There is the teaching of the Two Truths: one relative and one absolute. The relative level is conventional, how we speak on a daily basis, where we talk of people and things. Rebirth belongs to this level. At the absolute level, there is no birth, no death, no rebirth.

Beginner’s poledancing for the armless by I B Fallin

Causality in Buddhism is based on specific conditionality, which is usually summarised as:

When this is, that is.
From the arising of this comes the arising of that.
When this isn’t, that isn’t.
From the cessation of this comes the cessation of that.

So when there is heat, a fuel and oxygen, fire arises. Take one of those away, and the fire passes away. Everything is like this in Buddhism. There can be dependency loops, so some processes are self-sustaining once they have begun until the loop is broken.

We sometimes talk about “mindstreams” which you could think of as bundles of conditions which fulfil the requirements for being alive.

If there is no self, then nothing distinguishes your mindstream from mine, other than the specific conditions which make it up, which explain why you experience different things than I do.

Say if I introduce a male friend to a female friend, then I die shortly after. Later on, they get together and have a baby. When I die, all that has happened is one or some of the conditions required for my life have ceased. But whatever other conditions were present still remain, including that I introduced those friends. Other conditions combine with that one, leading to them eventually having the baby. Is that baby me? No, there was never a “me” at any point in the process. But there is a causal connection.

Buddhist here. The goal of Buddhism is to escape the cycle of rebirth. Monks and ascetics are generally trying to go out (to nibbana, “extinguishment”) rather than up (to rebirth in one of the heavenly realms), which tends to be a goal of laypeople. Though it depends to some extent on which branch of Buddhism. Even after reaching a heavenly realm and having a godlike existence, eventually (after a very long time) they will die and fall back into a lower realm with more suffering, which is why escaping the cycle is the ultimate goal.

In Buddhism we don’t consider humans a higher form of life than animals or those in the hell realm. All living beings are seen equally, as we all suffer and we all want to be free from suffering. Regarding E. coli, I think most Buddhists would say you can only be reborn into a body with a sufficient nervous system for the brain to support the mind processes required for experience, so bacteria are probably too simple.

But saying “you” are reborn isn’t quite right as there is no self which goes through this process, just the causal process itself links the past and present life.

Buddhist here. We have the teaching of “non-self”, that no self can be found anywhere in our experience. There is no “me” in the present moment, so there is no self whose continuity must be maintained. There are just the different elements of experience arising and falling away. There is just a causal connection between the past life and the present life, no enduring self dies or is born. Similar to the Ship of Theseus. This is the Buddhist understanding.

Hinduism and Jainism on the other hand assert that there is a self.

I know some Muslims claim the Qur’an gave scientific foreknowledge: https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Qur’anic_scientific_foreknowledge

Who could resist that face?

The worst part is when you wobble slightly and insert the strand of DNA in the wrong place, so instead of curing the patient’s genetic disease they immediately sprout horns.

🤣

The Pet Shop Boys version is a remix of Bowie’s Hallo Spaceboy.

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He’ll wing it.

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