Ship of Fools: Next time around

Thread: Next time around Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.

To visit this thread, use this URL:
http://forum.ship-of-fools.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=70;t=025485

Posted by Holy Smoke (# 14866) on :

I don't know if anybody else has noticed, but there seem to be an increasing number of references in the media to the possibility of re-incarnation - there was one on 'Test Match Special' (cricket commentary) on BBC Radio 4 the other day, for example. Is the idea of re-incarnation gradually gaining acceptance, and if so, how will it affect our morality and our way of thinking? For example, if John has a particular trait or talent, might it be down to, not his genes or his upbringing, but to his experience in a past life? And how will it affect organized Christianity? One can see the advantages to the Church in promoting the idea that one's current life is one's only shot at achieving 'eternal life', but is the idea of re-incarnation really totally at odds with Christian teaching?

Posted by Stetson (# 9597) on :

quote:
I don't know if anybody else has noticed, but there seem to be an increasing number of references in the media to the possibility of re-incarnation - there was one on 'Test Match Special' (cricket commentary) on BBC Radio 4 the other day, for example.

Hmm. Can't say I've really noticed, but then my media consumption is almost entirely via the internet, movies, and print journalism. I don't really do TV or radio.

From my recollection, reincarnation has been a semi-regular fixture of popular discourse since at least the late 70s. Something that gets brought up in off-hand asides("Hey, maybe Thatcher will come back as a coal miner in her next life, ha ha ha!"), as I'm assuming is the case with your cricket example. Plus, the whole Shirley Maclaine thing was really big in the late 80s/early 90s.

quote:
Is the idea of re-incarnation gradually gaining acceptance

Following from what I wrote above, I wouldn't really think so. At least no moreso than it was during the aforementioned Shirley Maclaine era, and probably prior. I am not a pollster or a sociologist, but if I had to guess, I'd say that belief in reincarnation probably had a relative upsurge in the 70s(after the 60s vogue for eastern religion had trickled down to the general public), but has remained more or less at a plateau ever since.

I'll leave it to others to initiate the theological debate.

Posted by John D. Ward (# 1378) on :

Hebrews 9:27 is the usual evangelical proof-text against reincarnation:

"And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment:"

Posted by Pyx_e (# 57) on :

I went to a recent seminar on it. It was £3000 a ticket but I thought sod it, you only live once.

Fly Safe, Pyx_e

Posted by Raptor Eye (# 16649) on :

I notice talk of reincarnation and of karma. I think that both ideas are shared freely now that the hellfire & damnation Christian ideas about heaven and hell and God's justice have been jettisoned by society at large.

The danger I see is that of laziness and complacency by those who think they'll get another chance so they don't need to make too much effort in this life. The stress Jesus puts on expectation of the end time at any time counters this.

As we can't achieve eternal life, and we receive it by God's grace if at all, with no guarantees, and as we no longer have a certain coherent statement of an afterlife on which Christians agree, I can understand the attraction of ideas which put people in control of their own progression up a spiritual scale.

Posted by churchgeek (# 5557) on :

I think it's one of those things people toss out there without thinking through too consistently. Similar to references to ghosts, or as someone above said, karma, or even heaven and hell. I suspect sometimes they're just quasi-metaphorical ways of expressing something that either hasn't or can't be fully hammered out. And often they're really used more jokingly than not. What was the comment on the cricket match? Was it really made seriously? Are the cricket commentators theologians now?

It would be interesting to know how people who really believe in reincarnation (Hindus or Buddhists) understand the role of genetics. Maybe it's like the saying, "When the student is ready, the teacher appears" - when a genetically conducive body is available the reincarnation happens - as if the soul is drawn to the body it karmically needs or deserves? Or is reincarnation supposed to be immediate? I honestly don't know that much about it. There must already be some explanation of the mechanism that sorts out whether a person will be re-born as a woman, man, or perhaps a different species. Genetics has probably only introduced a need and opportunity to refine that.

Posted by Holy Smoke (# 14866) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Raptor Eye:
The danger I see is that of laziness and complacency by those who think they'll get another chance so they don't need to make too much effort in this life. The stress Jesus puts on expectation of the end time at any time counters this.

I'm not sure that complacency would be the only reaction. For a start, there's the business of karma, which as you mentioned tends to go hand in hand with re-incarnation. That would suggest that people would realise that what they did in this life has a knock-on effect in their next life. Then it might also make for a more realistic approach to what one can achieve in one's current life, with one's limited allowance of talents, advantages, etc. One would be less inclined to look enviously at other peoples' achievements and possessions, and be more accepting of one's own station in life, and one's own situation. Then there wouldn't be this obsession with staying alive and preserving life at all costs. Death would be seen as a merciful release in certain circumstances, rather than the worst thing possible. Then people might also be less inclined to act selfishly - trash the environment, have large families, abuse their bodies - if they knew they were coming back to enjoy the fruits of their labours in a more crowded, dirtier, shittier world. Just some ideas.

quote:
As we can't achieve eternal life, and we receive it by God's grace if at all, with no guarantees, and as we no longer have a certain coherent statement of an afterlife on which Christians agree, I can understand the attraction of ideas which put people in control of their own progression up a spiritual scale.

It would be in line with a semi-Pelagian stance on salvation, which seems to be the default position for a lot of Anglicans, at least.

Posted by Raptor Eye (# 16649) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Holy Smoke:
I'm not sure that complacency would be the only reaction. For a start, there's the business of karma, which as you mentioned tends to go hand in hand with re-incarnation. That would suggest that people would realise that what they did in this life has a knock-on effect in their next life. Then it might also make for a more realistic approach to what one can achieve in one's current life, with one's limited allowance of talents, advantages, etc. One would be less inclined to look enviously at other peoples' achievements and possessions, and be more accepting of one's own station in life, and one's own situation. Then there wouldn't be this obsession with staying alive and preserving life at all costs. Death would be seen as a merciful release in certain circumstances, rather than the worst thing possible. Then people might also be less inclined to act selfishly - trash the environment, have large families, abuse their bodies - if they knew they were coming back to enjoy the fruits of their labours in a more crowded, dirtier, shittier world. Just some ideas.

Theoretically, then, there are possibilities for the good built in, or are there? If life is not seen to be precious, however painful, as you have indicated 'mercy killing' may be seen as the right thing to do rather than caring for others. But we won't go into this any further here as it's dh territory. If 'fate' is thought to have given one a station in life, there may be no motivation or incentive to improve the lot of poor people living in hardship.

I don't observe a reduced likelihood to abuse bodies or the environment in those people who believe in it, nor do I see an awareness of whatever lessons are supposed to have been learned before in 'previous lives'. Nobody can 'know' that it will happen, but they might imagine, hope, dread, or believe that it will.

It's interesting that some can willingly accept that what they do in this life may affect the next if they are re-incarnated, but the same people will rail at the idea of facing up to what they have done in this life before God on judgement day.

Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on :

As I understand it, the Indian religions that believe in reincarnation also believe that personal identity is rather more illusory than most Western philosophers have believed. It's not obvious in what sense you can be said to have come back when your youness is an illusion anyway.

Actually, it's not obvious whether you can be said to have come back in any sense when you share no memories and no more molecules than the next person.

Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Holy Smoke:
One can see the advantages to the Church in promoting the idea that one's current life is one's only shot at achieving 'eternal life', but is the idea of re-incarnation really totally at odds with Christian teaching?

If you ask whether reincarnation has been rejected dogmatically by the Church, then the answer is that it has (see for example here). If you ask whether it is possible to imagine a Christianity embracing reincarnation, then the answer is that it is possible. There is some evidence that there were some early Christians believing in reincarnation, and I think also several later heresies held such beliefs (I would have to look that up though). Some of these likely were influenced by Platonic / Phythagorean ideas about reincarnation. One should note that there is a lot of sloppiness (to say the least...) going on in quoting Church Fathers on this, see for example this source search.

I would say that the modern belief in "empty hell" often amounts to an implicit "two stage" belief in Christian reincarnation: if one has not managed to draw close to God in this life, one is resurrected in the next into the direct presence of God, and then corrects one's error in that life before being accepted into heaven proper. This is however rather different from a more conventional reincarnation in the same world. So talking about Christian reincarnation is a bit meaningless until one specifies what one precisely means by that.

quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
As I understand it, the Indian religions that believe in reincarnation also believe that personal identity is rather more illusory than most Western philosophers have believed. It's not obvious in what sense you can be said to have come back when your youness is an illusion anyway. Actually, it's not obvious whether you can be said to have come back in any sense when you share no memories and no more molecules than the next person.

Dafyd, I think you are talking about (in particular Buddhist) rebirth there, not about (in particular Hindu) reincarnation. The big difference between the two is that Hindus (and the like) believe in the existence of a soul (atman), whereas the Buddhists (and the like) reject the existence of a soul (anatman). In consequence, Hindus have a natural candidate for perpetuating self meaningfully across multiple lives, namely the soul. The word "reincarnation" is fitting for this, the same soul receives a new body (is incarnated again). Whereas in Buddhism formally it is not really "you" that gets reborn. Rather, the karmic consequences that you kicked off in the prior life sort of find a new focal point. In a spiritual sense, you thereby spawn offspring, which inherits your karmic traits as regular procreation would perpetuate biological traits. Again, the word "rebirth" is fitting for this, since the karmic stream which produced you, and was propagated and directed by you for a while, is born again in a new person. This person is intimately related to you in a spiritual sense, like a child to their parents, but is not really "you". (And that is consistent, because in Buddhism there simply is no real "you", whereas in Hinduism there very much is.)

Posted by Holy Smoke (# 14866) on :

quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
...There is some evidence that there were some early Christians believing in reincarnation, and I think also several later heresies held such beliefs (I would have to look that up though). Some of these likely were influenced by Platonic / Phythagorean ideas about reincarnation.

There are some passages in the gospels which are sometimes quoted in support of this, although I don't think they provide conclusive proof that Jesus and his followers believed in reincarnation.

quote:
I would say that the modern belief in "empty hell" often amounts to an implicit "two stage" belief in Christian reincarnation...

I'm thinking of something more akin to the Hindu idea of reincarnation. But it is of course anathema to the current scientific/materialist world-view, which (probably quite rightly from its point of view) can't conceive of a 'disembodied' soul. It would be more compatible with a paradigm which saw the 'soul' as an individuation of some sort of universal consciousness, rather than the individual consciousness being a epiphenomenon of a material body. At least, that's how I see it.

Posted by John D. Ward (# 1378) on :

quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
if one has not managed to draw close to God in this life, one is resurrected in the next into the direct presence of God, and then corrects one's error in that life before being accepted into heaven proper.

How does this differ from the Roman Catholic doctrine of Purgatory?

Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :

quote:
Originally posted by John D. Ward:
How does this differ from the Roman Catholic doctrine of Purgatory?

The souls in Purgatory are incorporeal, not resurrected. The souls in Purgatory will go to heaven, as determined strictly by their previous life in this world. Nothing they do in Purgatory changes this eternal fate (not even the quality of that fate), rather they merely get purged from the temporal remainders of sin and unrepented venial sin. The only real "activity" of souls in Purgatory is penitential suffering, there is no increase in the discernment and appreciation of God other than insofar as this is achieved by virtue of the cleansing itself. The existence of Purgatory does not mean that hell is empty, just as the existence of venial sin does not abolish mortal sin.

I guess that if one presupposes that hell will be necessarily empty, then one can consider Purgatory as a (perhaps old-fashioned) version of "second chance" reincarnation in the next life. But this really ignores the framework within which Purgatory was and is taught. That original framework is very clear that judgment is passed on one's earthly life alone, with a strict binary outcome (heaven or hell). Purgatory is simply a transient "clean up" stage for some that are going to heaven, not more.

Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :

Karma is of course most emphatically denied in both the New and Old Testaments.

Posted by que sais-je (# 17185) on :

What I don't get about karma/reincarnation is in what sense 'I' could be reincarnated. I have no memory or sense of ever having lived before, it is hard to know in what sense any previous incarnation would be 'me'.

If the various minor annoyances of my life are due to bad behaviour by a previous incarnation - well so what? It's this me that has to deal with them.

But then I don't think of life as being either fair or unfair - it just happens. Some get all the luck, some get none, most of us are in between. I don't believe there'll be any balancing of the scales at some future time and or place - why should there be?

Posted by Ricardus (# 8757) on :

quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
Dafyd, I think you are talking about (in particular Buddhist) rebirth there, not about (in particular Hindu) reincarnation. The big difference between the two is that Hindus (and the like) believe in the existence of a soul (atman), whereas the Buddhists (and the like) reject the existence of a soul (anatman).

AIUI (and this is based on nothing more than I Read A Few Books) that depends on the school of Hinduism. There are certainly Monist (Advaita) schools of Hinduism that would see everything other than Brahman as an illusion. And there are others that would see souls as different aspects of Brahman rather than independent things (I suppose in Scholastic terms a soul is an ens per alio, and only Brahman is an ens per se). But there's often a lot of divergence between Hindu philosophers and ordinary Hindu worshippers, just as there would be between (say) Plato and an ordinary Greek peasant.

quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Karma is of course most emphatically denied in both the New and Old Testaments.

Although interestingly I believe the old Nestorian Church in China used the concept of 'karma' to explain ancestral sin.

Posted by TomOfTarsus (# 3053) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Karma is of course most emphatically denied in both the New and Old Testaments.

Agreed. Is not the crowing glory of Christianity the grace of God? The fact that we very much DON'T get what we deserve, but salvation and eternal communion with God and one another instead?

UBB.classic^TM 6.5.0