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i think so, for some weird reason

I know I have . . . I was Attila the Hun, Jack the Ripper and Sherlock Holmes . . . all at the same time!

Seriously now, why would anyone think up such an immaterial question as that?

I would put that kind of thinking in the same category as little green men from Mars or wickedly beautiful women from Venus who have been abducting us periodically over the last several hundred years or so.

Get my drift? o.0

I didn't know Sherlock Holmes was a real person lol.

Many people actually believe in reincarnation Mr. Dawg. You're probably being so critical because you were a squirrel in a past life lol

Why do you believe in reincarnation?

I'm with the Dawg on this one. It's a ridiculous question.

Throw out the subjective metaphysics. They are worthless debates that settle nothing and establish only that large numbers of people believe foolish things because it makes them feel better. This is little different than their beliefs regarding empirical or valid real world issues, but for issues such as these, at least it doesn't matter that they believe something ridiculous.

There are no ridiculous answers, just ridiculous people with closed minds. No I do not believe we have been reincarnated- we have been fashioned unique and specific from the hand of God and we came into existence by the providence of His will. Our parents were used as mediums by which we were to obtain our physical beings, but we were intentionally made fearful and wonderful.

This is the first time I have been here on this mortal coil that I know of. If it isn't then how meaningful were any other incarnations to me? I can't remember them. The one that matters is the one I'm living now. If the Idea of comming back allows one to live for a higher pourpose then it could a good thing. What actualy does or does not happen is irevavent to me. I do my best to live now and to live well.

I didn't say it was a ridiculous answer. I said it was a ridiculous question.

Excuse my mistake- I meant to write "There are no ridiculous questions." Even still, I think the question is valid since some people may wish to know the true purpose of life and what they are moving towards. Or is the great Enemy of us all not death?

i think it's true. papadawg sounds like a depressed fck

People may wish to know the purpose of life.

But they're not going to find a useful answer by asking about, and focusing on, death. That answer is going to be something that they will have to make up, because people do not "experience" death. Answers about life can be based on our known experiences. Answers about death (and particular anything happening to us after that occurrence) are whatever we tell ourselves to make death more comfortable and palatable.

It might not be a ridiculous question for an individual to ask of themselves, for their own purposes. But it is a ridiculous question to have a debate over with other people. Because their answers are entirely without meaning.

Perhaps you answers are entirely without meaning, but I believe it is an excellent opportunity, when faced with questions of the death we all shall experience, to talk about the real meaning of life. I read an interesting quote once which said something along the lines of "I will not die of sickness, I will die of having lived."

To come into existence is to ensure that we also shall leave from the land of the living one day. We need to make sure that we understand- SunTzySays have you ever thought of life beyond the grace? Have you never been impressed deeply into you soul to know what happens once you are no longer conscious but the world continues about you?

As surely as we entered into this world coming from a place which we knew not, from a land of unconsciousness into this world in a thinking, intelligent, growing function, we shall once again return to unconsciousness. But now the question is: If we die, shall we ever be raised again one last time? How cruel it would be to come into this world and taste the mango, the apple, the pear, and the pineapple only to die like an animal and never taste these things again.

No sir, I believe in the Lord GOD and Jesus the Saviour and I do not believe that the grave is the end. And this questions are of the utmost importance and regardless of beliefs to the contrary, we are alive; the significance of this is that we have the time to find out if it is even possible for a thing to be created without a Creator.

Or do you think that all the world ends with the end of a human life? Will anyone live until the end of this age? Is there an end; learn my brother of these things, for they will make your life gorged with hope.

Keep the language clean, please.

Thank you for proving my point. …

"Throw out the subjective metaphysics." And then you engage in it anyway as though it is a compelling, enlightening, or useful formal argument.

It's boring when someone decides to preach, and preach about aspects of their subjective experience of reality that are not shared by others. Or are explicitly rejected as unrealistic and misinterpretations of a materialistic universe.

My experiences in faith, while shared by 95% of Americans who claim belief in God (about 85% of whom agree with leaving "In God We Trust" on the dollar) are subjective, as you say, which do not diminish them since my view is my opinion.

It may be a subject some may be disinterested but as was confirmed by ABC's presentation of "The American President" faith and politics do and have gone back inextricably linked one to the other. The things of faith somehow lead one to a view of how world policy ought to be fashioned.

Yes, they are old fashion, yes, today's society attempts to smother these kinds of roots which go back through the pages of a time, but those of us raised in a God-fearing home can appreciate and endorse the proclivity of politics to faith; those who reject beliefs on a basis of scientific "proof" take theories and base their belief system of disbelief on them.

That, I would say, is unrealistic and a misinterpretation of the nature of life and the purpose that dwells therein.

Your percentages of belief are off. On the high side. And even if they are accurate, large numbers of those people also share a healthy and abiding respect for scientific lines of inquiry. They do not share this monolithic attitude that only faith answers questions on the basis of the fact that they have similar faith to you. Besides which, wielding percentages as though a democratic process is ideally suited to arbitrate truth isn't likely to be very convincing. I've already indicated above that people, very often majorities of people, hold very silly ideas as true. Religious beliefs have the good fortune to sometimes be harmless (though not always). Economic (mis)beliefs are not nearly so useless in their public effects to cause nuisance and dismay.

I would argue then that it returns to a subjective set of interpretations where faith resides, and not a set of "belief" where reason does. Metaphysics exists in the former, and thus "debates" over it are a repeated argument of personal beliefs rather than productive and meaningful engagements.