On Coast to Coast AM tonight, George Noory was once again allowing the reincarnation and karma deception to be spread, this time by Barbara Martin and Dimitri Moraitis. These false teachings, which besides having no evidence for them, contradict God’s word, and God said that we only have one life, and that after an unforgiven person dies, they sleep and await condemnation and permanent imprisonment in Hell, and that when an forgiven person dies, their spirit goes to Heaven immediately and their physical body will one day be resurrected in perfect health and transformed into an immortal one that can withstand the glory of God and be in its presence without harm.
Teaching that reincarnation and karma are real, is dangerous. It’s dangerous because they make God out to be a liar, but God is the truth, and gives the true and only way to eternal peace, and who warns us with an eternity of non-stop suffering in Hell if we are not forgiven by Him, and His forgiveness comes with his Son’s salvation from sin, temporary pain and imprisonment in Hell (how to be saved is explained here).
Many people say that the best evidence for reincarnation comes from little kids who say things that they only could have known if they had been another person (as in “had a previous body”) and could only have certain behaviors that are similar or the same to that previous body if it had been theirs, and that another evidence is having a birthmark similar to some wound or fatal wound of the other body from which they have memories from. But there is no logical connection as to why they must have had that previous body merely because they have some of the memories of that body and some similar or some of the same behaviors of it. And, because of other possibilities as to how those memories and behaviors can be acquired, and with no proof that it is from reincarnation only, it cannot be proven that reincarnation would be the only mechanism by which those memories and behaviors were acquired. For example, demons (former angels that God has permanently shunned for rebelling against him) possess people, and are able to take over their bodies, including brain, and being that they have demonstrated the ability to manipulate flesh in supernatural ways, for example making it impervious or highly resistant to damage, causing it to change shape without damaging it, restoring it after changing its shape, and levitating it. So it is not a stretch to think that a demon could read the memories of a person it possesses and have done so, or that they memorize the events that have happened in the lives of various people, and later implant those memories into someone else after that person dies, and that some go so far as to manipulate the flesh of a baby in the womb so that it has some birthmark similar to the person whose memories it is implanting into the baby’s brain. Some demons may have targeted certain babies for confusion because the demon saw that the baby had a birthmark that reminded the demon of some non-fatal or fatal wound that it saw had been inflicted on some human that it had memories of. According to Scripture, demons in general try to lead people away from the truth about God, especially trying to prevent them from learning the truth about how to be saved. They use subtle ways to lead people astray all the way to trying to force them to reject Christ by having non-Christians persecute them, or by causing fights between Christians in various ways, like by getting some false or non-Christian to turn them against each other using false information or some unkind acts to provoke them to unkind against each other. Scripture makes it clear that demons can memorize things, can have great power and intelligence (like Satan), and can be extremely hateful (Satan tried many ways to get Jesus to fall, and fooled “the world” into murdering Him, but for all his scheming, God’s perfect wisdom caused Satan’s wisdom in evil, to backfire).
The claims of those in the reincarnation-believing group refute their own claim that reincarnation exists or can be said to be true in some case, this is because some say that demons exist and can possess people, some believe in “walk-ins” (which is when a spirit from a dead human possesses a living human’s body), some say that after a person dies they go to Heaven (with other human spirits) and choose the life they won’t live next, some say that aliens can possess a person’s body and many believe in psychic powers and that knowledge can be gained from reading the minds of others or seeing into the past or future supernaturally, and some believe a person can leave their body and learn things outside of their body, and even learn any past event from a spiritual place where it is recorded. If these seven things can happen according to many of them, why do they claim with certainty that when anyone has “past memories” that they didn’t go through in their current body, that it must have been because they once had another body, that they must have been reincarnated? And should Buddhists who don’t believe in any of the other seven possiblities claim with certaintity that reincarnation is the only reason why someone would have memories from another person when Buddhists claim that reality is an illusion or that they are deluded until they reach a state of perfection? And even if a person who believes in reincarnation doesn’t believe in any of the other seven possibilities, but unlike Buddhists believes reality to be a definite thing and that reality is not even subjective, how can they state with certainty that “past memories”, behaviors from another person’s body, and a birthmark similar to some wound they had, is due to reincarnation if they can’t see how the “past memories” are gained and when they can’t show any evidence that demons don’t manipulate people anymore than anyone can show evidence that God doesn’t exist and that the most of the Bible isn’t his word, or that his word hasn’t been effective in persuading people to do good, like not hating others but loving them, and not lying, stealing, murdering, but helping people to live well, or survive and to be at peace (except to those who refuse such help and even attack Christians who try to give it)?
As for the birthmark “evidence”, why would a baby have a birthmark similar to a wound from a previous body it had? What would cause such a wound? It would require intelligence for such a wound to be imitated on its new body, but what would make more sense, that the baby, in its stupid ignorant state decided to replicate the wound, or that another being did, one which obsesses on violence and is murderous (demons), or that the birthmark is natural and a demon targeted the baby when it saw the mark? An argument I can think of against the targeting argument, is that the demon would have to have to go far and wide looking for someone who had a wound in the same spot that lead to their death or was some area where they had cancer, or some traumatic relation like that, but such an argument ignores that demons talk with each other, can share memories (at least 1000 according to the Bible possessed one person), and aren’t all physically limited to slowly reading and understanding information like us, and aren’t all limited to certain languages, but could read information from a hard drive without needing a monitor or printer to read what is on it, and even when the hard drive is not powered on, and so, could scan through billions of hospital, police and obituary records and learn about various wounds or skin diseases or skin infections certain people had, and find someone who had such a problem on their skin that matched the birthmark of the baby they want to confuse (and those who get to know the baby), and then the demon could look for other personal information on the deceased people they chose for their scheme, asking other demons if they know anything much about those people it chose, and if one or more does, then transmitting the memories it has of that person into the little child all at once or over time or repeatedly putting the memories into the child. Some children have reported having nightmares of certain memories, supposedly from “a past life”, which I believe is from a demon somehow causing the child to focus on that memory or memories while that child is dreaming.
Concerning karma, the concept doesn’t make sense because it for people to “get back what they put out” or as said, to have negative or positive consequences for a financial act, and for everything they do, karma would have to be alive and have a mind and be intelligent and know right from wrong, and have the desire to judge and punish or reward or give consequences. Even if karma were not that specific, it would still have to have intelligence in order to do such things. How can a non-living thing, like a rock, tell the difference between a good or bad act, or good or bad speech? Further, it would have to coordinate all of the “positive or negative” things it did to people so that each one got what it deserved, otherwise it would be chaotic and nonsensical. On top of that, karma would also have to deal with giving positive or negative things to non-human things, even aliens if they existed. How could a non-living thing, unless it was programmed with future events, know how to respond in every situation? And how is it able to manipulate every single thing in such a way that everyone “gets what they deserve” or “gets What they put out”? It would have to be a computer far more advanced that we can comprehend, and the one who programmed it even more advanced since it would have to know how to program such complex tasks and would have to have the power to give the computer such power to manipulate the countless things in this universe so that everything came out as the programmer wanted it to. Karma then wouldn’t be karma as Buddhists, Hindus or New Agers claim it is, but a tool of a being who would be best described as God, and who has destined all things already since this karma machine would always achieve its goals. And no Buddhist, Hindu or New Ager has ever even hinted that karma fails, so they cannot argue without showing that they simply being contentious, argumentative, that karma doesn’t always work out. And even if it didn’t always work out, what would their point be? It would be self-defeating to argue that since they would be admitting that karma isn’t just, but unfair, and it wouldn’t explain how karma knows what to do to a person for their actions, how it knows a good thing from an evil thing.
Another problem with karma is that it justifies any evil act committed against another person, because according to the doctrine on karma, whatever bad thing happens to you, you deserve. So if a baby or little kid or anyone is abused in some way, sexually or not, or murdered, it was because they deserved it. Is that true? According to the Bible even a person who is suffering or who is in need or handicapped, isn’t always suffering or in need or handicapped because God is punishing them, but to test them (as evidence for or against something, like if they are patient or impatient, good or bad), or to show his love through them, like when Jesus healed various people who were handicapped.
Another problem with karma is that it justifies (according to the doctrine or personal belief of many who believe in karma) someone giving things to the rich who don’t need what they give them and which rich people have no intention of giving what they received from that person to the poor or little or anything of the things they already have and even things they most likely don’t or won’t need in the future. And the personal beliefs of many who believe in karma, even justify giving such things to the rich even if those rich people are stingy and hoard their wealth, even if they are giving to such rich people out of kindness or love for them. But according to the doctrine or personal belief of others, those things, including gifts, should be given to the poor who need them, or at least the poor who are decent, especially to ones who are righteous or good, and to such poor who even share with others who are poor. So who does karma consider to be in the right? And according to the simplistic doctrine that most have on karma (I’ve never heard them debating this and only bring up their thoughts about it if any when I bring it up to them), if an evil person who mostly does evil, but to whom mostly good is done, deserves that goodness. So for example, when Hitler was murdering the Jews and was having good things done to him and when many were doing almost whatever he asked them to do, it was because he deserved it. Or if someone was hoarding their wealth all throughout their life and using it for little good or only using it to make a profit and doing it oppressively in general (there have been many people like that all throughout history), and those people had many good things done to them, more than the evil things, it was because they deserved it.
The doctrine of karma reminds me of the false tithing doctrine that many false Christians (and sadly some true Christians) teach, because both are vague and the proof for both is arbitrary. Promotors of tithing (especially Pentecostals) claim that if something bad happens to you, it was because you were robbing God of money, of 10% of your weekly income, and that if you were giving it, you’d get 100 times back sometime in the future, unless you “didn’t have enough faith” (when you gave the money?). Isn’t that vague to say, “sometime in the future” or “didn’t have enough faith”? How much faith do you need to get the 100 times back of the money you gave, and how long must you have faith? Ironically such Christians refer to a passage in Malachi as evidence that you must tithe your money to God, however that verse indicates that God was asking them to test him, to see if he would reward them for tithing (something other than their money) and taking into account their lack of faith so that they would have faith after seeing Him pass their test. And how much faith would they have if God said, “I’ll reward you later, sometime, just wait.” Who would have faith after 60-80 years and believe God after waiting for so long? How would they know after having waited so long that the reward, the “reaction” wasn’t just “chance”? And how is karma any different? When is it working? When is it taking place? Does it take place right after an evil or good act or is there a delay? And how long is the delay? It matters because since there is no Laws of Karma, unlike in the Law in the Bible, the many commandments in the Bible, so it’s impossible to know when you are breaking the laws of karma. By the way, I’ve also noticed that those who strongly believe in the tithe-for-profit doctrine treat people cruelly, coldly or with unkindness. They justify their treatment of others this way because of their, “You reap what you sow” belief which they take out of context in the Bible to make it seem that because God is punishing you then they then have the right to hate you and also have the right to punish you. They might as well say, “You get what you put out.” In fact, a Pastor Galen of First Family Assemblies of God Church in Albuquerque, who is the father of the younger and unmarried one who is also a pastor in his church, told me that I was the most negative person he ever met (after reading a short critique of his son’s misteachings). And by ignoring God’s law and replacing it with their “Be positive whenever you talk to me or else I have the right to treat you negative and will do so” doctrine, they might as well be teaching the vague doctrine of karma, which can suit whoever believes in it.
Another problem with karma, is how to know how to comply with it so that what you want to happen to you, happens, but the problem is, how can I know what it considers good or evil being that it doesn’t show it in any way and can’t be found or accessed? Does it consider it a good thing to kill a person who is mostly destructive or bent on destroying things, or does it consider it an evil eating certain food in front of another person considers immoral to eat? Does it consider saying, “Allah doesn’t exist”, “Buddha doesn’t exist”, or “Moses didn’t exist” evil things to say? Does it consider that one person’s conscience isn’t the same as someone else’s, and that some people have no conscience, like psychopaths? Does it consider any lying to be evil, even a lie that doesn’t harm anyone but instead saves a life or lives? Does it consider stealing a weapon or what someone intends to use as a weapon to commit murder a good thing or a bad thing? Where is the rule book or commandments of karma? Some might argue that karma judges you by your own standard, but if that is true, and my standard is to do whatever I feel like: steal, lie, commit adultery, hate people for no good reason, dishonor my parents even when they do good to me, abuse animals, endanger the lives of others, including by polluting in such a way that it is a certain danger to others, or murdering people whenever I feel like it, and I do those things, then shouldn’t karma “reward” me? Some might argue that no one is like that, but that isn’t the point, the point is that that can be a standard, and besides that, there are people like that, and hundreds of millions if not billions of people have died because of people who made it their standard, at least for a moment, to speak and act in those wrong ways.
Almost every race and culture believes in demons, with the exception of most Buddhists, and even many atheists believe in “negative spirits (without a body)”, so to claim that reincarnation must be the reason for anyone having past memories of being in another body, and having a birthmark related to that other body, and having certain behaviors of that other body, is either assuming things or ignoring other evidence or both.
Update 10/29/2010:
References:
The Buddhist and Hindu View of Reincarnation and Karma: http://www.thebigview.com/buddhism/karma.html
The Hindu Caste System and Their Teaching On Reincarnation and Karma: http://philosophy.lander.edu/oriental/caste.html
How to Get to Heaven 