What Western belief system teaches reincarnation?
Reincarnation means coming back to life by definition.
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Modern neopaganism. Scientology. Dianetics.
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Ok, fine. So back to what we were originally talking about…
You said The Matrix is a form of reincarnation.
I said reincarnation means coming back to life, which was not how The Matrix worked. Neither in the Western nor Eastern beliefs of reincarnation.
I said it isn’t far off, and then elucidated my reply.
Correct. 
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The question I have for the idea of reincarnation is does that math add up? Should there not be equal amounts of life in all forms if reincarnation is true?
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I work with an adult with a Down Syndrome diagnosis who has an invisible friend and believes his bedroom is alive. Maybe life is not what we understand it to be.
None of what I’m feeling can really be represented accurately with spoken or written language, which makes it hard to express to other people. And easy for other people to question.
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Oh I don’t know about that. You’re no tommy525, but you’ll do in a pinch.
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This is where you draw your boundary line?
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You ever read that guy talk about cars? That’s a high bar, bruv.
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One form of life can graduate to a higher form in the next life with the right karma, and beings can also permanently escape the cycle of birth and death through enlightenment.
Yeah. But I’m not ready for an intervention
How about just a happy ending?
I look at all religions as a way to enforce social structure or bring about social change.
Reincarnation, at least how it started in India, was that for the indigenous polytheists to push back on the caste system installed by the monotheists that conquered them. The goal was to show that caste is meaningless because it’s the actions and charities that really defines a person’s worth.
That then is hijacked by the ruling castes and turned it around on by claiming people born into lower castes must have done bad things in their past life, and therefore they are just serving out their punishments.
Buddhism, Jainism and many religions afterwards tried to emphasize that there is a level above the caste system, the enlightenment which anyone could achieve, and humans are all suffering regardless of what caste they belong to.
But in the end, I’d say none of it worked to get rid of the caste system. Those in charge simply claim every prominent religious leader is a reincarnation of a Hindu deity, and thus their teachings during that particular reincarnation isn’t as important as the teaching coming directly from the gods.
So as a social experiment, I’d say reincarnation failed.
Any modern scientist would agree in the sense that it’s full of life(forms), assuming it’s not a dead zone. The room per se having a soul or consciousness is something else though.
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I recently watched this video interviewing several Dalits, some seems like leaders of their political movement.
I’m very surprised that there seems to be a clear correlation between Buddhists and Dalits.
From what it sounds like, it’s not that existing Buddhists are treated like Dalits, but more and more Dalits are converting to Buddhism. I’m not sure if I’m getting that right.
If that is the case, I think it’s because the Buddhist message about equality through reincarnation and enlightenment is still resonating with oppressed people in India.
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Pre Christian European religions like the Celts and Druids believed in reincarnation in one form or another. The Egyptians and Greeks both had their own forms of it, Plato even wrote about it.
“Plato said that even after death, the soul exists and is able to think. He believed that as bodies die, the soul is continually reborn”
Plato's theory of soul - Wikipedia.
Even Christianity taught it until it decided not to.
“It is believed that in 553 A.D. during the Second Council of Constantinople the idea of reincarnation was found to have no place in the Christian Church”
(its probably in the books discarded from the bible).
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Lots of reincarnation beliefs in this book, which always has a place in my library along with a lot older books.
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This looks like an interesting thread. I’ll have to come back around to it another time 
Alongside?