Why Reincarnation Doesn’t Make Sense

With around 25% of Americans believing in reincarnation^[1] it’s a popular idea even among Christians, who, ultimately shouldn’t really profess to believe in it. For Christians the idea of reincarnation is expressly taught against^[1]. You are born, you are reborn into Christ, and you die. After you die you are judged by God and either enter the Kingdom of Heaven or are cast down into the fiery pit. There is no chance to do it over again and get it right next time.

But approx. a billion Hindus believe that reincarnation is in fact true. A billion people who believe instead that you are born, you live your life and then you die. And because you’re not perfect, and have more to learn and do, your soul is born again into a new body. This continues until you learn all your lessons and remove the negative karmic imprints from your soul. It’s a lengthy process.

It’s worth noting that the figure of almost 25% is also true in places like the UK – even though only 2% of the population identify as Hindu, Sikh or Buddhist^[2].

So who’s right? Does reincarnation make any sense and is there any evidence for it? In this post we’ll dive deeper to decide if reincarnation really exists or not.

Why Reincarnation is Illogical

Many people claim that although so many believe in it, reincarnation is completely illogical. They cite various reasons for this, some of which are listed below;

• The inability to remember previous lives means learning from those mistakes is not possible
• Continuing to learn lessons over multiple lives is far less likely than just living forever, and we clearly don’t do that
• There are too many interpretations of what reincarnation might entail for it to be based in actual truth
• Karma must be never-ending if it must be settled. And since it’s never ending it can never be settled.
• Reincarnation means there is no afterlife. Between lives perhaps, but no afterlife.
• Genes, not spirit, determine who we are, how we think and respond to our environment.
• If reincarnation is true, then some people must have reincarnated into people who don’t actually believe in it, therefore their own existence.
• If consciousness can only be caused by previous consciousness where did the first one come from
• If reincarnation is real, then where are new souls coming from? The world has a much higher population now than it previously did

Which are all very good points. Some perhaps better than others.

But none of them take into account the very fabric of the Universe and that is that many many things are simply not logical. Not to us at least. The pattern of life is a wonderful tapestry, interweaving our lives into those of everyone around us, and they into everyone around them. From our perspective it looks like an illogical awful mess. From the bigger picture perspective it is a beautiful melody of exquisite timing and meshing.

Tapestries are like this. On the front the picture is seen clearly. From behind though, it’s a mess of string of different colours with no visible logic to it all. So it is with reincarnation. We’re too small, and too close to life to see the logic.

Arguments Against Reincarnation

Let’s address some of these points with my own beliefs on this. It’s important to point out that these are my views which have come to me over the years. They are not backed by science (though there is beginning to be some science that suggests reincarnation is not as unlikely as previously thought).

Learning from past life mistakes is not possible because we can’t remember them

This assumes that in order to learn from a mistake one must remember the actual mistake. However, as anyone who can drive a manual (stick shift) car can attest, you don’t necessarily remember all the exact times you’ve crunched the gears because you’ve not pressed the clutch pedal in time. But you do remember that you must press the clutch pedal before changing gear.

As we go through our lives, or however many incarnations, it’s perfectly possible that these mistakes happen less and less often due to ‘muscle memory’. What was not obvious to us to be a mistake in life #1 becomes more and more common sense by life #25 for example. This could be where our ‘gut feeling’ or intuition comes from.

Continuing to learn lessons over multiple lives is far less likely than just living forever, and we clearly don’t do that

This is a big misconception though and is rooted far too much in 3D realm. It assumes that there is only one way to learn from a mistake and only one personality type that would make a mistake. If you were to live forever, taking away the idea that an infinite lifetime could achieve infinite goals, it’s highly likely that you would live that life from the same perspective pretty much the entire time. This is because the circumstance into which you are born shapes so much of your belief system and outlook on life and becomes part of your makeup.

In order to fully learn lessons we need to see it (or them) from multiple perspectives. Interestingly, from a 3D perspective, this is entirely the reason why we can’t remember our previous lives. It would be akin to taking the test whilst already having the answer sheet in front of you.

You may need to learn the same lesson but from the perspective of a pauper, whereas your previous life was to learn the lesson from the perspective of a King. Learning the surgery from the perspective of the patient versus that of the surgeon.

This would not be possible if all lessons would be learned in the same life. Once a King always a King etc.

There are too many interpretations of what reincarnation might entail for it to be based in actual truth

But this is exactly what happens with anything that is difficult to prove and cannot be seen directly. Imagine being the explorers returning from Australia in the 17th Century and trying to describe the Kangaroo. Or the Quokka – which were originally thought to be a form of rat, leading to the name given to an Island off the coast of Western Australia called Rottnest Island (Rat’s Nest Island)^[3].

Too many interpretations just means that people haven’t been able to find proof of reincarnation yet, not that it doesn’t actually exist.

Karma must be never-ending if it must be settled. And since it’s never ending it can never be settled.

This is a tricky one because it’s based on the idea that, for example, if in one life someone murders someone (or otherwise abuses them) then the law of karma dictates that at some point they must feel the pain of being murdered themselves. This means that in order to fulfil their karmic debt, someone else must commit murder. Meaning they then have a karmic debt to pay off. Thus it’s a never ending cycle of debt/payment/debt/payment.

This though is both a misconception of Karma, which is nothing more than the law of cause and effect – and is countered through the notion of Twin Flames – whereby a soul splits in two so that it can experience both the cause side of Karma and the Effect side without involving any Karmic debt.

This argument against reincarnation also conflates the notion of being reborn in order to learn different lessons and satisfy your soul that you have done so with that of karmic debt. It’s not certain that Karmic debt has to be repaid across reincarnated lifetimes anyway.

Genes, not spirit, determine who we are, how we think and respond to our environment.

This is a non-believer go-to. It’s not a bad go-to either. Except it neglects that genetics still has many questions to answer, including how identical twins can experience different diseases even though their genes and environment are the same^[4]. Or one identical twin inherits the ‘schizophrenia’ gene from a parent but the other doesn’t. The genes are identical, so the outcome should be equally so. But studies indicate that’s not the case. So it isn’t just genes that determine a person’s future nor how we think. There must be something else at play too.

If reincarnation is true, then some people must have reincarnated into people who don’t actually believe in it, therefore their own existence

Quite possibly. I see no conflict here.

If consciousness can only be caused by previous consciousness where did the first one come from

And how are there now so many conscious people present on planet Earth. This isn’t one I can answer, except that I believe it depends on how you view reincarnation in the first place.

I read the ‘Conversations With God‘ series by Neale Donald Walsch many years ago and it resonates with me and my belief for reincarnation. In it, Walsch states that God tells him that we are all God. We are facets of the same diamond as it were. We all have a separate outlook and viewpoint and experience different things – but we are all part of the same diamond.

If this is the case, then the original consciousness is that of God (or the Universe if you prefer). And it can be split into as many consciousnesses as desired and required. This too is similar, but on a much larger scale, to the Twin Flame hypothosis.

If reincarnation is real, then where are new souls coming from?

The world has a much higher population now than it previously did for much of its existence. If everybody is an old soul and has previously been reincarnated, how are there more people alive now for example than there were in the year 1521? Where have these extra souls come from.

If we look at the previous question, the answer becomes more clear. We’re all facets of the same source – all with our own unique experiences and outlook but all tied back to the one source. A source which can separate itself into many different facets at will. As many as needed, or wanted.

This would, if need be, also satisfy those that require Karmic Debt to be repaid. If we’re all facets of the same one source, then someone who murders another does not need to be murdered themselves in a future life in order to feel the pain of being murdered. There is no debt left over as we’re all one and the same.

What Is The Point Of Reincarnation

The point of reincarnation, in my opinion, is simple. It’s to experience different things from different perspectives that would be impossible to do within one life. Not because of the length of ones life, but because of the circumstance one is born into.

For example, it’s relatively easy to understand how one could train for a specific job whilst in school, then leave school and perform that job for 15 to 20 years before deciding to take a career change. It happens regularly for many people.

But to put it simply, it is impossible for one who is born into a specific race to experience life as a different one. It is mostly (gender re-assignment surgery notwithstanding) impossible to experience life as a female if one is born as a male. Some things in life are simply ‘fixed in place’. Some things are difficult, though not impossible, to experience. It’s very difficult for example to be born to a very poor family and experience life as a King.

Thus, reincarnation gives our souls a chance to experience things from a very, very different perspective to previous lives. It’s my personal opinion that it’s not so much about learning lessons (though that’s a side effect) but simply experiencing the journey.

Reincarnation Evidence

Evidence is beginning to emerge suggesting that reincarnation is in fact real. Carl Sagan, an astrophysicist and astrobiologist, was a rigid scientist who believed in very little unless there was evidence to support it. However, he was sufficiently curious about reincarnation that he suggested it should be studied more seriously^[5].

We’ve discussed some of the more recent evidence for reincarnation in our post linked above.

Conclusion

Depending on your viewpoint, reincarnation actually does make sense. We’ve shown why in fact reincarnation isn’t illogical – it can in fact be completely logical. We’ve also provided some reasons why the arguments against reincarnation aren’t necessarily logical themselves.

It’s our view that reincarnation is very likely, and serves some very useful purposes.

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Thanks for reading!

References

1: Ryan T. (2015). 25 Percent of US Christians believe in reincarnation. What’s wrong with this picture? America The Jesuit Review. October 21, 2015. Fetched from https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2015/10/21/25-percent-us-christians-believe-reincarnation-whats-wrong-picture on 22^nd December 2021.

2: Walter, T., & Waterhouse, H. (2001). Lives-Long Learning: The Effects of Reincarnation Belief on Everyday Life in England. Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions, 5(1), 85–101. https://doi.org/10.1525/nr.2001.5.1.85

3: Ashby J. (2015). The earliest Strange Creatures: Europe’s First Meetings With Marsupials. UCL Culture Blog. 5th May 2015. Fetched from https://blogs.ucl.ac.uk/museums/2015/05/05/the-earliest-strange-creatures-europes-first-meetings-with-marsupials/ on 22^nd December 2021.

4: Murphy S. (2014). Model of Human Behaviour (as of December 2014). Academia.Edu. Fetched from https://www.academia.edu/36865715/Behavior_Model_Definition?pop_sutd=false on 22^nd December 2021.

5: Tucker J. B. (2007). Children Who Claim To Remember Previous Lives: Past, Present, and Future Research. Journal of Scientific Exploration, 21(3), 543-552. Fetched from https://med.virginia.edu/perceptual-studies/wp-content/uploads/sites/360/2016/12/REI35.pdf on 22^nd December 2021