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Philosophy/religion

Reincarnation

18 replies

PooDogMillionaire · 01/02/2016 15:04

I am a Christian (Catholic) but have a firm belief in reincarnation.

Is there anyone out there with similar beliefs or am I a complete spiritual oddity with contradictory beliefs?

OP posts:
thegreenheartofmanyroundabouts · 01/02/2016 19:36

Sorry but reincarnation is not compatible with Christianity. We get one go at it and no returns.

PooDogMillionaire · 01/02/2016 20:16

Oh dear, well that leaves me in a predicament then...

OP posts:
Bolognese · 01/02/2016 23:36

how can you be a catholic?

AlanPacino · 02/02/2016 06:44

I wouldn't worry too much about the added contradiction op, Christianity is already one big contradiction so another one makes little diffs :)

VelvetGreen · 02/02/2016 08:55

Have you come across the Liberal Catholic Church (nothing to do with the RC )? I think some of their branches allow a belief in reincarnation. Have a google - it may not be accepted by mainstream christian churches but you're not the only one.

thegreenheartofmanyroundabouts · 02/02/2016 09:25

Perhaps explore Buddhism and its beliefs and practices and see if that works for you. There is a version of reincarnation that I've seen in online discussion forums which involves the higher self choosing the next life depending on what it needs which owes more to western consumer choice than the ancient Eastern tradition of Buddhism. Maybe find out a bit more about both Christianity and Buddhism and see where you end up.

Paula Gooder's 'Journey to the Empty Tomb' is a good Lent book if you want to pursue that.

candykane25 · 02/02/2016 09:33

Raised Catholic here. Go to church when I can and enjoy the spirituality if it.
Another thread had the interesting fact that in every glass of water there will be one molecule that passed through a dinosaur.
What I believe is that when a person dies, the energy has to go somewhere. The body dies and becomes something else but the energy of who a person is also transformed. Logically to me it can't cease to exist. It just transforms.
What that means in practice I have no idea.

VulcanWoman · 02/02/2016 09:44

Don't go by reports, by legends, by traditions, by scripture, by logical conjecture, by inference, by analogies, by agreement through pondering views, by probability, or by the thought, 'This contemplative is our teacher.' When you know for yourselves that, 'These qualities are skillful; these qualities are blameless; these qualities are praised by the wise; these qualities, when adopted & carried out, lead to welfare & to happiness' — then you should enter & remain in them. - A Buddhist quote.

VulcanWoman · 02/02/2016 09:56

candy what you wrote reminded me of this.

You want a physicist to speak at your funeral. You want the physicist to talk to your grieving family about the conservation of energy, so they will understand that your energy has not died. You want the physicist to remind your sobbing mother about the first law of thermodynamics; that no energy gets created in the universe, and none is destroyed. You want your mother to know that all your energy, every vibration, every Btu of heat, every wave of every particle that was her beloved child remains with her in this world. You want the physicist to tell your weeping father that amid energies of the cosmos, you gave as good as you got.
And at one point you'd hope that the physicist would step down from the pulpit and walk to your brokenhearted spouse there in the pew and tell him that all the photons that ever bounced off your face, all the particles whose paths were interrupted by your smile, by the touch of your hair, hundreds of trillions of particles, have raced off like children, their ways forever changed by you. And as your widow rocks in the arms of a loving family, may the physicist let her know that all the photons that bounced from you were gathered in the particle detectors that are her eyes, that those photons created within her constellations of electromagnetically charged neurons whose energy will go on forever.

And the physicist will remind the congregation of how much of all our energy is given off as heat. There may be a few fanning themselves with their programs as he says it. And he will tell them that the warmth that flowed through you in life is still here, still part of all that we are, even as we who mourn continue the heat of our own lives.

And you'll want the physicist to explain to those who loved you that they need not have faith; indeed, they should not have faith. Let them know that they can measure, that scientists have measured precisely the conservation of energy and found it accurate, verifiable and consistent across space and time. You can hope your family will examine the evidence and satisfy themselves that the science is sound and that they'll be comforted to know your energy's still around. According to the law of the conservation of energy, not a bit of you is gone; you're just less orderly. Amen.

-Aaron Freeman.

PooDogMillionaire · 02/02/2016 11:49

The Gnostics and Cathars believed in reincarnation but were crushed by various Roman leaders through time.

OP posts:
OutwiththeOutCrowd · 02/02/2016 11:51

I think all religions are syncretic and/or dynamic in nature. For example, Buddhism evolved out of Hinduism, Christianity out of Judaism and Paganism, and Islam out of early Jewish Christianity and Judaism.

I see religions as occupying different intertwining branches of a belief system tree like biological species occupy different branches of the phylogenetic tree.

Ancient religious texts and artefacts are like fossils that give us clues as to how the belief system tree has evolved over thousands of years and how different religions are inter-related.

With this evolutionary view of religion, no one religion is better than another since all religions are transient systems of ideas that ‘work’ at a particular time and location.

So I don’t see a problem in developing your own belief system that borrows some elements from other established systems even if those systems taken as a whole contain contradictory aspects.

It’s about finding what is the best fit for you in order that you feel rooted into the world and able to contribute with due kindness and consideration towards your fellow man.

candykane25 · 02/02/2016 13:20

vulcan thank you for sharing that

Bolognese · 02/02/2016 15:58

Surely as a catholic you believe that heaven exists, but then you will never get there as you will be stuck on earth reincarnating for eternity. You couldn't make it up, is god really that cruel? I think Pastafarianism fits your beliefs more.

candykane25 · 02/02/2016 16:17

Pastafarianism? Homage to penne and rigatoni?

VulcanWoman · 02/02/2016 16:18
Grin
Bolognese · 02/02/2016 17:35

Pastafarianism is the church of The Flying Spaghetti monster and does not involve penne or rigatoni what an insult

candykane25 · 02/02/2016 18:28

I've got to admit, a good Mac and cheese is worth worshipping.

expatinscotland · 02/02/2016 18:41

Reincarnation doesn't really go with Christianity.

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