OK... the title above says....

[Texas Proud]

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Originally Posted by calmloki Back when my gal was a service manager she used to have old geezers coming in and trying to wheedle down the cost of their car repairs with the "i'm on a fixed income" line. you know - pensioners. She defused and disarmed by crying out "Wow! You're lucky! I have to work for a living and don't know where next month's income is coming from"!

Ohhhh.... that is better than the one I usually use.... which was "So am I"...

Most people look at you funny, but when I explain that my income is 'fixed'.. and I am not likely to get a raise this year or next... and YOU will...

But then SS will not increase... so that one went down the tubes...

[kyounge1956]

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Originally Posted by ERD50 Do pension benefits promised to a cat during one life carry over to the next life?(snip) -ERD50

They do if life #1 selects one of the options that pays a survivor benefit and names lives #2-9 as beneficiaries.

[Leonidas]

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Originally Posted by W2R It is amazing how many people have ignore lists, and we are glad to see this feature used.

Man, I wish there was a real life "ignore button" - it would have so come in handy back when I had a j*b!

[HsiaoChu]

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Originally Posted by clifp I can always count on you to ask interesting question. Believe it or not I've actually thought about reincarnation a fair amount. The traditional afterlife stuff never had much of an appeal, but reincarnation always intrigued me. My top choice has always been to come back as one of my sister's impossible spoiled house cats, my second choice is a beautiful girl in some place like Italy, Brazil, or parts of the US. Now since I am starting out at pretty cushy position 50 year old retiree living in Hawaii, you can see that laziness is high on my priority list.

You are confusing reincarnation with "TRANSMIGRATION OF SOULS". In reincarnation, you have a hierarchy of development. Once you are incarnating in the human kingdom, you have passed through the door from the animal kingdom and you can never go back. You can only incarnate as a human. The next kingdom's door is what is called the crucifixion initiation, and once passing that you can never go back to the human kingdom. I can suggest some reading: THE RAYS AND THE INITIATIONS by Alice A. Bailey.

[HsiaoChu]

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Originally Posted by Leonidas Man, I wish there was a real life "ignore button" - it would have so come in handy back when I had a j*b!

There was that movie where the dude had a rewind and fast forward button. But maybe the question here is what super powers would you like to have in order:

1. Ability to transport myself and anyone or anything touching me for a certain perimeter instantly to any location.

2. Invisibility

3. Time travel.

Z

[Leonidas]

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Originally Posted by Zarathu There was that movie where the dude had a rewind and fast forward button. But maybe the question here is what super powers would you like to have in order: 1. Ability to transport myself and anyone or anything touching me for a certain perimeter instantly to any location. 2. Invisibility 3. Time travel. Z

Those are good, but I also like the superpower that Nicholas Cage had in Next. He could see a few minutes into the future, so he used it to see the immediate outcomes of his actions and he could go through however many iterations of future possibilities until he hit on the right one.

Or, give me a magic watch that can stop time like in The Girl, The Gold Watch, and Everything.

[ziggy29]

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Originally Posted by Leonidas Those are good, but I also like the superpower that Nicholas Cage had in Next. He could see a few minutes into the future, so he used it to see the immediate outcomes of his actions and he could go through however many iterations of future possibilities until he hit on the right one.

Nice, but really with a time machine is this even needed? If the outcome from your actions is bad, just hop in the time machine and go back to the point in time before the decision is made. Do this until the best outcome is achieved. Sort of like Groundhog Day in that respect.

[Leonidas]

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Originally Posted by ziggy29 Nice, but really with a time machine is this even needed? If the outcome from your actions is bad, just hop in the time machine and go back to the point in time before the decision is made. Do this until the best outcome is achieved. Sort of like Groundhog Day in that respect.

Yeah, but I to read too much sci-fi as a kid to not worry about going back in time and stepping on the wrong butterfly to find that act has set off a chain of events that ends up destroying the world in the future/present.

If you saw the movie Next, you remember that Cage's character could just think about doing something and he would see how it played out. There was a great scene in which he had to meet a certain girl and get her to fall for him (so he could eventually find the terrorist's nuclear bomb or something like that). Anyway, he found her having an argument with her abusive boyfriend and he just sat there watching and imagining different moves until he found one that worked.

Groundhog day was cool, but you would be limited to what you can do because even though you eventually rule the universe of a single day, you're stuck with whatever possibilities that day offers. Like Billy Murray said in that movie, "I'm a god. I'm not The God, I don't think." Too many limitations there.

[HsiaoChu]

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Originally Posted by ziggy29 Nice, but really with a time machine is this even needed? If the outcome from your actions is bad, just hop in the time machine and go back to the point in time before the decision is made. Do this until the best outcome is achieved. Sort of like Groundhog Day in that respect.

In the actual time machine movie, the dude tried to go back to save his girlfriend. He did it over and over again but each time something intervened and he couldn't actually change circumstances.

I'd be more interested in picking up new items that appraised well on the PBS Antique Road Show. Not much of a disruption of the time line to buy a dish from the early 16th century that is brand new.

Z

[HsiaoChu]

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Originally Posted by Leonidas Yeah, but I to read too much sci-fi as a kid to not worry about going back in time and stepping on the wrong butterfly to find that act has set off a chain of events that ends up destroying the world in the future/present. .

There was that Twilight Zone one where the guy stepped on a butterfly in the Jurassic period and came back to people who looked like pigs and spoke a weird language of gutteral sounds.

[Texas Proud]

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Originally Posted by ziggy29 Nice, but really with a time machine is this even needed? If the outcome from your actions is bad, just hop in the time machine and go back to the point in time before the decision is made. Do this until the best outcome is achieved. Sort of like Groundhog Day in that respect.

Boy is this way off the OP...

But... you then have the 'butterfly effect'... and jumping back to fix something messes up something else... and if you remember ALL your jumps... how will your mind handle it

[Texas Proud]

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Originally Posted by Zarathu There was that Twilight Zone one where the guy stepped on a butterfly in the Jurassic period and came back to people who looked like pigs and spoke a weird language of gutteral sounds.

I missed that one...

[Leonidas]

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Originally Posted by Zarathu There was that Twilight Zone one where the guy stepped on a butterfly in the Jurassic period and came back to people who looked like pigs and spoke a weird language of gutteral sounds.

That's what I'm talking about. It would suck to come back to the present and find that I couldn't understand what my wife was talking about because she spoke in a way I couldn't understand anything she was....oh, wait. Okay, who stepped on the damn butterfly?

[HsiaoChu]

Kind of like when my wife had her cataract surgery. I was so happy she didn't say, "Oh, Gee, you're way less handsome than I remembered you." But she did say, "I thought we had a brownish lab retriever, not a white-ish one."

[donheff]

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Originally Posted by Zarathu You are confusing reincarnation with "TRANSMIGRATION OF SOULS". In reincarnation, you have a hierarchy of development. Once you are incarnating in the human kingdom, you have passed through the door from the animal kingdom and you can never go back. You can only incarnate as a human. The next kingdom's door is what is called the crucifixion initiation, and once passing that you can never go back to the human kingdom. I can suggest some reading: THE RAYS AND THE INITIATIONS by Alice A. Bailey.

I thought the traditional eastern versions of reincarnation based the follow-on instantiation on karma. If your Karma is bad enough you could end up as Gregor Samsa's Bug. No guarantee to move ever upward.

[ziggy29]

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Originally Posted by Texas Proud Boy is this way off the OP...

Wouldn't be e-r.org if it were any other way.

[HsiaoChu]

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Originally Posted by donheff I thought the traditional eastern versions of reincarnation based the follow-on instantiation on karma. If your Karma is bad enough you could end up as Gregor Samsa's Bug. No guarantee to move ever upward.

Well, I can be specific. I am not talking about the exoteric religions, as much as about the underlying Wisdom Schools. There are a number. The one that is most externalized at the moment seems to be the Trans-Himalayan Wisdom School which developed out of the writings of Patanjali around 10,000 years ago. There are exoteric religions whose main goal like most exoteric western religious tradition to control people. There is always a move upward. However, you must meet certain requirements to move on to the next kingdom, and those doors are not always open. Right now the door to the animal kingdom to move into the human kingdom is not open. It won't be open for another 10 million years or so, since two thirds of the 66.666666... billion souls must move into the next kingdom first to make room.

If you want to believe this stuff..... There's so so so much more....if you want to believe this stuff.

[Leonidas]

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Originally Posted by Zarathu Well, I can be specific. I am not talking about the exoteric religions, as much as about the underlying Wisdom Schools. There are a number. The one that is most externalized at the moment seems to be the Trans-Himalayan Wisdom School which developed out of the writings of Patanjali around 10,000 years ago. There are exoteric religions whose main goal like most exoteric western religious tradition to control people. There is always a move upward. However, you must meet certain requirements to move on to the next kingdom, and those doors are not always open. Right now the door to the animal kingdom to move into the human kingdom is not open. It won't be open for another 10 million years or so, since two thirds of the 66.666666... billion souls must move into the next kingdom first to make room. If you want to believe this stuff..... There's so so so much more....if you want to believe this stuff.

Way too much math and pondering going on for me to subscribe to it. I prefer the simpler version of Karma - "What goes around, comes around."

[Bestwifeever]

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Originally Posted by Zarathu ....If you want to believe this stuff..... There's so so so much more....if you want to believe this stuff.

So true. We just had some people over whose families for generations have believed this stuff. But then we realized that there are many groups of people who believe different stuff that others think is unbelievable.

[samclem]

For those interested in a fun take on the afterlife, and the important things in the only life everyone agrees that we're guaranteed (this one) , I recommend the movie "Defending Your Life." I saw it about 15 years ago and still remember it well.
Dailymotion - Defending Your Life (1991) - a Film & TV video