Reincarnation is the best gospel

 

Remember that we must formulate spirituality and religion in the way that is best for humankind and its needs. Humankind comes first. So we must consider the advantages of faith in reincarnation.

 

It is possible that faith in reincarnation is grounded in the desire to believe that for all eternity we will be progressing.  We come back to do a better job next time.  The other desire is for us to be all equal - nobody wants to think that an older person really gets more of an opportunity than one who dies young gets. The problem is something must act to make sure we don't progress too much.  After all we have to do it forever!  The doctrine thus backfires for doing nothing to better oneself can be seen as good for you have all eternity anyway.  Not progressing is progress in that sense.

 

Reincarnation teaches that this world and this universe is our home. We must look after this world for we have to live on it for countless centuries. Because our loved ones will return after death we want to make a nice world for them to come back to and we want that for ourselves as well.

 

Reincarnation teaches that we must accept that life isn’t always easy. Instead of dealing with the problems of life by thinking, “It will one day be over and I will be perfectly happy in Heaven”, it is better to get the strength to find contentment in the challenges of life for it will never be perfect. Strength is no good to you in Heaven. Strength matters more if reincarnation is true.

 

Courage, strength and wisdom are no good and not worth striving for unless we are meant to struggle against pain and suffering and unhappiness forever. If we go to a Heaven they are no good to us there. Knowing that we need our courage, for example, forever invites us to take it with absolute seriousness and strive to develop it. Love is no use if everything will be perfect one day.

 

It is absurd to hold that a God sends a baby into the world just for a few minutes to let the baby suffer and die and go to Heaven or elsewhere while somebody else lives a happy life into their nineties. Even if reincarnation does not explain this, it makes it less ridiculous. 

 

Reincarnation is a guess. It has no rational or philosophical or scientific basis at all. But it is not the worst of doctrines.

 

Reincarnation makes the most sense of life for many.

 

I might be a very different person at forty than I was at twenty. My body has totally rebuilt itself a number of times since I was twenty. Yet I know the power to experience never changed. I sense like I have been living in my body since birth and this perception never changed.

 

I being I despite the changes shows that reincarnation is possible. Reincarnation happens to the living. Why then can it not happen those who visibly depart the world? The answer is that even if it can, it might not. There is no evidence.

 

An argument for reincarnation:

 

Reincarnation teaches that we value normal life so much and our material bodies so greatly that we keep coming back after death in new bodies. We will keep evolving and devolving forever.

 

Our lovely down to earth teaching is a better way than the resurrection thesis to honour the body and the mysteries of birth, life, joy, suffering and death. The resurrection idea demeans our current bodies by suggesting they need to be turned into something magical and immortal. Reincarnation teaches that having a body is so precious that we are willing to incarnate ourselves into this imperfect and sometimes frightening world to have one. It urges us to do all we can to avoid death and if it is inevitable only then may we accept it for we wish to die in peace.

 

Why do we value being incarnate beings so much?

 

Because as spirit beings we are somehow lacking unless we have a real body.

 

Because we need bodies to have relationships. We do not need suffering but the risk of suffering. We need change to happen. Change involves risk. We need all this so that we can love.

 

Because as material beings we can learn about the universe through our senses. Without the body it is very very difficult to do that. It was very difficult for us as spirit beings to organise the universe.

 

Though we forget our previous lives, we still benefit from the results of those lives. If you learned how to drive, you can send the talent to drive into the universe so that it will return to you in a future life. Child prodigies have received the talents and energies that they sent themselves from previous incarnations.

 

Our memories are lost with the death of the body and we don't need them. What age are you now? Ten? Twenty? A hundred? You have lost the vast majority of your memories anyway. And whatever memories you have will not be fully accurate. And it didn't do you much harm. Losing your memories doesn't mean you weren't alive when the events were happening. You could have had previous lives although you cannot recall them.

 

Refutation:

 

We don't need believe in many lives to value the life we have.
 
The argument is sheer advertising pitch.
 
BOOKS CONSULTED

AFTER DEATH – WHAT? Fred Pearce, Christadelphian Publishing Office, Birmingham
ETERNAL LIFE, Hans Kung, Collins, London, 1984
GOD AND THE NEW PHYSICS, Paul Davies, Penguin Books, London, 1990
HANDBOOK OF CHRISTIAN APOLOGETICS, Peter Kreeft and Ronald Tacelli, Monarch, East Sussex, 1995
JEHOVAH OF THE WATCHTOWER, Walter Martin and Norman Klann, Bethany House Publishers, Minnesota, 1974
IS THERE LIFE AFTER DEATH? Paul Kroll, Worldwide Church of God, Pasadena, California, 1988
MIND OUT OF TIME, Ian Wilson, Gollanez, London, 1981
OCR Philosophy of Religion for AS and A2, Matthew Taylor, Editor Jon Mayled, Routledge, Oxon, New York, 2007 
LIFE AFTER DEATH THE WONDERFUL FACTS, Alan Hayward, Christadelphian, ALS, Birmingham
REASONS FOR HOPE, Ed Jeffrey A Mirus, Christendom College Press, Virginia, 1982
TEACH YOURSELF PHILOSOPHY OF MIND, Mel Thompson, Teach Yourself Books, London, 2003
THE AFTER DEATH EXPERIENCE, Ian Wilson, Corgi, London, 1987
THE DEVIL HIDES OUT, David Marshall, Autumn House, Grantham, 1991
THE LIFE OF ALL LIVING, Fulton J Sheen, Image Books, New York, 1979
THE INCREDIBLE CREED OF JEHOVAH WITNESSES, Frs Rumble & Carty, TAN, Illinois, 1977
WHATEVER HAPPENED TO HEAVEN? Dave Hunt, Harvest House, Publishers, Oregon, 1988

The Web
 
www.csicop.org/sb/9803/reincarnation.html
Case of Reincarnation Re-examined by Joe Nickell. This refutes the reincarnation claims of Jenny Cockell.