This is a topic I once discussed on an old Myspace blog years ago, and it recently popped into my head again (because I’m morbid, and tend to think about death a lot). I am not a religious person. So I have no idea what happens after we die. Maybe we go to an afterlife of some sort, like Heaven of Hell. Or maybe we just cease to exist. Whatever. There’s no way for me to know for sure, because I’ve never been dead. But I will say that one thing I really hope is NOT true, is the concept of reincarnation.
No disrespect intended to any Buddhist, Hindus, Wiccans, or whatever you are, who believe in that, but I really really hope y’all are wrong. That just sounds like a terrible proposition to me.
See, one thing I’ve always known is that life is incredibly random. So much of your chance for a happy successful life depends on the circumstances of your birth. So, while my life hasn’t been all roses and raindrops, I know that things could have been much worse. What if in my next life I’m born severely handicapped, or one-half of Siamese twins that are stuck together by their buttcheeks, or I’m the child of drug-addicted teenage single mother? No thanks.
Sure, I might get lucky, and be reborn as one of Bill Gates’ grandchildren, but it’s not worth the risk to me. I’d rather just live out the rest of this life, the best I can, and then just be done with it. After I’m dead, I don’t want to come back.
iBLOGalot 
I’ve always tended to look at reicarnation in the same perspective as I would with why people would prefer to believe there’s a heaven, in that we all have a feeling of self identity, of self consciousness, a feeling that there’s a ‘soul’ in us, and we also have such a strong instinctive sense for the will to live and survive.
With this in mind, naturally we would certainly prefer not to think that it all ceases to exist once we die.
I think it’s just a matter of wishful thinking to have faith that there’s a heaven or that we transcend into another living being through some reincarnation process. The cold hard bitter realty of things is that we’re simply a physical structure with physical componets to us which cause us to have our thoughts and emotions and once those componets die, so do our thoughts and what once amounted to our feelings that we have a ‘soul’.
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i hope, at times, that all those stories I’ve read and listened to about there being more after this, are true…and yet it could be just wishful thinking.
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@Kill All Lawyers: That’s deep.
@Jessica: Yes, I often admire those who do have a sincere belief in something. Anything. I could see how that would be comforting.
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Dude, you’re overthinking this. If you do get reincarnated, you won’t know it.
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I think if I came back I’d like to be a pen.
Sometimes you are busy, sometimes you just chill, sometimes you go on trips, and you die a lot so you can keep coming back as other objects.
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I’ve always had the feeling that if I did have a previous life, there was only one and I died as a child. Until I was thirteen or fourteen I thought everyone my age was a stupid kid. After that, I got completely lost. So that’s my reasoning.
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Some years ago I would have said emphatically that I believe in reincarnation. Now, I don’t know. I have come to believe that most of us just cannot grasp what is going on in the spiritual realm from these physical bodies. Maybe it is just a way of thinking that helps me make better sense of what I see around me.
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As for me, I just don’t know. There are times when to even think of doing it all over again, and to reexperience all the pain and struggle of a whole lifetime’…well… the idea might not be all that great. And then there are other times when I like the idea, especially if I can keep all that I learned from this life.
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I do believe in reincarnation. I believe that we, humans, are immortal spiritual beings who have lived before, and will live again.
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So what were you before Aaron?
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Hello, Karin.
If you’re looking for a specific name, time and place, I’m afraid I can’t say that. But I have had experiences that lead me to personally believe that I have been here before, likely several times.
I don’t try to convince anyone else to believe as I do, since I don’t think it is possible to do that. Everyone must reach their own conclusions.
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Part of me agrees with the guy who said earlier that it might not be so bad to come back in another life, if I could somehow remember the mistakes I’ve made in this life. And therefore can have a second chance to do things better. But I don’t think that’s possible.
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This is the kind of thing only YOU would be worried about.
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I know. I’m morbid.
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Let me just say, that I believe that we were nothing before we became something. And that considering the odds of us being in the first place, then it’s possible that when we die and become nothing again, there is a good chance to become something all over.
Maybe.
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Perhaps. . .
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Don’t know if I believe in this, but I’ve had many experience in my life of extreme deja vu, where I’ve gone somewhere or met someone new and I just have this overwhelming feeling of thinking I’ve been there, or met that person before, even though I know I haven’t.
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I think reincarnation is a possibility. I think it would be neat. 🙂
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I don’t believe in reincarnation, however there may be something in genetic memory, needs more research.
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I’d come back. I’d love to come back in some non-human form, preferably with a human brain. I’d be a rabbit or something, except that I’d be WAY smarter than a fox.
But it’s all moot because I’m Catholic, so I’ll be going to heaven anyway.
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You’d probably come back as a black widow spider.
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