David F Siemens wrote:
> On Wed, 06 Sep 2000 21:55:10 -0400 Dick Fischer
> <dickfischer@earthlink.net> writes:in part:
>
> I harbor a strange idea that reincarnation is part of the
> grand scheme. Are you old enough to remember Bridey
> Murphy? If you take the remark that you "must be born
> again" literally - then there you are, my deceased, agnostic
> father gets a second chance. And that also would be
> good.***This new version of Juno doesn't mark the old and
> allow me to slip new material in. So I'm starring the new.
> Reincarnation seems to me to be absolutely proscribed by
> Hebrews 9:27: "...man is destined to doe once, and after
> that to face judgment,..." I recall Bridey Murphy and have
> heard of a lot of others who claim to remember a former
> life. However, closer examination seems to debunk the
> claims. Somehow, most of them "recall" living as princes,
> princesses, nobles, etc., of whom there were few and not as
> peasants, serfs or slaves, of whom there were many.***
>
The basic problem with reincarnation is its implication that the
"real me" is separable from my
body, & in fact can inhabit various bodies without being identified with
any one of them. & its a small step from that to saying that bodies, &
the physical world in general, aren't too important. That was OK for
Plato (or for Augustine in his heavily Platonic phase - "our real selves
are not bodies" - though I'm not sure he ever got over this entirely)
but doesn't mesh very well with Christian concepts of creation &
Incarnation.
George
Murphy - no relation to Bridey
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