Chapter One: JWs believe in Reincarnation

by ezekiel3 14 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  UpAndAtom

  In the beginning, God created spirit creatures.

  God gave these spirit creatures the ability to choose their own destiny ? our will. Thus our Souls were born (Special note to JWs: A Soul is not a body)

  Selfish actions are the first instinct of any species with a will. Some chose to stay next to God (the Angles in Heaven), many choose the broad path and wound up on Earth. How you ask?

  In the early days, our spirits had the ability to push-into and out-of animal matter with free will (much like legion inhabited the swine and the fierce men)? however in our haste, we overlooked the fact our spirits could become enmeshed with animal flesh, and hence we slowly, but surely became trapped in the cycle of birth and rebirth of the animal bodies we used to inhabit for selfish fun. There are vague references to this in Genesis.

  One of the main problems is that most people have forgotten their true heritage and place in the Universe as co creators with God.

  Have you ever considered what you ?really? look like at the spirit level? Most likely most of us have had hundreds of bodies, and the reason we like our appearance, is that our appearance is the sum-result of hundreds of life experiences? each time, our face getting another smile line, or a frown, or a cancer. Our DNA is not random, it is the sum result of hundreds of our Soul?s experiences. If you shed blood in this life, and you can expect to be reincarnated with a DNA gene that causes your body to shed it?s own blood in the form of leukaemia ? lending teeth to Jesus? argument that those that live by the sword will die by the sword.

  Getting back to your original point, Jesus raised this same issue of rebirth with Nicodemus. If you read the passage carefully, you will actually see that Nicodemus reflects Jesus statement back to him in an effort to confirm something his brain does not comprehend. He understood what Jesus said ? he just didn?t ?get it?, and Jesus (for whatever reason) did not feel the need to explain it further. Jesus did this a lot.

  I have vague memories of my distance lives. There have been several famous people throughout history that have claimed to remember many of them with clarity. I have no doubt, that when Jesus claimed his existence before Abraham, he was remembering it and spoke with conviction? and again? failed to explain it further to the bewildered crowd.
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  TheOldHippie

  Why is it, that among those who claim to remember past lives, so many of them claim to have been Egyptian princes and princesses, to have died at the stake during the Medieval Ages, to have been among the first believers of Christ etc.? There just were not that many Egyptian pharaos as is claimed by these with a rememberance. I personally know one who claims he was Giordano Bruno who was burned at the stake, and he vividly tells how he did not feel the pain etc. - but I think there are tens, if not hundreds, of Brunos out there.

  I am not cynical about the thought, I hold it to be one possibility among many, but there is a lot of wishful thinking going on.
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  UpAndAtom

  OldHippe; You raise a very interesting and valid point. I agree with you completely.

  It makes little difference who you were, but rather how you treated people.
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  OICU8it2

  When Jesus' life was transferred to Mary, was his total self at that moment in a single cell or group of cells within her womb? When an infant, did he remember his previous life. If not, why? If one is composed of memeories and the continuous feeling of selfness, where was Jesus before he remembered? If the soul is just the person or their life-title, what was it that was transferred to Mary? While still at the cellular level, for Jesus to be Jesus, if it is correct about the soul being only your person, meaning the sum of your thoughts and memories, etc., how could it be Jesus in the womb? Please tell your thoughts. Or do you just have to have faith?
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  sleepy

  Karkissos
  "But the basic problem of the JW doctrine still remains: a reincarnation of what? -- since no soul, no spirit, no "I" is supposed to survive death. Actually the JW resurrection is a kind of supercloning, the creation of an exact copy of you with your appearance, your personality and your memories -- but it is still not you. Of course he/she will not be able to tell, and neither will you..."
  
  The amount of times I used to tell people this as a witness, none could understand what I was talking about.They couldn't get the idea that a copy is not you.You don't continue to exist like when you wake in the morning, it would just be someone who thinks they're you.
  To be you there would have to be something more involved.