It's mind-blowing. I can only get so far into it before I feel like my face is melting, but it's very interesting.
If you accept that the universe forms, collapses, and re-forms, continuously, and exactly the same, you do acknowledge that that kind of makes re-incarnation not possible, as you are never fully changing from one form to another, you are just going back to a previously held form, yea?
I have yet to find the meaning of life. And for that which I find no meaning, I find no meaning. I'm open to possessing the meaning, however, should anyone care to share it.
In terms of finding meaning, I know that atheists hate the CS Lewis logic, but I still think there is something to it. At the very least, I find it appealing. Lewis says that the fact that we as humans desire meaning, and justice, and truth, and goodness and recognize that we fall short of them means that they really do objectively exist. Of course he argues that God gave us those desires. I'm sure you could work up an evolutionary biology scheme where we as humans want those things and that they have contributed to our thriving as a species. But I think you could just as easily come up with a scheme where the human species survives and thrives w/o wanting those things. Anyway if those really are objective virtues then pursuing them may be a part of the purpose of the universe.
I do not accept the universe forms, collapses and reforms. There is no evidence that it does, and in fact there is evidence to the contrary with an accelerating expansion happening in our current universe. But if it did, and there is nothing to rule it out, perhaps. And an infinite size universe also has the implication that there are infinite you and me's running around right now, as an area the size of our bodies has roughly 10^10^80 individual quantum states that it can have. So you can posit that in an infinitely big universe there is somewhere a 2 meter x .5 meter x 1 meter box that has the same exact quantum state as the thing typing this message right now. I do not give reincarnation (or in Buddhism, re-birth) a lot of thought. It is not that important in the grand scheme of the Now. But if proven that it cannot exist, I will just drop it. No worries.
I'll take this double post to say my "Yes!" to your original post was the idea of birth-death-rebirth and the endless cycle. Where my religion comes in is the idea you can stop that cycle, and that is the spooky part that some may disagree with.
I'm not sure humans can survive and thrive without social cooperation on at least a small scale. Those things require a sense of meaning, justice, trust (truth? perhaps a stretch on my part), etc. Even with very foreign cultures with varying values, they still have some sort of standard-- sometimes it doesn't look like "good," but it's "good" to them. The problem with CS Lewis logic is that it is quite centric to western civilization.
Now I'm confused. Because it seems that the same idea of birth-death-rebirth would apply necessarily to the universe, otherwise there would be a defined end to the universe. Which would mean there is a defined end, which means there is a defined start. It must become something else, or it must become itself, in order for there not to be a start and end.
Not necessarily. Instead of a circle of could be a line. No start, no end. One life to the next, same as father to son to son etc. Still birth death rebirth, but along a straight line, beginningless and endless.
We, as a species, have spent more time in a survival state than we have spent in a period where meaning, justice, truth, etc have even had meaning. Assuming you buy into the whole evolution thing, and that our specie isn't only like 3,000 years old.
I think the big bang kind of rules that out, otherwise, at what point along the line did all matter condense?
