You also have to realize that the belief of reincarnation is quite similar to the Christian belief in Heaven. Reincarnation states that when you die, your essence is taken to another plane of existence where your next life will be dictated by the quality of your morals and actions in the previous life. That is remarkably like heaven, the difference is that there is no speculation as to who or what does the judging. Also, many who believe in reincarnation believe in it as a metaphor. At any given point in time you are who you are based on what you've experienced in life. Your whole persona and personality are subject to the good, bad, and even moot points that have happened to you. So many things happen to you every second without you noticing that you can't comprehend the personality changes. You sit in a chair and it's uncomfortable so you don't like that brand of chairs anymore, a waitress is mean so you decide she's unworthy of a tip, so on and so forth. So many things happen to you every second that your mind is literally "reborn" or "reincarnated" since you never view the world in the exact same way more than one second or so.

What I do not like about reincarnation and Buddhism is the final result of this believe e.g. that you lose your unique self identity withing the cosmic mind. I also do not like the idea of being born and reborn back into this realm of mortal man

I appreciate acceptance but not at the expense of logic. You have to believe the logic of it or becomes a blinkered belief. You cant deny your reasoning, its part of being human. I understand the concept of life's experiences, we are the same soul experiencing different consequences of life. What I dont understand is the fickle notion of our placement. If I was born to Buddhist teacher and obeyed his teachings i might break the chain of life and death with one existence. Others may be born into ignorance for many lives , how is that managed in your beliefs?

Xris


http://everythingelseatheism.blogspot.com/2009/02/problems-with-reincarnation.html

But let's assume that the soul does exist and inhabits a new body when the old one dies.

Why does the soul forget its past experiences? What would make the soul's memories stop when the old body dies?

Why would the self - the presumed soul - not be able to remember? Is the soul not the ultimate self?

Why would a new body limit the self's ability to conjure its own memories? And for those who claim that d?j?-vu or whatever is repressed past memories, I might ask what the mechanism is for memories to be blocked or let through. If they are blocked, how are they getting through? Why can't they all get through?

And if you're old memories are lost forever, then what is the point of being reincarnated? The point of reincarnation is to extend life, but if you can't retain memories or lessons or knowledge from those past lives, how exactly have you extended your life? It's not much better than saying you achieve immortality by living on in the hearts and minds of your friends. I want to live forever by living forever. I don't want some memory or trace of me living on.

Now for the practical problems of reincarnation. (We'll just deal with humans for right now). Where were all the souls before the earth existed? Where will they go when the earth is destroyed? Will they continue to exist and be sentient, to interact in soul-land?

Then why come into bodies at all? And then what if the ratio of bodies-to-souls is off, say more souls than bodies? Do the souls just hang out in soul-land waiting for a new body to inhabit? Or what if there are more bodies than souls? Are new souls born? Or are there some people who are just automatons - functioning robots without souls at all? Could we tell the automatons apart from the real people?

Now let's deal with animals, if you accept trans-special reincarnation. Clearly some animals have different sorts of mental functioning abilities. We can reason better, rats can discern smells better, bats can hear better. Different animals can see in different colors, very much a mental process of the mind.

How does the soul make up for these things? When we get transferred to a chicken, do we lose our ability to reason? When we are transferred out of a wolf, do we lose the knowledge of how to hunt?

Are our souls restricted in what they can express on their host? And then of course, what's the cutoff point of creatures imbued with souls? Do rats have souls? Bees? Roaches? Bacteria? Viruses? Replicating proteins like Mad Cow? Even if you restrict reincarnation to just humans; at what point in the human evolutionary chain was the first soul imbued?

Now how about the idea that the creature you get to inhabit depends on how good you were in your past life. Who keeps track? Who is the great record-keeper that sends you to your new body? What criteria are used? Is it objective - could it be objective? Does it make mistakes?

How does it force our souls into the hosts? Could the soul refuse? And you have to wonder; is your fate graded on a curve? What if everyone in one generation acts perfectly and kindly and loving to everyone? Surely the less desirable bodies are still being born and need to be inhabited. Would a couple of hugs be the difference between a hawk and a slug?