It Takes a Village

I have That One Friend. The one nobody understands why you're friends with and sometimes you don't either.  I lie - I collect these people. If you're even reading this blog you are probably one of them (hi there.)  If I could get all of us into one party at the same time, the National Guard should be deployed to protect society from us and vice versa. 

This That One Friend goes rounds with me on the topic of Religion vs. Science, my favorite thing.  It seems to be a tangent of the "You seem like a reasonable person, Y THO..." conversation, which often precedes people shaking my hand and walking away forever.  But thanks to the question resurfacing, I'm coming closer to finding words to explain my viewpoint (which hasn't wavered) and also why that one has been collected.

Almost all arguments are matters of semantics.  Our current human vocabulary is insufficient to describe what our senses have identified..."sense" is one of those insufficient words. G-d  is one of those words.  I spell it like that because it's etymologically interesting, and also out of deference to G-d, in case G-d cares, which I don't think G-d does.  So I use these insufficient words because they are what I have, and this sometimes leads to confusion.

Here is my Shehada:  there is only one truth, and those who seek it will ultimately end up in the same place. Everything else is for humans to fight over on earth. It doesn't matter.

Non-human societies seem far more pragmatic about their organizational templates than humans do.  We are quick to organise someone else's life and unable to apply our own wisdom to ourselves.  The narrative of humanity requires we write an epic role for ourselves and spin the truth around that.

Reincarnation is another fuzzy theory I think is derailed in semantics.  There is a something I feel with one or more senses, and proof that others identify it lies in millennia of tradition and literature.  I'm vague because the words are not correct. From early ancient human society ( I cannot speak for the crows and stuff) we've tried to utilise ritual to function in the place of insufficient words.

Science breaks down identifiable physical components into smaller and smaller bits, inventing new instruments that can identify things not yet seen with our eyes or felt with our hands. Spiritualists ride waves and experience reincarnation.  All aiming at the same place. 

So here we go:  Part the One is the question of G-d vs. Reincarnation. If there is G-d, then why would G-d recycle?  This is gonna have to wait for a different post because I swear to you I'm coming to a point in my own mind, but it's important here to know the question.   Part the Two is to ask why humans have been operating with some variation of Saṃsāra for thousands of years, trying to not only identify but utilise what they feel to be a physical law as yet unmapped. This is the crux of faith:  be able to believe it exists and get on with your life. Faith is a process, not a thing to be measured. Hence the confusion with science trying to measure everything.

Finally we're here, at my collection of friends and the title of this post: assume there is reincarnation and that sometimes humans are aware of it.  I have met people I strongly felt I knew from some other dimension - visited one for dinner last night, in fact.  You probably know some, too.

But That One Friend, assuming reincarnation is real, is possibly on his first rotation.  This is interesting.  I've never before come across someone I can identify as one of us but not recognise. Between the mystical whatever and the untruth of linear time I feel like seasoned veterans are responsible to guide properly, as much as we can given that most of what I'm saying is not considered real.  But we feel it, yeah? 

The fact that he asks the question is my evidence.  The fact that he sees the question and asks it of himself.

And all this is why I may go to an Old Fashioned Sceance tonight.  Also because I like to judge people and I need to get over that.