I know Christians don't believe in the idea of reincarnation, but why not?

Answer 1

Just a few weeks ago, we celebrated Christmas—and one reason Christians don't believe we must return to earth time after time is because of what happened that first Christmas.

Let me put it this way: Christians reject reincarnation because they believe in the Incarnation—the coming of God into this world in the person of His Son, Jesus Christ. The word "incarnation" literally means "in the flesh"—and that's what happened when Jesus was born in Bethlehem over 2,000 years ago: God took upon Himself human flesh and became a man. The Bible says, "The Word was God ... (and) the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us" (John 1:1,14).

Why did God come down to us in this way? For one reason: to make it possible for us to escape this world and go to be with Him forever. All our sins were placed on Christ, and He took upon Himself the judgment and death we deserve. Our greatest problem is sin— and God has now provided the way for us to be saved from our sins, because of what Christ did for us.

The Bible says, "Just as man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment, so Christ was sacrificed once ... to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him" (Hebrews 9:27-28). Don't risk your soul by trusting in something that is only an illusion. Instead, put your trust in Christ, "who gave himself for our sins to rescue us from the present evil age" (Galatians 1:4).

Answer 2

Because Jesus was a Jew and about 200 years before his birth the relatively new idea (amongst Jews) started to circulate about the possibility of an afterlife for good (pure?)souls. Jews had never believed in reincarnation so it would have been alien to their religion and culture.
Christians therefore are of the opinion that heaven is their spiritual goal and not reincarnation.
I imagine that heaven is more attractive as it offers hope of a more easily achievable bliss rather than re-incarnation which offers further suffering and a much longer road to achieving ones spiritual goal.
Choice seems to be governed by whichever may seem more plausible (or least ridiculous) - ultimately a reflection on both religious belief and culture.

Answer 3

We believe in the revelation of the Old Testament and New Testament, and especially in Jesus Christ, who we regard as the ultimate source of truth about reality.
The teachings in the bible indicate that we die once then face judgement (although a different one for christians, more an appraisal, but a hard one if we have wasted our lives). We are going to get reincarnated into a new kind of body, if I've got my doctrine right, which can't decay.
Christians believe the revelation's truthfulness because of the witness of the Holy Spirit.
There are also prophecies in the bible that have come true and a cloud of 1000s of christian witnesses in whose lives God has done wonderful things since the first century AD; their lives verify that its true.
Some lucky folks have experienced supernatural manifestations of God's power themselves - healings, visions, words of knowledge, soaking in Gods glory.

We do hear of hindus remembering things from past lives of other individuals, and those things being verified, and also there are mediums who seem to be channeling the dead.
However, from a christian point of view we are told there are a host of supernatural beings who want to deflect people from the truth, out of malice. They use cunning deceptions as otherwise people would see through their games - this would actually explain seeming evidence that supports the reincarnation idea.

Answer 4

John, your "belief system" is shared by many but NOT all people.

Since there is absolutely NO scientific evidence for any of the things you say, no one can verify any of your statements. But in our enlightened society you have every right to believe what you wish.

For some reason people like youself have chosen to PERSONALIZE the Architect of the Universe, the omnipotent force that created all things. It is difficult for many people to perceive a FORCE without making it like a human being.

Even in the Jewish Bible (Old testament) the scribes that wrote about "good and evil" could not resist changing the allegory into a human story with two nice white, hairless people and then name them Adam and Eve who were able to converse with snakes.

If you try to tell such believers that the first human beings were small hairy creatures who were not yet able to speak and that they lived at least a million years earlier, they just could not understand what anthropologists have proven. They still want to believe the mythology of the Bible, much of which was written for illiterate people and in allegorical terms.

If DNA were known about 2000 years ago most scholars will tell you that Jesus shared his chromosones with a man and a woman (probably Joesph and Mary) all of whom were Jewish people. No one doubts that his influence is greater than any man that ever lived, nor that he is the leader of Christian religion.
What is in question by world scholars is the "supernatural" label that has been put on Jesus, none of which was EVER mentioned by any of the many famous journalists who lived at the same time as Jesus did.

It is generally belived by religious historians that the "supernatural elements" were added to the gospels in order to make them more "awesome and wondrous"

Students like yourself would really benefit from reading the actual preserved words of men like Josephus,Tacitus,Seneca, Juvenal and especially Philo Judaeus who lived from 20 BC until 40AD and wrote volumes and volumes of religious text (all preserved to-day so that you could read every word in the Antiquities Museum) YET he NEVER once mentioned Christ. Indeed, if all the miraculous things supposedly did happen, those journalists would have had a field day competing for coverage. Yet only a few paragraphs were ever written about Christ and his following.

Of course 60-70 years later, the gospels appeared but sadly not a word of the original text of any of them is available to verify the actual writing by the authors.

Answer 5

The closest scriptural support would be the rapture (caught up) or the 1st & last resurrections.

The bible writes that a person is to live once & die once (regarding our physical body). People have had out of body experiences seeing the 3rd heaven & came back. Also some have had near death experiences where they died, but didn't go through heavens gates or hells gates. But did see the gates.

There is an everlasting life & new everlasting body resurrected. There is also a 2nd death that is the lake of fire.

Answer 6

Technically, they do.

They either reincarnate into their heavenly body, or into a body that'll burn forever. Early Christianity included reincarnation as part of it's dogma, however, in the Second Council of Constantine, it was given the boot.

Answer 7

I think Christians tend to accept everything told to them as truth, though sometimes they should consider that the interpretation may be wrong. I'm a Christian and I question many things and often disagree, which may send me off on my own search.

Through God, I think anything is possible -- including reincarnation if He so desires.

Answer 8

I'll let the Bible answer your question......Genesis 2:7 states: “Jehovah God proceeded to form the man out of dust from the ground and to blow into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man came to be a living soul.” Notice that the man himself was the soul; the soul was not immaterial, separate and distinct from the body. “The soul that is sinning—it itself will die.” (Ezek. 18:4, 20) And a deceased person is referred to as a “dead soul.” (Num. 6:6) At death, “his spirit goes out, he goes back to his ground; in that day his thoughts do perish.” (Ps. 146:4) So when someone dies, the complete person is dead; there is nothing that remains alive and that could pass into another body.
Eccl. 3:19: “There is an eventuality as respects the sons of mankind and an eventuality as respects the beast, and they have the same eventuality. As the one dies, so the other dies.” (As in the case of humans, nothing survives at the death of an animal. There is nothing that can experience rebirth in another body.)

Eccl. 9:10: “All that your hand finds to do, do with your very power, for there is no work nor devising nor knowledge nor wisdom in Sheol, the place to which you are going.” (It is not into another body but into Sheol, the common grave of mankind, that the dead go.)

Answer 9

See what the disciples believed, the story of the man born blind
John 9:1+

Answer 10

How do you explain population increase with reincarnation? Doesn't make any sense. If reincarnation was true, the population would stay fixed in size.