Reincarnation

Reincarnation

Do human beings live only once, or are we granted the opportunity to return after death and experience many different lives? The question of reincarnation has been examined for thousands of years and has been embraced in various degrees by numerous religions. Scientists speculate that even the people who lived during the New Stone Age (10,000B.C.E - 5,000B.C.E.) believed that once a person died, their journey had not yet concluded. Because ideas about a society that lived so long ago are frequently not concrete and can be difficult for present day culture to grasp, many scholars point towards Hinduism as being one of the earliest religions to offer explanations of reincarnation. Hinduism, originating sometime during the fourth millennium BCE is the most ancient of the surviving great religions. The adoption of the belief of rebirth can be found in Hindu scriptures dating around 600 BCE As time progressed, suggestions of reincarnation began to be found in Buddhism, Taoism, Judaism, and Christianity. While this is certainly not a complete list, or a statement that each of these religions embraces and in turn teaches the theory of rebirth, it does shed light to the fact that among very diverse beliefs and lifestyles there is a great desire to know what happens after death. In addition to the search about what transpires posthumously, many people see reincarnation as an explanation for many of the great questions about life. Such as, why is there suffering in the world? is there a meaning to life? How can child prodigies be explained? and are memories about past lives valid? Following is a discussion of how the theory of rebirth can answer some of life's most difficult questions and provide supportive evidence coll...

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...ligions. In Christianity, this idea is expressed by St. Paul in Ephesians 4.13, "Till we all come in of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, into a perfect man, into the measure of the fullness of Christ". This attainment is represented for every person in the Bible, "Be ye therefore of perfect, even as your father which is in Heaven is perfect" Matthew 5.48. Christianity does not embrace reincarnation and teaches that once a person dies, their soul can go to Heaven, Hell, or in some cases Hell on earth. However, a single life span, even when there are a variety or experiences of, the attainment of physical, intellectual, and spiritual "perfection" would be impossible. A person would need to experience both the life of an animal and a human as well as both sexes and different races and lifestyles to be able to grasp the vast diversity of the universe.