Took me awhile to reply, been busy and immured in gloom...
Not only is there not chromsonal evidence for past lives or memories or traits inherited from one's past self at birth, there is no actual evidence whatsever.
No worries... life is a thing that takes precedence over forums, haha
That's not exactly true:
1,
2; but it's emerging evidence and nothing concrete.
I may be cynical, but I don't really take the words of children at face value. Have you seen children playing complex games with multiple characters yet the child is playing alone? Children have powerful imaginations and they do not not really understand the difference between internal and external worlds. It is easy to see something in children that is not there. The fact is that the mixing of chromosones throughout earths history is what has given rise to the incredible complexity of life as we see it; there is no reason to think that this process could not give rise to the complexity of a human being. Simply saying that it is not currently quantifiable does not mean the best explanation is magickal.
Nowhere did I claim that we should believe all children, or that magic is happening. Those are strawmen, and also again doubt is not proof of absence, especially not when it comes to how many claims (some of them verifiable) have been made about reincarnation. But again, your ability to see and choice to see are tied to your path and I have no interest in telling you that you're wrong or right.
There is a difference between 'faith' in science and faith in spirituality. One major reason, science has provided objective facts about the universe, spirutuality still has not after thousands of years. Science may not get to understand the complexity of DNA and the like; but it is true to say that spirituality never will- it cannot. I can have a certain faith in a process- and the only reason is because there is evidence to have faith in that process- there are objective facts that science has obtained, it is not without reason to believe it will provide us with more objective facts. This is very different to a belief for which there is and never has been any supporting evidence. There is similarities between both strains of faith, its just that one of them has actual reasoning and results behind it. It is not far-fetched to have trust that the process will be able to elucidate more physical facts.
I think you misunderstood what I said. You're taking
some conclusions that science has discovered, such as studies into DNA, and extrapolating on them without further evidence in order to discredit something you perceive as "faith based", all while not realizing that action in of itself is "faith based". I'm not claiming that the scientific field as a whole is faith based, just you.
Note that I mentioned nothing about faith. That's a word you're using. You're using it because when you look at my views, which are not based on learning methodologies that you would use, you conclude that I can't possibly know for sure and therefore am going by faith. That's presumptuous. My understanding of the universe may be evolving and there is a great degree of mystery involved, but the answers I've provided already are true to me, and not "beliefs". That should hopefully tell you a lot about yourself, more than it tells you about me.
Because spirituality has not provided the answers that
you are looking for, according to your cosmology and epistemology, you're claiming it is not capable of producing any answers at all. And that's because your learning pathway is not based in the same pathway I've taken -- which is to be expected. The word "spirituality" is loaded anyway... I'm referring to other awarenesses and other ways of knowing which may be non-scientific and non-linear, but just as valid. To me, it's more interesting to look at
why people choose science, or religion, or becoming plumbers, or politicians, or whatever... rather than critique people for believing in the wrong thing. A lot of these inclinations are in-born. I just visited my nephew who is 2 years old and he is obsessed with tools and fixing things. He's already talking about being a mechanic, when nobody in the family is -- why is that?
Again, you're stuck in proofs, whereas I'm talking about process.
If my inner virtue is to be a spiritual philosophical person with my own inductive reasonings and ways of knowing, then science might not be as relevant to me as it would be to someone whose virtue is pure heuristics. Different strokes for different folks.
I cannot see much good in a system that would condemn one to a life of hardship, such as being born amongst murderers, to teach one a particular and obscure lesson, the actual teaching of which is unclear and arbitrary. That seems ridiculously unfair. It seems like a way to get humans to accept the drudgery and degradations of life. Most people in history have lived short, mean lives in which no development is really possible due to circumstances.
I'll go with what you said, which is that the brain is everything. Science has shown the brain to be highly neuroplastic across many situations. A lot of things aren't as hard wired as we once though, which means you can choose whatever reality you want. So why are you choosing a life based on what you just described? Yeah maybe life experience has been hard for you, I get that... but that doesn't negate your free will. Just pointing that out to you, in case it's at all helpful.
To imply that this is intended seems like a technique to make suffering meaningful and to create social control- to create helpless sheep that need an alpha-male, top-dog, dictator.
Nobody on this planet is in control. It's an illusion through the intervention of mind, for the sake of a learning experience. Everything is temporary. None of us leave here alive and we take nothing with us.
Humans ultimately believe in cause and effect, and intent- we regularly try and impose our will on reality so we may be inclined to see reality as a deeper imposition of will. We want our suffering to be meaningful and intentional; this does not mean that it is. For me, the simplest explanation is that this is purely random, there is no design and this explains why people endure suffering, from birth, through no fault of their own. There is no direction, this is random, this is pure chance... Life is not on your side, or designed for you to learn from. Learning is immaterial, it means nothing to nature. Life is something that has happened and now we get to marvel at it.
That's cool... if it resonates with you then go for it.
Can you accept or at least understand that other people draw different conclusions from their suffering?
I'm not too sure what "soul level" is.
The non-material aspect of your being which does not die when this physical body dies.
And yet, it is the life we have. Despite what you might say, I don't know a single person who claims to remember past lives. I've never seen a hint that we are reincarnated and that our aim is to evolve towards enlightenment. I've really only ever heard people fit some loose facts to a theory for which no actual testing is possible. We might be reincarnated, life might be set up for us to learn through, we may be invested with some overarching goal of enlightenment and freedom; sadly, there isn't a grain of evidence to support any of this. In my opinion, if you want people to learn from things, you must teach them things that they will retain and have use for. We can probably agree that past lives are not retained; and given how important ones's environment and upbringing is in creating the human adult they will be, it doesn't even seem that these memories or past experience would be of much use anyway. A system in which you always forget your past and yet are compelled to learn from it is illogical.
You only forget your past temporarily, when you enter the material envelop. Between lives you remember everything.
Explaining the further ins and outs of it would not really be productive because you've already explained your choice of beliefs, your standard of evidence, and what you think has meaning in your life, personally. There's also the fact that I too am in the material workshop right now and I don't remember the mechanisms and other intimate details that will be abundantly clear once I die.
We are trying to relate across imperfect vehicles, through different learning experiences and trials. I'm sorry that I cannot fulfill your standard of evidence, or prove why I what I know to be true, is true.
In my opinion, it is too late for humans. We are beyond help. Earth will not become a paradise whilst we dominate it.
The future is anyone's guess.
With all due respect, how is that the simplest answer? The simplest answer is to say that suffering arises without agency as an inherent part of being a living organism rather than saying that, through some arcane means, an individual chooses their suffering. How do they choose it? From what vantage point does a spirit decide to inhabit a particular flawed body? Why do we need to be taught through suffering?
There are plenty of material human systems which can satisfy the answer to that question for you. Even modern psychology can do it. Most of our foundational learning from early years is what guides our choices. Most of our suffering is chosen, through subconscious processes. But the deeper answer is that we have chosen a configuration that lays out a certain learning potential, peppered with risks and gains.
Suffering and compassion are two sides of the same coin. Can't have one without the other. As we go about the task of our perfecting ourselves on a soul level, we suffer in order to provide the necessary contrast for choosing our proper path in life. As already mentioned, living one's true virtue mitigates suffering greatly, whereas living against one's truth causes it. I am not talking about pain here. Pain is stimulus. Suffering is a consciousness thing. Pain is unavoidable, but suffering is optional. Suffering is always a choice, and if you hold that assumption to be true in your life, you can begin to debunk why you suffer and therefore come out cleaner, more purified, and more on track with what you're here to do. But as said before, you have eternity to figure this out. If your chosen trial is too hard, another one will be attempted, one that is perhaps better designed.
Your body and its faculties are an outpouring of the spirit and its level of advancement. Of course, accidents happen, and we suffer real injuries. There are also illnesses which some might call "karmic", which are past misdeeds or unresolved trials that must be re-experienced. I know from my own clinical practice that a lot of people develop serious illness before they take proper care of themselves, before they are dragged into a lesson.
At the highest, ultimate level - the level of God and the Divine - the tasks of our life, our trials and tribulations, are meaningless. It's all just God doing itself, so from that perpsective, suffering arises and dissolves of its own accord. However, as we are experiencing false separation from God, it's impossible to abdicate your human level experience. You must experience it or you live a life of denial and suffering. God resides in you, as you, but you are not God. You are you. And if you can't "do you" then you must go about the task (the trials) of figuring out what your true virtue is, so that you may do the workshop that you designed under God's purview. And maybe for some, that involves living an entire lifetime of abdicating the human level experience. Most will suffer terribly though if they do that.
You will attract appropriate lessons and resources based on mutual sympathy. Like attracts like.
The fact that suffering is inherent is one of the only pieces of wisdom that you need. It is unavoidable, and yet there are techniques available to enable one to detach themselves from the meaninglessness and persistence of their suffering.
That's true, but even those techniques - say, from Daoism and Buddhism - are based on purification. You can't simply dismiss suffering, you must understand its root. There are mundane roots and there are universal roots. We can look at the universal nature of suffering all we want but unless we understand the roots of our own personal suffering we will never be free of it. And those personal sufferings are by design, whether you believe in spirit or not, you choose them. You chose them even before you knew you had a choice about choosing them, but it doesn't change the fact that you chose them. A child can't really be blamed for doing an activity which injures them for life, but can we not conclude that they DID chose that activity regardless? A child who fell off the tree and broke a limb in pursuit of experience was unaware of the dangers, perhaps, but still made the choice. Life is like that for the rest of us. Ignorance of a choice does not negate that a choice is happening. More than God's law, it's a simple law of cause and effect.
Suffering is not something that "arises and dissolves of its own accord". You've confused that with the nature of reality and the world of "things".
Suffering is your
response to said reality. And the design of your suffering is based on your level of advancement/attainment. All suffering comes from attachment, and attachment comes from the trial you have chosen, by choosing to be attached to some things and not others. Reality is reality, it does what it does, it arises and dissolves in an complex interdependent, empty way. Your response to it is shaped by you and only you, whether or not you're aware of it. And the ways in which you are aware and aren't aware are based on prior experiences, prior learnings, and outpourings of wisdom from your spirit.
How do you know god is benevolent?
Because our true, inherent nature is benevolent. Our true nature is inner peace, compassion, and connectedness. That emptiness that intertwines with everything is the one aspect of us which is never changing. When you debunk all the ego level bullshit that is tormenting you, that's what you arrive at -- what has always been there from day one. And what you're really here to do in this life connects with that.
God is good.
I have a spirtual side in me but I propose that the ultimate origin of all spirtuality is the human brain. Think about what the brain is capable of, what it is doing every moment of every second of every minute, etc. ad infinitum. The brain is creating a coherent (!!) reality using raw input of physical forces. For me, it seems that divinity, as a force, lives entirely within me and is absent from the external world. For that reason, I don't believe it can ever be quantified. It probably does not need to be and its unquantifiable nature does not lessen its profundity.
The brain is indeed marvelous, but there are many case studies and even entanglement theories which demonstrate that consciousness can be separate from the body. Again, your level of advancement and the specific trials you're undergoing will determine which kinds of learning you receive. And please be aware, I'm not saying that because you're into material reductionism that you're less advanced. That's not how it works. The world of spirit values learning and that supersedes material, temporal, mundane appearances. What you see and can't see is based on what you're here to learn. Assuming that people are "advanced" based on things like wealth, status, power, and even externalized spiritual achievements is erroneous. What you take away from this experience upon death has way more value than the minutiae of the experience.
That's why I'm suggesting that your summary overview of suffering may be somewhat deceptive. You look at a person on the surface and judge their life, but you have no idea what's going on inside of them, what their inner work is, what they've realized, perhaps without even being able to verbalize it or quantify it for you. You're caught in a hierarchical comparison whose basis is material logic only, and if you only see things at face value then you may be denying the greater virtue happening in each person. With some people what you see is what you get, and with others is completely not like that. Some of the people who I would consider advanced appear completely mundane externally, and live simple lives.
