
While I still don't really agree with your take, based on the non-metaphysical aspect, I at least understand where you're coming from.
Also it isn't as linear as we think either.
It works in a function manner though. Well in buddhism.
What links one cause to another? And what links one life to another?
The part contains the whole. This hand is the hand produced by my parents, but if we look deeper it is existence itself that has produced such hand.
Thus there is no true link, but at the same time the whole of existence and its causes bring about such hand.
There is "scientific materialism" which is what? Scientists who believe in philosophical materialism? And there is cause & effect. What other kind of cause & effect is there???
I think? you don't believe interplanetary rebirth can occur but you do? believe it can happen on this planet. You say metaphysics isn't relevant but I don't see how it isn't central if rebirth can happen at short distances but not at long ones.
There's no cause for rebirth to occur across planets?... What cause is there for rebirth to happen on this one between unconnected lives?
In every case, if it is not true, beneficial nor timely, one is not to say it. The Buddha followed this, for example, when asked questions of a purely metaphysical nature, unrelated to the goal, path or discipline that he taught. When asked a question such as "Is the universe eternal?", the Buddha dismissed the topic with the response: "It does not further."
The world will end in about 5 bilion years when the sun becomes a red giant in it's death. As to what would happen to rebirth? It would continue to go on. The universe continues to expand move and grow. Without humans to take part or experience it, it would go on non-the less. I am taking about the here and now kind of rebith. If your talking about the kind of rebirth when a sentinent being dies, that I cannot opine on.
Not in a thread going absolutely nowhere.