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Questions About Life and God
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Reincarnation is the belief that after death a person starts another life again. Several major religions have reincarnation as a core teaching: Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism.
And in all of these religions, the goal, the hope, is to be free of reincarnation--to not have another life.
It is only in the West, where life is comfortable, that reincarnation has been turned into a positive idea, especially in New Age circles. It's a distortion of these religions, but is attractive and effective in marketing New Age books, seminars and speakers.
Going back to the roots of reincarnation, here is what it means in these religions.
In Hinduism, a person can be reborn as a human, animal, plant, or heavenly/hellish being. What form they take on in the next life depends on how they lived previously.
People born with disabilities or diseases or in poverty display natural consequences of how they lived in former lives. It follows the "law of karma" that they are suffering.
In Buddhism, rebirth is also determined by choices made in one's life. Here, the law of karma leads to another birth when the person did not conquer desire in their former life.
In Jainism, purity and nonviolence are central to how one escapes reincarnation.
And in Sikhism freedom from reincarnation is achieved by truthful living and devotion to God.
In the Bible, reincarnation is not taught, nor the burden of trying to free oneself from it. Instead, Jesus Christ talked about eternal life and how a person could be certain of it.
This is the Bible's message: "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life."1
Jesus told a crowd, "You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life."2
The Bible described heaven as a place where "God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”3
Would you like to know how you can have eternal life with God the moment you die? Please see How to Know God Personally.
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Footnotes: (1) John 3:16 (2) John 5:39 (3) Revelation 21:3,4
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