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Reincarnation? Karma?
I have a lot of trouble accepting karma and reincarnation; as well as the
Eastern versus Western concept of the soul.
As for karma, if the point of karma is that I should pay for my enjoyment by
suffering, and vice-versa, through false attachment to material desires, what
is the point if I do not know what I am being punished for, or what in past
lives occurred that I should have to live through this life? If I commit a
crime in the usual sense, the court makes it very clear to me what my crime
was, and how much prison-time I have to serve to pay my debt to society. It
does not make sense to keep this hidden from us in the karmic sense.
As for reincarnation, the Judao-Christain view of the soul is, generally that
the soul expands or evolves from the parents with the new body, from the
point of conception. Thence comes the idea of original sin. The view that
the sould existed before this life, indeed that it was never created at a
point in time, would seem to eliminate the need for reincarnation or sexual
reproduction. Should my body just not continue to evolve, as it does from
infancy to old age, into a different type of body? The same body can evolve
into a radically different shape, witness the metamorphisis or caterpillars
into butterflies, or tadpoles into frogs. Surely if the soul evolved through
different material bodies, it would be in this way for all living beings. Why
couldn't a butterfly go back into a cocoon and come out as a spider, cat, dog,
or human? The fact of sexual reproduction would indicate that my soul "spins
off" from my parents.
Any comments gratefully received
