Your Choice - Past Lives

Which would you choose? Life after death, based on the notion of reincarnation (rising up or falling down the food chain depending on good or bad deeds in this life), or the all or nothing of heaven and hell.

Though of Christian sensibilities, I've always much favored reincarnation for chiefly one reason: it is so inclusionary.

Christianity has always strike me as arrogantly human-centric: my dog hasn't much of a chance of receiving to heaven (but probably as much a chance as I do).

But with reincarnation my dog might be my fallen great-great grandfather who is heading onwards and upwards, and because she's such a great dog, upwards still. I like that.

There is a case to be made for reincarnation being a general unifying thread throughout all World religion. Far from being exclusively an exotic 'Eastern' doctrine, reincarnation can be said to be part of the Western custom as well. Furthermore, when we consider that many of the great luminaries of olden Greek civilization such as Socrates, Pythagoras & Plato, and also others who were involved in the a range of mysteries, were firm believers in reincarnation, then the idea of rebirth really lies at the foundations of Western civilization.

It is a well trend that today and in recent times, belief in rebirth is on the increase. This tendency has been particularly pronounced in industrialized Western countries. This style encourages the hope that perhaps in the future, the thought of reincarnation will become the dominant doctrine concerning the nature of eternal life.