[Salliter]

...though it makes sense that doesn't mean it's true...

It is true because, when the scriptures are actually studied, they only have one predominant theme, as follows:

Here, ruler of gods, a bhikkhu has heard that nothing is worth clinging to. When a bhikkhu has heard that nothing is worth clinging to, he directly knows everything; having directly known everything, he fully understands everything; having directly known everything, he fully understood everything, whatever feeling he feels, whether pleasant or painful or neither pleasant or painful, he abides contemplating (observing) impermanence in those feelings, contemplating (observing) fading away, contemplating (observing) cessation, contemplating (observing) relinquishment (letting go). Contemplating (observing) thus, he does not cling to anything in the world. When he does not cling, he is not agitated, he personally attains Nibbana.

MN 37 as follows:

274. This is the only path; there is none other for the purification of insight.

277. "All conditioned things are impermanent" — when one sees this with wisdom, one turns away from suffering. This is the path to purification.

278. "All conditioned things are unsatisfactory" — when one sees this with wisdom, one turns away from suffering. This is the path to purification.

279. "All things are not-self" — when one sees this with wisdom, one turns away from suffering. This is the path to purification.

Maggavagga: The Path the scriptures themselves dismiss reincarnation & rebirth as essential teachings, as pure teachings & as teachings that are factors of the path that can lead to the goal. about reincarnation & rebirth, the scriptures report:

Through his attending to ideas unfit for attention and through his not attending to ideas fit for attention, both unarisen fermentations arise in him and arisen fermentations increase.

This is how he attends inappropriately: 'Was I in the past? Was I not in the past? What was I in the past? How was I in the past? Having been what, what was I in the past? Shall I be in the future? Shall I not be in the future? What shall I be in the future? How shall I be in the future? Having been what, what shall I be in the future?' Or else he is inwardly perplexed about the immediate present: 'Am I? Am I not? What am I? How am I? Where has this being come from? Where is it bound?'

MN 2 again:

And what is right view? Right view, I tell you, is of two sorts: There is right view with effluents [asava], siding with merit, resulting in the acquisitions [of becoming]; and there is noble right view, without effluents, transcendent, a factor of the path.

And what is the right view that has effluents, sides with merit, & results in acquisitions? 'There is what is given, what is offered, what is sacrificed. There are fruits & results of good & bad actions. There is this world & the other worlds. There is mother & father. There are spontaneously reborn beings; there are brahmans & contemplatives who, faring rightly & practicing rightly, proclaim this world & the others after having directly known & realized it for themselves.' This is the right view that has effluents, sides with merit & results in acquisitions.

And what is the right view that is without effluents, transcendent, a factor of the path? The discernment, the faculty of discernment, the strength of discernment, analysis of qualities as a factor for Awakening, the path factor of right view of one developing the noble path whose mind is noble, whose mind is free from effluents, who is fully possessed of the noble path. This is the right view that is without effluents, transcendent, a factor of the path.

MN 117 now, the path is practised for the ending of asava (defiled effluents/fermentations) & the ending of becoming (self-belief).

the reported words of the Buddha above, clearly state, to believe in rebirth sides with morality but, ultimately, is a defiled & unenlightened view

thus, if we are not prepared to have faith in the preserved scriptures then only our own spiritual insight can serve as the basis of trust

regards

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