Thank you, Dr. Tuttle! I appreciate your educational words on animal confinement and living our own lives where we are. You bring up good points to ponder. Take care.

Your fan always,
Pamela

Has it occurred to you that transmigration is at once an explanation and a justification of the evil of the world?" wrote W. Somerset Maugham in The Razor’s Edge.

"If the evils we suffer are the result of sins committed in our past lives, we can bear them with resignation and hope that if in this one we strive toward virtue our future lives will be less afflicted."

Reincarnation IS compatible with Christianity. The NT describes one as a spirit, entangled in a body of flesh. The NT distinguishes between the carnal and the spiritual. “It is the Spirit that giveth the body life,” taught Jesus, “the flesh profit nothing.” (John 6:63) Paul taught Jesus had both an earthly and a spiritual nature (Rom. 1:3), and referred to his own spiritual self. (Rom. 1:9)

The spirit is a prisoner to sin and the flesh in a body doomed to death. (Rom. 7:18-24) Christians are to behave in a spiritually, rather than in a fleshly way. (Rom. 8:4; 13:14; I Peter 2:11) The desires of the Spirit and those of the flesh are opposed to one another. (Gal. 5:13,16-17) Christians have “crucified the flesh with its passions and desires;” they “live by the Spirit” and are “directed by the Spirit.” (Gal. 5:19-26)

To be carnally minded is to die. One must transcend one's lower, bodily nature. (Rom. 8:5-14) Saving the spirit of an individual differs from the destruction of the person’s flesh. (I Cor. 5:5)

God’s kingdom is not carnal, but spiritual: “...flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, neither does the perishable inherit the imperishable...For this perishable must put on imperishability and this mortal must put on immortality. (I Cor. 15:50,53)

The body is like a lump of clay. (Rom. 9:21; II Cor. 4:7) The body decays, but the self is renewed in spiritual life. (II Cor. 4:16-17) The body is a temporary tent in which the spirit resides; the spirits of the faithful will soon be clothed in everlasting, heavenly bodies. (II Cor. 5:1-3) The spirit resides inside a body of flesh. (II Cor. 10:3) To identify with the body is to be absent from the Lord. (II Cor. 5:8-10)

Paul wrote of being “caught up as far as the third heaven...whether in the body or out of the body I do not know...” (II Cor. 12:2-3)

Being with Christ differs from remaining “in the body;” one’s self is separate from the physical body. (Philippians 1:21-24) Christians are to set their sights on heavenly, not earthly things, and to put to death their earthly nature. (Col. 3:1-5)

The flesh decays, but the word of God is eternal. (I Peter 2:23-25) To love this world is to alienate oneself from God’s love, because the passions of this world are temporary. (I John 2:15-17) This world belongs to the devil (II Cor. 4:4); this present world is evil (Gal. 1:4).

God rewards each individual according to his deeds. (Rom. 2:6) One reaps what one sows. (II Cor. 9:6; Gal. 6:7) Some souls remain entangled in decaying flesh, while others turn to the Spirit. “The one who sows for his own flesh will harvest ruin from his flesh; while the one who sows for the Spirit will harvest eternal life from the Spirit.” (Gal. 6:8)

A kernel of spirit is placed in a body:

“...God gives it a body as He plans, and to each seed its particular body. All flesh is not the same; but one kind is human, another is animal, another is fowl, and another fish.” (I Cor. 15:38-39) The NT also distinguishes between earthly bodies and heavenly bodies. “There are heavenly bodies and also earthly bodies; but the radiance of the heavenly is one kind and that of the earthly is another kind.” (I Cor. 15:40)

Resurrection in the NT is not the reassembling of dust into living bodies, but rather, the clothing of the spirit with a new body; the placing of a kernel of spirit into a new body, from where its existence continues.

The NT emphasizes the distinction between the soul and the body, the clothing of the soul with a new body, and the eternal nature of the soul and its relationship to God versus the temporary nature of the flesh and the material world. These concepts can all be found in the doctrine of reincarnation.

thank you, vasu, for taking the time to elaborate and detail the references to reincarnation... my understanding, according to brian weiss, is that there were many references to reincarnation in the bible at one point in time, early on, that were very clear and that they were removed by some council of priests who didn't want the masses to believe in reincarnation because then they wouldn't be as easy to control; much better to have people believe in an eternal hell rather than eternal spiritual journeys, so they censored the passages out of the bible