Reincarnation and the formation of the Soul

[EugeneCharles]

Since the soul is immortal, its reasonable that souls depart for the realm of pure spirit upon the death of the body, and are bound to bodies upon conception, ie reincarnation.

Sorry if I wrong you! In Buddhism, reincarnation is like a punishment for a soul. There’s a cycle they call as Karma. A soul won’t reach their finite location until they’re not free from sin. Their souls will go to hell, where they will be tortured, then they’ll live on earth and would repeat the process until they reach their degree of perfection.

 

[BT3241]

No sin has nothing to do with it - each life you are attempting to find I higher state of enlightenment and you only move up never down. Karma is like the gasoline of life when its all gone your life is over.

Your arguing two different beliefs that are not comparable

 

[Richca]

It seems to me that more than one lifetime would be arbitrary and would make your first lifetime arbitrary and without real purpose and meaning. Heaven is the end goal for every human being. Now, there can be either a finite or infinite number of lifetimes to reach it. It can’t be infinite because than the end would never be reached. Accordingly, there must be a finite number, either one or more, of lifetimes to reach the end goal. If more than one lifetime and there is a finite number of them, one is eventually going to come to their last lifetime in which we have the same state of affairs as one lifetime in which follows the eternal judgement. So, what was the point of the previous lifetimes? It seems arbitrary to me.

Also, having more than one lifetime or chance so to speak is less of a deterrent to do good and avoid evil in the here and now than a single lifetime. A person could think 'I’m going to maim and kill as many humans as I can and cause as much suffering as I can to humans in this lifetime (although I don’t know how he/she would know if they are on their last lifetime or not) because I may have another lifetime chance. Does this make any sense? Not to me.

Lastly, if the knowledge of an eternal judgement follows our present lifetime on earth and some person does not repent of their sins and simply doesn’t care, what reason can be given that they would repent in another lifetime? And as I say, there can only be a finite number of them in order to reach the end goal. A person could be potentially as evil in their second and third lifetime and so on as they were in their first and no person knows with any certainty whether their present lifetime may be their last lifetime or not in which case we pretty much have the same state of affairs as a single lifetime or at least I would recommend that every person live as if their present lifetime on earth is either their only one or their last one - not that I believe we have more than one.

 

[RepetantCatholic]

There was another thread on reincarnation that I responded to. Again, you are asking a good question. Like I mentioned in the other thread I’ve looked into reincarnation in terms of what is currently a trend started by two books “Journey of Souls,” and “Many Lives Many Masters.” Also, as I mentioned in that thread there is a new Disney movie called, “Soul,” which seems to have adopted the cosmology. For Catholics unfamiliar, here is that Disney Movie’s trailer:

The allure of the idea’s proposed in these books, why I think you have adopted it as well as many others, is that it appears more equitable and more just given the frailty of the human condition (what you term mediocrity). However, the danger I see in adopting such a view is that it does not take into account the seriousness and gravity of life. I’ve come to the conclusion, the idea sounds “nice,” but doesn’t account for the plethora of suffering in the world and doesn’t account for the seriousness of the consequences of depraved souls that cause that suffering in the world.

The kind of people I see adopting this idea would be active sinners living in complete comfort who are not currently suffering for their sins. Again, these people don’t have the introspection, reflection, or empathy to explore the consequences of their actions much less the general state of suffering in the world. Which is why I conclude the idea is dangerously, “Superficial.”

Finally, in my life experience I have found it is only with religious leaning and prayer does suffering lead to the positive consequences of growth ie God has a hand in the life of the suffering when the suffering pray and seek his counsel. However, suffering on it’s own merits does not lead to growth on it’s own but instead, as I have seen, may lead to things like depravity, anger, bitterness, resentment, jealousy…etc…Again, that is the, “Superficial,” view of suffering people who believe in these ideas have.

I can go further but I’ll leave it there.

 

[Vico]

…

The idea is that the soul is rational and therefore immortal. The person is a body-soul composite where the soul, created in respect to the body it will inform; the substance of the rational or intellective soul truly and in itself is a form of the human body.

 

[openmind77]

Catholic cosmology seems too harsh for man’s mediocrity.

I agree. Imagine two men taking part in a robbery. They both are involved in a car crash. One dies instantly and the other is injured and eventually dies, but he has time to confess and get absolution before death. The first goes to hell for eternity and the other eventually goes to heaven for eternity (after purgatory).

This seems rather unfair as well as quite harsh for the first man (maybe it was his first crime). The theory of reincarnation (together with the concept of karma) solves this issue of justice and equity.

But I wouldn’t waste any time trying to convince anyone. It is quite impossible to prove reincarnation - someone’s testimony (memory of past lives) is not good enough and logic even less so.

However, soon the Christ will Return (maybe as early as next year). He will answer all our questions and resolve this issue.