Why do you suppose we reincarnate (if we do)...what is the purpose?

Question

Do you remember a past life (lives)?

Answer 1

So that we can learn the lessons in the next life that we failed to learn in this one.

As an Atheist, I don't believe in reincarnation, but I can see that benefit to it.

Answer 2

I believe it's because we have unfinished business here. That we all have something we need to do, set by God, or whatever your higher power is, something we need to learn, say, and when we don't do that, we will return again and again until we do. I don't remember past lives, but I know I've had around 3. Though I do have friends who do remember they're past lives.

Answer 3

I know of no compelling evidence to suggest humans reincarnate, so there is no reason to think we do.

This is a good question you ask here, but I would like to amend it slightly to wonder why we persist in believing not so much in past lives, but that we will live beyond our death.  (This way you incorporate many other religions.)  I think the answer is as simple as we want to be immortal.  We want to live forever.  We don't want to acknowledge the finality of this life and with it the realization that anything we have done is unalterably in the past.

Dreams and hypnosis are disreliable sources of information regarding reincarnation.

Answer 4

I would suppose we dont. Its kind of a rediculous concept really, and has no bearing on reality.

Occassionally people attribute dreams to memories of past lives, however, they are just dreams. Past life hypnosis has been proven to create false memories and not really look into past lives.

Therefore there is no evidence to support a silly notion like reincarnation. There is also no explainations available (that are based in reality that is) to describe the mechanism that allows reincarnation to occur.

Some good fiction on the matter is "City in the Stars" by Arthur C. Clarke, the movie "Logans Run" from the 70s, and most recently the movie "Aeon Flux"

Answer 5

First of all, it's very much related to religion. People like to be reassured about meaningless death. Especially when young people die; people find it hard to accept that he or she is no longer there. The idea of reincarnation seems more credible than that of heaven, and more reassuring than the cruel 'that's all'.

Having said that: I am also an atheist, but parapsychologists have come up with reincarnation "evidence" that is really astounding. The "evidence" usually comes from cultures where people strongly believe in reincarnation, and it usually concerns young people who died. People are born with the precise knowledge of neighbourhoods where they've never been, precise knowledge about how a young person has died before they were born, and in some cases knowledge about a language they have never learned. To me, the knowledge is so precise that coincidence just doesn't make sense.

I think it works the same as with ghosts. I think: if ghosts exist, reincarnation exists as well. Ghosts are often young people with a strong mindset and strong goals in their lives, who die all of a sudden. Especially with strong mindsets and cruel sudden deaths, I think you could imagine that 'something' is left behind and picked up. This 'something' could be picked up as a ghost appearance, or it could be picked up by somebody who is born. This child will therefore have the feeling that he had a previous life. In societies where there is not a strong believe in reincarnation, the child may think that this memory is not relevant (nobody ever asks for it, or takes it seriously) and thus forget it. But in buddhist countries there are cases that are sometimes well-known to many people.

This doesn't mean that everybody has previous and next lives. Obvious question: how can the memories or emotions of a dead person be stored or picked up by somebody else?

A friend of mine (very rational guy) wrote: "There is a memory left behind by everything we do, and every thought we have. Our science has not yet discovered a missing element in the universe, and this mystery element is consciousness. Consciousness permeates everything, and it transcends time. Consciousness is energy, and it vibrates just as radio or light waves. It is most likely to be picked up by someone or something that vibrates on roughly the same frequency."

This is the closest as I can get to science, but the purpose of reincarnation or ghosts is not clear to me either.

Answer 6

Around 5000 BCE a recycling law was passed in the spirit world.

Answer 7

Though I was raised a Christian, I believe that reincarnation is a real possibility.  Early Christians believed in it as well.  I have memories and dreams that may be of my former life.  Our souls learn and grow from our human experiences.  They may have to return again and again until they have reached a certain point of enlightenment.

There is evidence that very young children carry memories from a former life, especially if that life was ended abruptly.  The memories fade as the children grow older.