Susan
I'm very much in the disbelieving camp these days, though I gave reincarnation serious thought once. The trouble is, if, for instance, you're born with or develop a crippling disease, and are told that this is because of 'sins in a former life', this is not likely to make much sense to the suffering person if they have absolutely no memory of what 'sins' they are supposed to have committed. This makes nonsense of the whole idea - apart from those extremely dubious cases where some individuals claim to have memories of former lives (Egyptian princes and princesses seem to be high on the list of 'memories'. I'm sure Shirley Maclean thought she was Cleopatra once).
I suppose that even the Christian idea of judgment makes a bit more sense (except a lot of Christians think just having faith gets you off the hook), since you'd be made aware of what you'd done wrong, and you probably had full knowledge of this anyway, if the judgment referred to this life only.
Well, to complicate matters, some Hindus assert "Brahman is the only reincarnator" (everything is One, you see - God is mankind and mankind is also God).
Dicky,
The idea of one life time and one judgement makes a mockery of God and his justice. People are born and live under so many different circumstances, that judging them uniformly based on one life time is clearly inappropriate. How could a mentally retarded child or a disabled person for example, be judged along with others?!
Of course, the only other explanation many people seem to have for life is that of random genetic variation and Natural Selection...which is no explanation at all. It only attempts (if at all) to explain the mechanism of life and not its purpose. Like explaining the mechanisms of a car....without explaining why it exists.
Reincarnation and Karma do leave some questions open, no doubt...but they broadly do explain most aspects of life such as the inequalities in circumstances of different people, the different moral framework and wisdom found in different people, different levels of capabilities in different people...and so on.
The fact that no one is left out of the eventual salvation indicates the fundamental uniformity of the laws. We must remember that they are natural laws and not based on the whims of any superior being. They provide a equal playing field and equal opportunities to develop for everyone.
Besides this, some people as I have indicated above, have found some evidence for reincarnation. It is usually very small children and especially those who have had sudden and violent deaths at a fairly young age...are likely to remember past lives. Adults are not meant to remember their past lives but are expected to move on to higher lessons and not hold on to the past.
The previous life is irrelevant now to our conscious mind....and the essence of the lessons learnt in earlier lives is probably retained at the unconscious level.
Cheers.
Sriram
