Talk:Reincarnation

Population growth

How does population growth disprove reincarnation? Why can't new souls appear in addition to existing souls being reborn? (Assuming the existence of a soul for the sake of argument, of course.)

Furthermore, do believers in reincarnation believe that a soul has to be reborn after it has died? If not, then presumably the model can allow for George Washington dying, his soul traveling back in time, and being reborn as Julius Caesar. If we grant this sort of time travel, then there might be just one soul, going back and forth through time, being successively reborn as every person on earth.

Granted, these objections are far-fetched, but so's the idea of reincarnation. --Arensb 13:55, 29 April 2007 (CDT)

It doesn't prove that reincarnation is impossible, but I guess it would imply that the vast majority of existing souls must have come into existence relatively recently, contrary to all the past life readers who claim that many ordinary people were around in ancient Egypt or whatever.

And another point to be made is that there must be a whole bunch of people who believe themselves to be the reincarnation of Cleopatra, Charlemagne, etc. -- and very few who are the reincarnation of "Just some dumb peasant who got trampled by a passing knight." Can Cleopatra be reincarnated as more than one person? If not, mustn't nearly all the people who believe themselves to be Cleopatra be wrong? Discuss. --Kazim 15:20, 29 April 2007 (CDT)