[valinors_sorrow]

All I know is...
If there is reincarnation, I would gladly stand in the sea otter line
When I die just in case I didn't build up enough karma for becoming
Another human. :p

[talaniman]

I don't know what awaits after death so I'll just have to wait and see, No hurry though I kind of like it where I am!

[Morganite]

Actually that sounds like a form of reincarnation. If we are all created spirits awaiting to go to this physical place. So we are in this waiting place? HEAVEN MAYBE. Then we come down to live this live and when we die we go back to the same place we came from. So if we go back to the same place we came from that would mean that there is a possibility of repeating the cycle. Just like everything we see in this life has cycles, then it would be common sense that our soul has different cycles to it as well!

I disagree that returning to a place we have once been means repeating the cycle of life. Koholeth say that at death, "the dust return[s] to the dust and the spirit to God who have it." This in no way implies reincarnation, which is an almost endless cycle of rebirths in different forms according to the merit gained through the previous existence. That is the Karmic Cycle.

Christianity teaches that "it is given to man once to die" and then comes the resurrection, which is being raised into immortality, whereas on this earth we are mortal. It is not a cycle that will be repated, but a contumuum that will last forever.

M:)RGANITE

[Starman]

All I know is .....
if there is reincarnation, I would gladly stand in the sea otter line
when I die just in case I didn't build up enough karma for becoming
another human. :p

It's the way they contendedly float on their backs cracking nuts without a care in the world. Who could ever want more than that? That's better than Nirvana! LOL

[galveston]

OK. So you guys who believe in reincarnation like something with a lot of supposition and complex ideas. What I believe is infinitely simpler and far better documented. I guess I'm just simple minded.

[depressionsthename]

Well being a catholic, I truly don't believe in the possibility of reincarnation. I think it's a myth made up by other religions spread across the world, simply as a way of taking the fear away from death, by telling people that there is nothing to worry about, since you will be able to live another life. In other ways the bible does mention in a small passage that reincarnation is practically nothing but a hoax, but because of recent and further studies into the catholic church and the bible, it has been found that the bible may not, unfortunately, be all true.

[galveston]

Depressionsthename,

Don't you believe it for a minute! If you reject even one basic primise, you will have to throw the whole thing out. How can a human hope to sort through the Bible and determine what is valid and what is not? I am a catholic (small "c" meaning universal Christian, not Church of Rome), and I have read the many details of prophecy and the details of their fulfillment. God's Word,(unlike Nostradamus) is accurate, and will continue to be if the people of our own time will quit changing it to suit their own twisted agendas.

[talaniman]

Depressionsthename,

Don't you believe it for a minute! If you reject even one basic primise, you will have to throw the whole thing out. How can a human hope to sort through the Bible and determine what is valid and what is not? I am a catholic (small "c" meaning universal Christian, not Church of Rome), and I have read the many details of prophecy and the details of their fulfillment. God's Word,(unlike Nostradamus) is accurate, and will continue to be if the people of our own time will quit changing it to suit their own twisted agendas.

They have been twisting not only the bible but most of the HOLY books for centuries. Who's to say what is or what isn't possible/TRUE!

[Starman]

Well being a catholic, i truly don't believe in the possibility of reincarnation. I think it's a myth made up by other religions spread across the world, simply as a way of taking the fear away from death, by telling people that there is nothing to worry about, since you will be able to live another life. In other ways the bible does mention in a small passage that reincarnation is practically nothing but a hoax, but because of recent and further studies into the catholic church and the bible, it has been found that the bible may not, unfortunately, be all true.

Not all doctrine that is claimed to be biblical is biblical. It is a mistake to blame the book and say it is flawed because someone or some organization misinterpretes it.

[orange]

OK. So you guys who believe in reincarnation like something with a lot of supposition and complex ideas. What I believe is infinitely simpler and far better documented. I guess I'm just simple minded.

What do you mean by "far better documented"? Reincarnation is described in the Vedas, the holy writings of the Hindu people. Many of these writings pre-date the Koran, the Christian Bible, and parts of the Torah. There are approximately 970 million Hindus worldwide.

I'm not really a believer in reincarnation myself, but it is well-documented!

[31pumpkin]

There may be 900 million Hindus worldwide but 890 million of them live in India.
Their philosophy is interesting but the religious writings conflict with the account of the Abrahamic God from the Bible. Maybe that's all they had at the time was their desire to believe and so they drew from their imaginations.
Their concept of reincarnation is a one complex delusion.

[valinors_sorrow]

Here is a fascinating site about world religions I thought might be of value here? I have not validated it from a secondary source but on the outset it appears very objective in its reporting of statistics.
www.adherents.com

[Thomas1970]

I think it's a myth made up by other religions spread across the world, simply as a way of taking the fear away from death, by telling people that there is nothing to worry about, since you will be able to live another life.

Though I can not speak knowledgeably for the Hindu perspective, from a purely Buddhist frame of reference, it would be difficult to apply this. In the Buddhist teachings, birth and death belong to the realm of the "relative", conceptual mind. They are considered but two more extreme views that have no concrete validity on the deeper level on "ultimate", unconditioned reality. As all forms of "self" are composed of non-self elements, it is taught that death is simply another subtle form of delusion. From a scientific perspective, matter can neither ever be created nor destroyed, simply redistributed and/or rearranged. "Our" molecules eventually live on to become parts of many other forms. All life is intimately interconnected, and dependent on many other forms and factors for its relative survival, a premise known in Buddhism as "dependent co-arising." Sort of like "all for one, and one for all" on the most primal of levels. When causes and conditions are sufficient to support us we manifest, or "be", and when they are not, our constituent metaphysic elements or "skandhas" in Buddhist and Hindu cosmology return to the ultimate ground of existence, or "luminous emptiness" from which all phenoma are said to arise.
Buddhists believe that through meditation -- pure, direct, largely unfiltered experience -- the bonds of ego can be sufficiently loosened to realize such truths. When one sufficiently realizes the falseness of the wholly independent, unchanging self, hope and fear become largely inconsequential as well. Death is rarely feared by experienced practitioners, and is often seen to be eagerly anticipated during its inevitable, perceived approach, particularly among the Tibetan people, as the ultimate opportunity for liberation, the realization of one's truest nature. Death is not perceived as antithetical to life, simply more as just another of it's many transitional experiences or "bardos." Though to willingly wish for rebirth would laregely be considered as tainted by attachment to ego, material form, and self-limiting pleasures -- if one feels one has not sufficient realization to avoid a subsequent rebirth, naturally one prays and strives to be reborn in a higher more conducive realm. This is the core purpose of the "Tibetan Book of the Dead", studied in life and recited by the bedside of the dying and recently deceased. The title itself is somewhat misleading, inaccurately coined upon its first American translation in the 1920's, due to the then popularity of the also grossly misnamed "Egyptian Book of the Dead." A more accurate translation of the former being, "The Natural Liberation Through Hearing in the Between."
Hopefully someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but if I were to guess, I would say that Hindus see subsequent lives or incarnations as necessary opportunities for further "atonement" or perfection on the road to ultimately unity. As Ram Dass says, "The soul's only desire is to unite with God."
Buddhists believe we perpetually rebirth solely on the sheer mometum of our vast ignorance regarding the deepest nature of existence. My keychain sums it up quite aptly in the words, "The only difference between genius and stupidity is genius has its limits." When we no longer manufacture karma through discriminatory desires, we will no longer inhabit an Earth that is separated from Heaven. They are simply two sides of one very valuable coin. Attempt to take away "heads" and "tails" can no longer exist. In fact, a new "heads" then emerges. Trim the right edge of a piece of paper, and the remainder still possesses a right side. They can only be understood as concepts in direct relation or perhaps juxtapositional opposition to each other. Heaven and Earth, Heaven and Hell, Nirvana and Samsara are not separate, simply dependent intellectually upon our view. Pure experience is always heavenly blissful, otters can certainly teach us that. :)

[galveston]

Dear Orange,
Who else besides Jesus Christ has walked out of his grave under his own power, (nail and spear scars obvious) and then spent 40 days of extra teaching to his disciples, being seen by more than 500 at one time?

Mere antiquity in itself does not prove anything, one way or the other.

As to the Bible being changed hundreds of years ago, (taliniman's comment), the church through the centuries has been very careful not to change the Holy Scriptures, especially at Antioch, from which stream the King James Bible came to us. The church rejected those writings which came by way of Alexandria, rejecting them as being corrupted.

[galveston]

Dear Orange,
Perhaps the reason you are not a Christian is that you have never really been presented with a valid reason to believe the Bible? If you (or anyone else out there) would like to see it, I could post predictions from the Old Testament, followed by the record of their fulfillment from the New Testament. There are a lot of them, so probably won't get back with you today.

[NeedKarma]

galveston,
This thread, or website for that matter, doesn't lend itself well to attempts to convert others. We usually don't try to make others come to our side as it were.

Have a great day.

NK

[galveston]

NK,

Sorry. I just assumed that a discussion was for the purpose of exchanging information and ideas. Was I wrong?

[talaniman]

There may be 900 million Hindus worldwide but 890 million of them live in India.
Their philosophy is interesting but the religious writings conflict with the account of the Abrahamic God from the Bible. Maybe that's all they had at the time was their desire to believe and so they drew from their imaginations.
Their concept of reincarnation is a one complex delusion.

We are All complex delusions, some of us just don't know it!

[NeedKarma]

Exchanging ideas is indeed the goal. Telling someone they should become like you with the 'correct information' verges on trying to convert. Kind of reminds me of the Jehovah Witnesses going door to door. :)

[talaniman]

By galveston

As to the Bible being changed hundreds of years ago, (taliniman's comment), the church through the centuries has been very careful not to change the Holy Scriptures, especially at Antioch, from which stream the King James Bible came to us. The church rejected those writings which came by way of Alexandria, rejecting them as being corrupted

So the CHURCH decides what's in and what's out and correct me if I'm wrong but isn't that the way it was thru-out the middle ages. I doubt if they had foot-notes to mark the changes or explain why. And King James the English high church official surely wouldn't twist the bible for his own gain would he?