Wow that's a really cool story. If only it were true...The Egg
By: Andy Weir
You were on your way home when you died.
It was a car accident. Nothing particularly remarkable, but fatal nonetheless. You left behind a wife and two children. It was a painless death. The EMTs tried their best to save you, but to no avail. Your body was so utterly shattered you were better off, trust me.
And that’s when you met me.
“What… what happened?” You asked. “Where am I?”
“You died,” I said, matter-of-factly. No point in mincing words.
“There was a… a truck and it was skidding…”
“Yup,” I said.
“I… I died?”
“Yup. But don’t feel bad about it. Everyone dies,” I said.
You looked around. There was nothingness. Just you and me. “What is this place?” You asked. “Is this the afterlife?”
“More or less,” I said.
“Are you god?” You asked.
“Yup,” I replied. “I’m God.”
“My kids… my wife,” you said.
“What about them?”
“Will they be all right?”
“That’s what I like to see,” I said. “You just died and your main concern is for your family. That’s good stuff right there.”
You looked at me with fascination. To you, I didn’t look like God. I just looked like some man. Or possibly a woman. Some vague authority figure, maybe. More of a grammar school teacher than the almighty.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “They’ll be fine. Your kids will remember you as perfect in every way. They didn’t have time to grow contempt for you. Your wife will cry on the outside, but will be secretly relieved. To be fair, your marriage was falling apart. If it’s any consolation, she’ll feel very guilty for feeling relieved.”
“Oh,” you said. “So what happens now? Do I go to heaven or hell or something?”
“Neither,” I said. “You’ll be reincarnated.”
“Ah,” you said. “So the Hindus were right,”
“All religions are right in their own way,” I said. “Walk with me.”
You followed along as we strode through the void. “Where are we going?”
“Nowhere in particular,” I said. “It’s just nice to walk while we talk.”
“So what’s the point, then?” You asked. “When I get reborn, I’ll just be a blank slate, right? A baby. So all my experiences and everything I did in this life won’t matter.”
“Not so!” I said. “You have within you all the knowledge and experiences of all your past lives. You just don’t remember them right now.”
I stopped walking and took you by the shoulders. “Your soul is more magnificent, beautiful, and gigantic than you can possibly imagine. A human mind can only contain a tiny fraction of what you are. It’s like sticking your finger in a glass of water to see if it’s hot or cold. You put a tiny part of yourself into the vessel, and when you bring it back out, you’ve gained all the experiences it had.
“You’ve been in a human for the last 48 years, so you haven’t stretched out yet and felt the rest of your immense consciousness. If we hung out here for long enough, you’d start remembering everything. But there’s no point to doing that between each life.”
“How many times have I been reincarnated, then?”
“Oh lots. Lots and lots. An in to lots of different lives.” I said. “This time around, you’ll be a Chinese peasant girl in 540 AD.”
“Wait, what?” You stammered. “You’re sending me back in time?”
“Well, I guess technically. Time, as you know it, only exists in your universe. Things are different where I come from.”
“Where you come from?” You said.
“Oh sure,” I explained “I come from somewhere. Somewhere else. And there are others like me. I know you’ll want to know what it’s like there, but honestly you wouldn’t understand.”
“Oh,” you said, a little let down. “But wait. If I get reincarnated to other places in time, I could have interacted with myself at some point.”
“Sure. Happens all the time. And with both lives only aware of their own lifespan you don’t even know it’s happening.”
“So what’s the point of it all?”
“Seriously?” I asked. “Seriously? You’re asking me for the meaning of life? Isn’t that a little stereotypical?”
“Well it’s a reasonable question,” you persisted.
I looked you in the eye. “The meaning of life, the reason I made this whole universe, is for you to mature.”
“You mean mankind? You want us to mature?”
“No, just you. I made this whole universe for you. With each new life you grow and mature and become a larger and greater intellect.”
“Just me? What about everyone else?”
“There is no one else,” I said. “In this universe, there’s just you and me.”
You stared blankly at me. “But all the people on earth…”
“All you. Different incarnations of you.”
“Wait. I’m everyone!?”
“Now you’re getting it,” I said, with a congratulatory slap on the back.
“I’m every human being who ever lived?”
“Or who will ever live, yes.”
“I’m Abraham Lincoln?”
“And you’re John Wilkes Booth, too,” I added.
“I’m Hitler?” You said, appalled.
“And you’re the millions he killed.”
“I’m Jesus?”
“And you’re everyone who followed him.”
You fell silent.
“Every time you victimized someone,” I said, “you were victimizing yourself. Every act of kindness you’ve done, you’ve done to yourself. Every happy and sad moment ever experienced by any human was, or will be, experienced by you.”
You thought for a long time.
“Why?” You asked me. “Why do all this?”
“Because someday, you will become like me. Because that’s what you are. You’re one of my kind. You’re my child.”
“Whoa,” you said, incredulous. “You mean I’m a god?”
“No. Not yet. You’re a fetus. You’re still growing. Once you’ve lived every human life throughout all time, you will have grown enough to be born.”
“So the whole universe,” you said, “it’s just…”
“An egg.” I answered. “Now it’s time for you to move on to your next life.”
And I sent you on your way.
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We had a pre-earth life we don't have memory of?
- Thread starter JM123
- Start date
Wow that's a really cool story. If only it were true...
Pastek
Sunni muslim
Also it can explain the "flashbacks" or "dejà vu" that I think we all experimented
Audie
Veteran Member
who knows?
Where'd you first hear about that story?
Audie
Veteran Member
Interesting, if it's not real, that person is really creative.
Wandering Monk
Well-Known Member
Think about what you are asking. Can we remember something we have no memory of?
What is the obvious answer?
Darkforbid
Well-Known Member
Well that's me stumped. I'll have to send an email to the brainboxes at CERN for help
If you feel you have been "enlightened" by that, I have to say you have been sadly misled.
And how, exactly, is it possible to have "a physical body in His image" when He is not in any way considered physical?
ecco
Veteran Member
That's a long article. Perhaps you could excerpt some of the salient parts and tell us what that means to you.
I get very skeptical when I see an article implying that a skeptic entertains the possibility of an afterlife.
In any case, JM123 said everyone forgets. Perhaps you should take it up with him.
Audie
Veteran Member
An inquity to the League of Nations elicited the
following response:
"We have no information regarding this matter of
reincarnation, no more than we do of the so-called
South African gold mines, also so much lately in the
news".
Good luck with CERN, but I suspect collusion.
Summary - there is some reasonable evidence that reincarnation is real.
My response to "everyone" forgets is that everyone does not forget when they are very young and I cited that page as part of my answer. My post was "taking it up with him".
The Reverend Bob
Fart Machine and Beastmaster
A glitch in the Matrix
Darkforbid
Well-Known Member
Isn't he the bad guy in commando
As others have confirmed, this is not a teaching of Jesus, who was Jewish...so it isn't a teaching of the ancient Jewish faith, nor was it a teaching of first century Christianity. The Jewish religion became corrupt even before the time of Jesus, which is why he condemned the religious leaders so harshly.....and in later centuries, Christians likewise went down the same track, adopting the Greek inspired notion of an immortal soul that merely inhabits the body, but goes on living after death.
In the Bible there is no pre-life or after-life. There is just life and death. The power of death is overcome by resurrection....that is, a return to mortal life in a mortal but sinless body, just like Jesus had. His sacrifice guaranteed the forgiveness of our sins so that we could return to the life we were all meant to have in the beginning.....God put us here for a reason....and it wasn't to train us for heaven. We were supposed to be God's representatives here on this planet to take care of it and its creatures as God himself would. It is why God gave us his qualities....why we were made in his image.
So, the Bible does not support the doctrine of an immortal soul at all. It says that we "are" souls'...not that we "have" them. The Hebrew "nephesh" translated "soul" is always a living breathing creature...either human or animal. It never means a disembodied spirit....it also says that souls are mortal...they die. (Ezekiel 18:4; Ecclesiastes 9:5, 10)
The big picture is wonderful if we just stop wandering off track and take note of what the Bible really teaches.
That verse from Jeremiah is only stating that God had foreknowledge of the person’s life not that the person pre existed.
God loved us so He created us. He loved the idea of humanity so created us.
But I do believe the Prophets such as Christ, Muhammad pre existed. They had a power unknown to humanity that conquered billions of people’s hearts and they were homeless, imprisoned, tortured and exiled without wealth or power. Yet Their Cause thousands of years later has captivated billions of people who model their daily lives upon Them.
Buddha, Krishna, Moses, Jesus, Muhammad, the Bab and Baha’u’llah were not just ordinary human beings. No ordinary human can ever hope to rival their influence on hearts and minds because They were born of the Holy Spirit in another world. Their souls were not conceived in this world like ordinary humans. They had a body like ours but inwardly Their Souls had the capacity and ability to directly reflect God as a polished mirror does the sun.
They were uneducated and had innate knowledge unlike us.
Ponder This
Well-Known Member
Some people have memories of living other lives.
Many people don't remember lots of things from their current life.
If you don't remember being 4 years old... does that mean you were never 4 years old?
An interesting dilemma. Perhaps the room you live in ceases to exist when you close your eyes and recreates itself instantly the moment you open them.
Many people don't remember lots of things from their current life.
If you don't remember being 4 years old... does that mean you were never 4 years old?
An interesting dilemma. Perhaps the room you live in ceases to exist when you close your eyes and recreates itself instantly the moment you open them.
Jeremiah 1:4-10 4The word of the LORD came to me, saying, 5"Before I formed you in the womb I knew you