Reincarnation is it really true or not?

[Dangerrmouse]

http://koti.phnet.fi/elohim/Reincarnation In case anyone wanted the link.....

[sub_zer0]

If we start to examine the basic views of the New Age movement and the Oriental religions, it is good to start from reincarnation. This doctrine is namely in the background of almost all teachings of the New age movement and it is also the basic belief of the Oriental religions like Hinduism and Buddhism. About its commonness has been estimated, that about 25 % of people in the western countries believes in it, but in India and other countries of Asia, where the origin of this doctrine are, the percentage is naturally much bigger. Mainly in India and other countries of Asia they have taught this doctrine already for at least 2000 years, and obviously it was accepted generally about 300 years before Christ, not just before Him.

When it is a question of reincarnation, it in any case is based on the fact, that our life is believed to be a continuous circulation so that each person is born on the earth again and again and again, and gets a new incarnation always according to how he has lived in his former life. All bad things that happen to us today are only the result of earlier events, and we must now reap what we have sown earlier. Only if we experience enlightenment and at the same time are freed from the circulation and achieve moksha, this circulation does not continue eternally. (However, in the western view achieving moksha is not very important. Instead, in the western world reincarnation is seen in positive light, mainly as a possibility to develop and grow spiritually. It doesn't have the similar negative nuance to it.)

But what can we think about reincarnation; is it really true or not, and is it worth believing in? We try answer this in this article.

No it isn't worth believing in and it is NOT true!

[Patriot]

Or not.

[Missouri Mule]

It's an appealing idea but I don't put much stock in it. On the other hand I don't put too much stock any any religious notions but then I don't like the alternative either and that is eternal nothingness and that all ends at death. I think the root cause of religion in any form has to be the natural human tendency to not want to come to grips with what we do know so far as the physical world so we invent the "afterworld" but who would want to share it with some of the evil people that went before us?

I'm afraid I can't accept it although I would very much like to. This particular excerpt explains why I have much difficulty taking it seriously.

"Population growth. The second problem we have to face is the population growth. For if reincarnation is true and someone would always achieve moksha, leave the circulation, the number of people on earth should decrease - or at least it could not increase. In other words there should now be much less people on earth than sometime earlier in the past.

However, why is this just the opposite? For when the amount of population should all the time decrease because people left the circulation, it is however increasing all the time, so that there are now about 10 times more people than 500 years ago and about 30 times more than 2000 years ago. There are actually right now more people on earth than ever and their amount has increased all the time through the centuries (As a matter of fact we don't need to go further than some decades – basing calculations on the current population growth– and we would achieve the zero point where there would be no people. Compare Genesis 1:28: "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill earth...”). The population grow is a real problem from the point of view of reincarnation - especially if some souls are freed at from the circulation. This doesn't speak on behalf of reincarnation, but against it."

[dittohead not!]

I used to believe in reincarnation, but that was in a different life.

[JoeR]

I don't think reincarnation has an aspect that says that new life can't be created, so I don't think the population arguement really has much merit. I don't think reincarnation itself has much merit either though.

[Missouri Mule]

I don't think reincarnation has an aspect that says that new life can't be created, so I don't think the population arguement really has much merit. I don't think reincarnation itself has much merit either though.

Don't you find the "new souls" argument rather compelling when you think about it? We have had perhaps 25 billion people inhabit the planet since man first walked the earth and it keeps going up, up and up. And where would all these souls wind up anyway? The whole business of reincarnation and religion in general just depresses me no end.

Even if a person is a Christian the gospels are really the recounting by word of mouth to paper several decades after he lived and died. They are in conflict on several levels and some of the gnostic gospels are unbelievably stupid and ridiculous. If anyone wants to see this for themselves, google up the Gospel of Thomas. And then we have the other religions with their moronic beliefs. It just boggles the mind.