One of my favourite Ajahns said, the Buddha was right about so many things, why would he be wrong about rebirth? I'm skeptical but the more I think about it, the more I think there might be some substance to the claim. I mean I do remember saying stuff when I was very little like 'when I was a grown up', and it seems it's a very widespread phenomenon. So yeah I try to keep an open mind and investigate rather than reject the idea because of conditioning or blindly embrace the concept without putting due diligence into it.

Tbh, I'm only Buddhist by virtue of life philosophy at this point. I don't place any weight on the spiritual side, just the parts that work here and now to fucking survive.

That being said, I see that wager as a good one, and have tried to approach life that way before I ever encountered Buddhism, or any religion on a serious level.

To me, the reason to be a decent human being in my treatment of others isn't really moral, per se. It's that same pragmatic thing. See, in day to day life, the less misery a person spreads, the less likely they are to get caught knee deep in it themselves, in terms of human caused misery. Ain't a damn thing we can do about the other sorts.

I do believe that being decent is either the default, or the entire fucking planet drowns in the ugly. So I strive to suppress my ugly and do my version of right as best I can.

Reincarnation is meaningless in that paradigm. I would honestly prefer the oblivion of all things after death, but if any of the ideas that float around religions are real, then I'll take the possibility of escaping the cycle eventually via reincarnation.

I think its a crock of shit