Some forethoughts
I remember an episode of Stargate SG1 (‘Avatar’, S8 Ep6), where Teal’c had to re-live the same day over and over again – a day of battle inside the SG1 base, each time correcting all the mistakes that he had made in the previous incarnation of the day. Each time he corrected one mistake, another would present itself, and another, and another, and another, ad nauseum. It reached a point where he was so fed up with living the same day over and over, that eventually he gave up. He sat down on the ground with all the chaos and mayhem still going on around him, and decided to do nothing at all – there was nothing he could do. It strongly reminded me of how, in eastern religions, reincarnation is understood to be the punishment (the objective in telling this tale, is not to suggest that reincarnation makes you re-live the same life, but rather, that in eastern religions, reincarnation is the punishment).
The majority (83%) of people where I was born, Sri Lanka, believe in reincarnation. When I first heard about reincarnation as a small child – a child who was experiencing regular, traumatic child abuse – the first thought that came to my mind was, ‘How can God be so cruel as to make people re-live their suffering over and over again?’ At that time, I felt that reincarnation was the one thing that could actually cause me to walk away from God and religion altogether.
Much later in life, an uncompromising reincarnationist, frustrated that he couldn’t convert me, would tell me, “You must have been a really wicked person in a previous life – that’s why you suffered child abuse, it was merely what you deserved!” From that day to this, it hasn’t really done much to persuade me to become enamoured of reincarnation. It has always seemed to me that reincarnation places all the onus of blame on the victim, rather than on the person causing the suffering. I also wondered, ‘How can anyone correct their mistakes, if they can‘t remember their mistakes?‘
Introduction
In the modern West, people who are dissatisfied with traditional western religions, but still have an interest in spirituality, are increasingly turning to eastern or New Age religions, with their emphasis on reincarnation. For them, reincarnation is new and exciting.
Reincarnation is generally the belief that one’s soul goes through many lives, and is reborn over and over again. For a lot of westerners, the reason why it is so attractive, is that it is based on the premise that only over many lifetimes can a person gain true knowledge and wisdom; presumably, the god of reincarnation is just not powerful enough to give you that knowledge or wisdom directly, either during life, or after death. Presumably, this god also has no other way of purging you of your sins or wrongdoings (in contrast, Yahveh is able to purify us, by the power of God’s Glory; Yahveh is also the Supreme Teacher, the God of all knowledge and wisdom, who is able to give us the knowledge we need, and to teach us the necessary lessons we need to learn). Accepting reincarnation means fundamentally altering the nature, power and abilities of the very God we worship and love, to become a lesser, emasculated god.
In any religion, where the importance of belief completely overrides all concerns for ethics and compassion, such a way of approaching religion has the potential to turn believers into the exact opposite of what that religion intended its adherents to be like. This is especially true of holding reincarnation as one’s central, most vital dogma; the mechanics of reincarnation encourages heartless comments, and completely override the need to show compassion, kindness and understanding towards others. I personally call these intransigent types of believers, ’Reincarnationists’. Obviously, not everyone who believes in reincarnation is as unkind as the people I will be telling you about from my own personal life-encounters, but they can be found amongst the members of every religion that has reincarnation as their central, most important dogma.
Reincarnationists can legitimately claim to have had many lives and reincarnations, and so give themselves a sense of superiority over others who supposedly have not had many lifetimes – those who believe in reincarnation, especially in the western world, often consider themselves to be naturally higher, evolved beings; there exists a self-proud hierarchy of souls in reincarnationist belief. It is therefore commonly believed by western Reincarnationists, that those who do not believe in reincarnation are only young souls, who are neither enlightened nor evolved enough to believe in it. You can only acquire knowledge according to your higher or lower spiritual condition – someone with a lower spiritual condition (such as those who reject reincarnation) will not gain spiritual knowledge, and will have to suffer through life and be reborn.
For westerners, reincarnation is a joyous and exciting ‘onward and upward’ journey, being completely unaware of its negative aspects, which accumulate in a reincarnationist society’s general outlook over generations.
One thing that reincarnation was originally meant to try and explain was suffering. You suffer because you must have been a bad person in your previous lives; and if you suffer only a little or not at all, then you must have been a good or important person in your previous life. This allows those who are fortunate in life to feel smugly superior and more evolved over those who are troubled and suffer a lot of misfortune.
However, this way of thinking leads people to ignore the real causes of what is wrong in their lives – and what is wrong with the world – because it makes people think that you can never have control over what goes wrong in your life, since it is your punishment. If you have experienced a lot of bad things in your life, reincarnationist theology does not have a very high opinion of you (you are never an innocent or blameless victim).
Usually, those who believe in reincarnation cannot accept the idea that a single life is enough for any human being to reach all of their potential. Only reincarnation can give the soul a chance to correct mistakes, to improve morally and intellectually, and to reconcile with those souls they have fallen out with.
But what is so wrong with correcting mistakes in this life? What is so inconvenient about improving yourself in this life? What is so heinous about reconciling with others in this life?
I had an acquaintance during my 30s who was an ardent Reincarnationist, and who took every opportunity to try and convert me to his New Age religion. He had an exasperating superiority complex over those who couldn’t accept reincarnation (such as myself). Whenever he was faced with a social difficulty or a life-obstacle, he would put off resolving it, and say, “Oh, I’ll deal with it in my next life.” If he was overwhelmed with too many life-decisions, and couldn’t stomach ever facing them, he would abandon them and say, “Oh, I’ve got plenty of lives, I’ll easily be able to do it all in my next life.” He also had a tendency to judge others who were having problems by saying that they had obviously done bad things in their past lives, were not innocent, and were paying for it now. It also made him the kind of person who was extremely reluctant to empathise with or help someone who was sad, anxious, lonely, or just going through a tough time, because according to his all-pervasive belief in reincarnation, “they were simply getting what they deserved”.
Inconsistencies with the Yahwist ethos
In Yahwism, true wisdom and true knowledge come from connecting with God during your lifetime; with reincarnation, true wisdom and knowledge can only come from having lived many lifetimes.
In Yeshua’s teaching, the Message and salvation of God is available to everyone (cf Mt 10:27), regardless of who they are, or their station in life; with reincarnation, enlightenment is only available to those superior, evolved souls who have lived many lifetimes.
In the Israelite faith, we are encouraged to have compassion on those who suffer, are in trouble, or have a lowly position in life; the Book of Job teaches us that it is pointless and counter-productive to look for a reason for one’s suffering – often in life, misfortune just happens, it isn’t a punishment. In contrast, an all-consuming belief in reincarnation has the potential to engender a lack of sympathy for those who are in trouble, or who have a lowly station in life (because they are rightly paying for the sins of their past lives).
In Yahwism, spiritual humility is admired; Reincarnationism instead engenders a feeling of superiority, and makes people look down on those who cannot believe in it, because such unbelievers are judged to be spiritually unevolved, and deemed to have a lower spiritual condition. As Talmidis, we should not judge reincarnationists in the same haughty way that they look down us – on those of us who find reincarnation an uncomfortable belief. In Talmidaism, everyone has the same worth, and all souls are equal before God (see the parable of the Labourers in the Vineyard, Mt 20:1-15).
In the Israelite faith, the punishment for sins is not passed on – God says through he prophet Ezekiel, “Yet you say, ‘Why should not the son suffer for the iniquity of the father?’ When the son has done what is just and right, and has been careful to observe all my statutes, he shall surely live [ = be acquitted], but the person who sins shall die [ = face judgment]. The son shall not suffer for the iniquity of the father, nor the father suffer for the iniquity of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself [ = righteous deeds will be accounted to the one who performed the righteous deeds, and evil deeds will only be accounted to the one who committed the evil deeds].” (Ezek 18:19-20)
However, in reincarnation, sins are passed on from one life to another, even though the recipient of the punishment has no knowledge of what they are being punished for. How is that just? How is that any better than the doctrine of ’Original Sin’?
In the Israelite faith, being seated at God’s right hand is interpreted as reaching a state of ultimate blessedness, where every happiness and wisdom will be open to you. There was also a belief in the ‘Council of Yahveh’ (sōdh YHVH – see Job 15:8), a place where the Assembly of the blessed in heaven dwelt, and were privy to God’s intimate thoughts, plans and intentions. Those ‘seated at God’s right hand’ will come to know God’s thoughts and designs; all the strange and mysterious things we saw in life will finally make sense – all our deepest and most perplexing questions will be answered. In Yahwism, knowledge is the reward, because our God has to power to do that. We will come to know the past, the present and the future, in the same way that God experiences it. This is ultimate unity with God.
The Yahwist balance between this life and the next
In observing the many different religions and cults of this world, I have noticed how a person’s views on the afterlife (or lack thereof) have a very direct influence on how one behaves in this world, and on how one treats other people. How you understand the way in which the heavenly realm connects to this one – what your place in this world is, how the natural relates to the supernatural, and how God acts in your life – dramatically affects the quality and conduct of your spiritual life.
The mind-set of Israelite culture is focussed on this life, on the here and now. Living this life as the only one you will ever have, encourages the individual to make the most out of it. When you focus too much on the afterlife, you are in danger of becoming so discontented with your life here on earth, that you cannot wait for life to be over!
The mistake that many seekers of the mystical make, is to think that the emphasis of our spiritual journeys is always on the other realm, and on what we can gain for ourselves in the afterlife. It becomes almost an escape from this world. However, that is why Israelite mysticism is different. Heaven is our natural home (cf Ecc 12:5), and we were all sent here to do a job for God (i.e. Yeshua was not the only person who was sent to earth – we all were). We can gain strength from our meditation on the nature of the other realm, as well as wisdom from the time our souls spend in the spirit in the immediate presence of Yahveh. But ultimately, the emphasis of Israelite mysticism is on our mission here in this world, not the next.
The pre-eminent question we should be asking ourselves in our spiritual quest therefore is not, ‘How do I get to heaven?’ (even though such a question is important), but rather, ‘What am I supposed to do while I am on earth? While I am here, what manner of life do I have to lead, so that I can play my full part in helping God to fulfil God’s Great Plan?’ It must also be said that, since one of our rewards in heaven will be access to limitless and infinite knowledge, our purpose here on earth is not necessarily to acquire all the knowledge of the Universe, only the sufficient knowledge to be able to live rightly and healthily, so that we fulfil the mission God has sent us here to accomplish.
A proper and healthy balance is maintained when you come to realise that you are here for a purpose – that like prophets and holy people, every single human being was sent to earth for a reason. When we have finished doing everything we came here to do, God will call us back home (for the Yahwist implication of the pre-existence of the soul, see Jer 1:5 – “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.“
In Eastern religions, Reincarnation is the punishment
One of the reasons I warn about dabbling in Kabbalism, is because it teaches reincarnation. Reincarnation was never part of ancient Israelite belief (see the biblical verses at the end of this post); the Israelite understanding of life is such that we only get one life – there’s no do-over. Prov 30:4 says, “Who has ascended to heaven and come down again?” implying that this is not something that can actually happen.
In the modern West, there is the sense that believing in reincarnation is cool, trendy and hip – that it would actually be nice to live life over and over and over again. However, we have to remember that in eastern religions, reincarnation is actually the punishment. They don’t believe in hell, so their belief system (e.g. in Hinduism) is that the punishment for wrongdoing and sin is to be endlessly reincarnated. If you have been bad in this life, then your next life will be a life of suffering.
In the time of Gautama Buddha, the thought of endless reincarnations was becoming a psychological, emotional and spiritual burden, so the innovation of the Buddha was that the soul could escape reincarnation, and attain a state of eternal enlightenment, called Nirvana. Reincarnation is therefore the eternal suffering of the soul; originally, it was not seen as something you would want to go through, but rather something to be escaped from.
The belief also has an effect on societies that believe in it. There is the story of a Kabbalist rabbi who did not believe that he should save the life of a particular man who was sick, because his soul was waiting to be reborn in a baby who was having difficulty being born. So he gave no medical help to the sick person. He flatly refused a sick person any help at all, because of his overriding, central belief in reincarnation.
Nuclear war is no longer frightening when you believe that you will be born again after you die, so let’s push the button – nuclear annihilation is not so bad when you believe you’re going to be reincarnated. And traffic accidents are no longer a problem for yourself or those you accidentally kill, if you believe that you will all be reincarnated anyway, so why be a careful driver? (I’m not kidding – this is actually how some people I have had discussions with genuinely think)!
I once had an atheist friend whose partner is a staunch Buddhist. He was telling me how she had been listing all her woes and ailments, so he told her about a man he once saw in Bangkok, who had had one whole side of his body burned and disfigured in a fire. He related to me how he had told her, “When I saw that man, I realised that my problems are only small ones.” His partner’s reply was very telling: “Why should I have any sympathy for a person like him? He obviously sinned badly in his past life, and didn’t make merits, so he’s being punished for it.”
To my mind, reincarnation is no better than original sin – both operate under the premise that we are born already corrupted by the blemish of sin; both original sin and reincarnation mean that an innocent child is born into the world with the penalty of sin still to pay off.
If you truly believe in reincarnation, then it naturally follows that you also believe that the handicapped, the long-term sick, the disabled and the chronically infirm are all being punished for the sins they have committed in a past life, so why should we feel any pity for them? There is also little incentive to improve, or do anything about your own uncomfortable circumstances, because anything that happens to you is fair and just punishment for your sins in a past life, and you must endure your punishment in order to get to your next life.
I have personally come across some really insensitive remarks from the mouths of reincarnationists – such as the comment from someone who had been told that his best friend’s mother was dying of cancer: “Why are you upset? It’s her own fault – she must have done something really bad in a previous life.” Or to someone being badly bullied: “What are you complaining for? It’s your own fault – you’re obviously paying for being a bully in your past life, so you just have to put up with it all!” I have also met a number of western, New Age reincarnationists, who have looked down on me as ‘a lesser, unevolved being’, simply because I could not, in all good conscience, believe in reincarnation. I simply don’t want to become the kind of person who would fall prey to this way of thinking.
Obviously not everyone who believes in reincarnation is like this – in Asia, there are many, many wonderful people in Buddhism and Hinduism who are kind and decent people, who shy away from looking down on people who suffer misfortune. However, the bottom line is, a belief in reincarnation does not have any place in Israelite views on the afterlife, because it gives people yet another reason not to care about people who suffer. It may seem like a cool and trendy thing to some, but it has an unpleasant, long-term effect on society over the generations. It is vital that this unpleasantness does not taint the heavenly vision of the Israelite faith. I must also emphasise that we should not be prejudiced or bigoted towards those who believe in it; simply, that it should not be part of Israelite belief.
‘But eternal life and happiness in Heaven is boring!’
One objection to eternal happiness in heaven is that it will be boring. I suppose this also assumes that God, an eternal being, must also be bored with eternity in heaven. But wouldn’t God reward us with an eternity where we would always be fulfilled and happy?
Before I even begin to explain “what we will be doing in heaven for all eternity”, I think it’s important to understand a few concepts first.
On earth, in this mortal plane, we exist in linear time. This means that our lives can only move relentlessly forward, never backwards, or pause in a particular moment. There is a beginning, then one event follows another after another, and eventually there is a finite end to that passage of time.
In addition, we live in physical space. This means that we are limited by the three-dimensional laws of physics and our physical bodies, with regard to how we move from one place to another. Basically, in this realm, we exist in space-time, with all its scientific limitations and corporeal restraints.
Heaven is not like that. Nothing decays in heaven (Mt 6:20). Heaven is beyond physical space, and outside of time. Since God is everywhere, heaven is also everywhere, but in a higher dimension – on an ethereal plane, so to speak.
In that dimension, it’s as if all of time exists in one, singular moment – as if all moments can be experienced simultaneously, at one and the same time. Our mortal minds just cannot fully comprehend this phenomenon as we are now, but after death, we will return to being extra-temporal beings, existing on a different plane, and all of it will seem to us to be the most natural form of existence; our former mortal state – where the simple passage of time can be draining and bothersome – will seem to us like having been in nothing more than a dreamful sleep.
In the far distant future, the Kingdom of God will be fulfilled. This is a time when the veil between heaven and earth is torn down, human beings have been perfected (cf Dan 7:13-14), God’s Glory is poured out on the earth, and shines like the Sun (Rev 21:1-4), and as perfected beings we can no longer be harmed by the fire of God’s Glory. It will be a state of paradise once more, even better than the mythical Eden. The Sanctuary of both the Tabernacle and the Temple was a symbol of our return to this state of paradise, with Yahveh at the centre of it.
Our God-given mission on earth has been to play our small part towards the fulfilment of God’s Kingdom. That fulfilment will most likely be in the far distant future of the mortal human race, according to the confines of linear time; but once we are back in heaven, we will see and experience all that has passed in an instant (even if it occurred after we died); it will be as if no time has passed at all between the day of our death, and the time of the fulfilment of God’s Kingdom.
Heaven is a state of blessedness and pure happiness, eternally surrounded by the light of God’s Love (the righteous shall ‘see’ God – that is, they shall dwell in the immediate presence of God forever). That is the natural environment that we will exist in. Our perceptions will be different, our needs will be different, what we desire and yearn for will be different. They will no longer be the wants or desires of earthly, mortal beings, but the wants and desires of heavenly beings.
What we long for on earth will seem trivial and unimportant to us in heaven. In heaven, we don’t have any bodily needs or desires (Mk 12:25). We don’t have any lusts or cravings; we will never be hungry, bored or tired – simply because we will have no bodies, and no desires that proceed from a state of having corporeal bodies. Our wants, interests and desires will instead proceed from our state of being as heavenly, eternal, non-corporeal beings.
On earth, there are times when, for one reason or another, we get bored of life, but in heaven, because our existence there will be so very different, we will always be fulfilled and never bored. And remember, in heaven there is no passage of time; boredom is a concept native to linear time, and a logical consequence of our mortal existence. We cannot judge existence or life after death by the same standards as we currently use to judge mortal life.
In heaven, you can no longer do any wrong, or commit sins, because such things are not possible in God’s immediate Presence (cf Mt 6:10). Heaven is a state of perfection and eternal happiness, surrounded by the highest love which emanates from YHVH. Love, Wisdom, Knowledge, are all part of the very atmosphere that we will be existing and moving in. The prophet Yeshua told us that we have ‘a great reward’ in heaven (Mt 5:12; cf also Ruth 2:12, Ps 58:11). So even though we cannot presently know with any certainty what heavenly beings will do in heaven, we have Yahveh’s assurance that our eternal existence in heaven will be fulfilling – once again, we cannot judge eternity by our present, limited mortal range of understanding or perception.
My own pre-existence
What was life like in heaven before birth? Some people actually have a memory of it. What I‘m about to tell you is not for the purposes of proving anything, but I want to tell you about my own experience, because it has coloured how I view my own existence. I am sure there are others out there who might recall their own, pre-birth existence in heaven as well.
I have a vague memory of my existence before birth. I was happy, I was surrounded by light and pure love; it seemed like it had always been that way, and I was perfectly content with it. I had no questions to ask, I had no desires, wants or longings – and that didn’t seem to bother me. I have the vague recollection that I knew more and understood more than I know now, but I don’t recall what I knew. I just remember that I had no body, and that I didn’t think such a thing was in any way unusual.
Then I was sent to earth. I remember travelling extraordinarily fast, past stars and worlds as tiny points of light. I don’t remember anything more between that experience, and my very first human memory soon afterwards, which I can date accurately to 28th April 1964, when I was 2 yrs and 10 months old (it was the date of a specific house-move, which my grandmother had fortunately noted in her journal). I remember looking at my own body and thinking, ‘What is this strange thing that I’ve been put inside? What is this place? Why am I here?’ But the thoughts soon passed, and I got on with my childhood. However, I have often thought back on that memory as a two-year-old, and meditated on it.
Some people even have memories of choosing their parents – which family they would end up with. I don’t have any recollection of that myself. All I remember is that I was sent (as indeed all of you have been too), and I did not object to being sent, because I trusted the Source of the Love that sent me.
I also get the impression that, although life before birth is much more than this life, it is however far, far less than life after death. Life is the purifier that lets us ascend to become something greater than what we would have become, had we stayed in heaven, and never come to earth. I get the sense that we need to be here, and fulfil our mission, in order for us to move to that highest place that God has prepared for us from the beginning of time.
What will happen after death?
Here are a few things that have been gleaned from Israelite theology:
– we will get to know the mind and plans of God, and therefore, we will know everything (suggested by Job 15:8, Ps 89:7, Jer 23:18), and all the questions we ever had will finally be answered
– since we will be beings that exist beyond time, perhaps we will be able to view all of history since the creation of the Universe
– since we will also be beyond physical space, perhaps we will be able to explore other worlds and other peoples (cf YHVH’s title of ’Sovereign of all worlds’, Ps 33:21)
– we will most assuredly exist forever with our loved ones, and our love will be perfect, without flaws or failings (cf how the people in the Hebrew Bible were told that they would go to be with their kin)
– if we were limited in our intelligence in this life, then we will be blest with unlimited intelligence in heaven, because in heaven, we will be able to understand all things (cf James 1:5)
Some people even believe that we will be able to watch over our loved ones who are still on this mortal plane. Perhaps in heaven, we are in a better position to ask God to help our loved ones still on earth.
We were created to be a little lower than the angels (Ps 8:5). Yeshua said that in heaven, we are similar to angels (Mt 22:30). Therefore in heaven – beyond what I have written above – we will be doing whatever our enhanced state of existence will allow us to do. I don’t think we can know for certain exactly what we will be doing in heaven. However, as I mentioned above, by reason of God’s eternal and boundless love for us, whatever our existence might be like in heaven, we have Yahveh’s assurance that it will be a fulfilling existence – a satisfying, rewarding and gratifying eternity.
Supposedly experiencing past lives
I have also come across stories of children who speak about supposed past lives. On the surface, it may seem like a good idea for someone to come back for a second or third mission, but when you think about it, it would actually be denying other souls in heaven the chance to live a mortal life in order to be raised to heaven afterwards to sit with God.
If you believe in the Yahwist teaching of ‘one life only’, then 117 billion souls have been given the chance to be born on earth, and so be rewarded with unity with YHVH in heaven after death. If you believe in reincarnation, then only 8 billion souls (i.e. only those currently living) have ever been given the chance to be born on earth.
There is one type of such experience that reincarnationists do not talk about, and that is the memories that seem like past lives, but when fact-checked, turn out to be events that could never have happened.
I have come across several stories where this has happened. There was a boy in England who insisted he had a mother and a whole family in Scotland. He described the house they lived in, his supposed family, as well as events that happened. The birth-parents of the boy eventually tracked down his supposed mother from a past life, and they found the house and the woman, exactly as the little boy had described. However, the woman had living children the boy did not recognise at all; siblings whom he did remember had never been born, and the woman herself had never lost any children. Bottom line was, that the son whom the little boy remembered having been, had never existed. None of the events he remembered happening between the woman and the deceased boy had ever happened.
I have come across several stories like this one – where the parents of the supposedly ‘deceased‘ child are still alive, but the previous life the child remembered having never existed. This strange situation can‘t be explained by reincarnation.
Here‘s a possible explanation for stories that appear at first glance to be reincarnation: One of the higher dimensions that exists in Superstring theory is the 6th Dimension. This dimension is where one is able to explore any timeline, at any point in time – that is, where all events and all timelines are possible. In this theoretical 6th dimension, you‘re able to explore any and every alternate timeline, and go backwards and forwards along any timeline at will, as well as move between timelines.
What I personally think, is that when a child‘s soul descends from the highest dimension – the 11th dimension, heaven, where their souls are born, on their way down to the 3rd dimension (our own plane of existence), they pass through this 6th dimension of various timelines. On some rare occasions, they accidentally witness this dimension of timelines on their way coming through. The events they get a glimpse of, may be ones that have happened far back in the historical timeline that they are actually going to be born into, or they may have taken place in a completely different timeline, which never took place in the timeline they are born into. There are other possible, non-reincarnation theories, such as a soul about to be born crossing paths with a deceased soul on its way up, and accidentally seeing their life-experiences; or a child being able to see the memories of the children that their guardian angels previously looked after (cf Mt 18:10). However, I presently favour the theory about catching glimpses of the 6th dimension on our way to our mortal birth.
Ever since I was a child, I always thought that it was particularly cruel of any deity to make up a rule, whereby a human soul had to endure the suffering and the pain of several lifetimes. Having experienced God with such powerful clarity and reality in my pre-birth experience, I long to be back with God – I couldn‘t bear to remain parted from our beloved Yahveh any longer than I have to, by having to endure going through another lifetime, again and again and again. It also has to be remembered that eastern religions see reincarnation as a punishment, because the goal is to escape the cycle of reincarnation, especially in Buddhism.
(Updated paragraph 10/10/23): As a comment on the conflict between Hamas and Israel, I wrote in a Facebook group that it was tragic that so many innocent lives were lost on both the Israeli and Palestinian sides. A reincarnationist then commented that they “had to die“, and that, “they died for a reason and it‘s because they were not innocent“ (direct quote, my emphasis), implying that the manner of their deaths was because they had sinned in their previous lives, and that they had been killed because they needed to evolve. The exchange reminded me why I don‘t believe in reincarnation – I don’t want to become the kind of human being who thinks this way, or the kind of person who is unable to comprehend why this way of thinking (that they “had to die“) is so cold, heartless and offensive.
In order for me to accept the fundamental doctrine of reincarnation and all that it entails, I would have to become a very different person with different values, and more importantly, I would have to turn away from loving and serving the personality of YHVH – the merciful and forgiving God of all knowledge and wisdom – and instead worship a less powerful, emasculated god with a different personality and radically different values and rules. I don’t like the kind of person I would have to become in order to be a reincarnationist.
Biblical Verses emphasising One Life
In the Yahwist Israelite faith, when someone dies, they are ‘gathered to their kin’ (eg Gen 25:8) – that is, they join their loved ones in heaven; the Hebrew Bible doesn’t say that they will be reborn into another body, over and over again. When King Saul calls upon the soul of the prophet Samuel (1Sam 28:11-20), it is done on the assumption that souls are not reborn, but rather that they remain in heaven after death.
Here is a selection of verses from the Hebrew Bible that assert that each soul only has one life. The translation is from the ESV:
Ecclesiastes 12:7
And the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it.
Job 14:10-12
But a man dies and is laid low; man breathes his last, and where is he? As waters fail from a lake and a river wastes away and dries up, so a man lies down and rises not again; till the heavens are no more he will not awake or be roused out of his sleep.
Psalm 78:39
He remembered that they were but flesh, a wind that passes and comes not again.
2 Samuel 12:23
But now he is dead. Why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he will not return to me.”
Job 16:22
For when a few years have come I shall go the way from which I shall not return.
Job 7:9-10
As the cloud fades and vanishes, so he who goes down to Sheol does not come up; he returns no more to his house, nor does his place know him anymore.
2 Samuel 14:14
We must all die; we are like water spilled on the ground, which cannot be gathered up again. But God will not take away life, and he devises means so that the banished one will not remain an outcast.
Ecclesiastes 12:5
They are afraid also of what is high, and terrors are in the way; the almond tree blossoms, the grasshopper drags itself along, and desire fails, because man is going to his eternal home, and the mourners go about the streets.
Isaiah 43:16-17
Thus says the Lord, who makes a way in the sea, a path in the mighty waters, who brings forth chariot and horse, army and warrior; they lie down, they cannot rise, they are extinguished, quenched like a wick.
Summary
In all humility, I would encourage those of you who love Yahveh, who long to be with Yahveh, and who yearn to be granted all the wisdom and knowledge of the universe, not to be tempted by reincarnation. Over the generations, it engenders unpleasant and judgmental views of the disabled, the sick, and those who undergo psychological or physical suffering. It also tempts you into putting off resolving difficult issues until your next life, or even to be careless with your life and the lives of others. Realising that you only have one life to live, encourages you to live a complete and fulfilling life. It encourages you to act with spiritual humility before God, rather than display condescending superiority before your fellow human beings on earth. If a problem can be solved, we solve it. If a problem is beyond all human ability to resolve, then we rely on Yahveh as our Strength and our Shield for courage and endurance.
As a closing thought, I would encourage you not to be judgmental of those who believe in reincarnation, and not display the same condescending pride that they show over us as people who cannot accept reincarnation – do not do to others, anything you would not wish to be done to yourself. Everyone is equal before God, and everyone is deserving of love.