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Yes to both Judeism and Islam

[Icefire2314]

I alwas had one problem with reincarnation (in a system where people don't reincarnate into animals) is where do all the new souls come from? Is it the same as popular belief that god just throws a few in while the old ones get recycled?

Also ask the same question of where new souls came from with increasing population. Evolution or creationism, one way or another the human population was previously FAR smaller than it is now. However new souls come into being over time with increasing population also answers your question.

[Cryxis, Prince of Doom]

That was the main question though, that's my problem with reincarnation and increasing population
Though I guess that solves it

[Bouchart]

Basically, (the version I heard, not all ideas may be in line with this) that after we die we are judged by God and we re-experience our lives through the eyes of other people, how we treated them, whether good or bad, we feel those feelings as if it was being done to us. That is our consequence. The goal is spiritually, to come to be better people by living lives of sin (in a sense; obviously avoid sin, but nobody is perfect and everyone lives sin.. by living in this way we learn to be better spiritually after death?)

It's not supported by scripture whatsoever.  Everyone who has ever lived is a sinner deserving of death (Mark 10:18, Romans 3:23, Romans 6:23, among others).  Thus everyone has already been judged.  Jesus's death is a form of substitutionary atonement.  At death God does not go over someone's life and point out all of their sins and shortcomings (Hebrews 8:12).

This makes more sense to me because the idea of a hell (hell is non-existent in this scenario), a place of eternal punishment(Damnation) for one lifetime of sin is, odd, or even ridiculous in my opinion. Sin affects you in such way that even if you lived a perfect life up until you were dying and committed a mortal sin before receiving reconciliation or last rites, then you are damned.

What purpose does damnation serve?
None. It is strictly punishment.
Whereas, the idea of living the pain(or goodness) you caused through another's lives is more appropriate consequence. It helps us learn spiritually to be better people.

Hell exists because a perfect, holy, sinless God (Exodus 15:11, Isiaih 6) cannot be in the presence of sinners or let sin go unpunished. 

The main idea then, would be to learn from your sin (mistakes, everyone learns from mistakes) and after consequence of judgement, to be physically reborn again to continue spiritual growth. I would assume the cycle would end once spiritual perfection (or near to it) is attained. This also is reflected in Hindu reincarnation, and maybe Buddhist nirvana (though I'm not familiar with nirvana, so I'm grasping at straws there).

I know that this concept is sketchy, and it's quietness does not help, since it is not a loud topic by the church there is no debate and everything here is speculative, by yours truly. Tell me what you think.
[/quote]

Only those who died believing in Christ are resurrected to a physical body.  Acts 17 and 1 Corinthians 15 is instructive here.

[Orange Wizard]

At death God does not go over someone's life and point out all of their sins and shortcomings (Hebrews 8:12).

That verse is pretty much talking about what happens to those who have their sin forgiven... and that's hardly indicative of everything that happens after one's death...

[Descan]

Yeeeeah, but Hell isn't punishment. It's just... sadism.

[Rolan7]

I think it's meant to be "justice", in the sense that all transgressions need to be punished.  Not to deter others, or to deter the transgressor from further transgressions, but just because every wrong needs to be avenged.

Which is a consistent morality system, I guess.  It's also primitive, and ineffectual when it comes to rehabilitating and unifying people.  It leads directly to vicious cycles of violence.

That's my understanding of why God couldn't just forgive everyone.  Someone had to be punished for the sin, because...  That's how sin and punishment work in this system.  That's why the animal sacrifices were necessary for the ancient Jews, and why the divine human sacrifice was necessary for all believers thereafter.

[Ultimuh]

That's why the animal sacrifices were necessary for the ancient Jews, and why the divine human sacrifice was necessary for all believers thereafter.

And that's where (at least from my understanding) the word scapegoat comes from.
To sacrifice an animal in place of yourself for your sins. (Although, I could be wrong on both accounts.)

[Bohandas]

I think it's meant to be "justice", in the sense that all transgressions need to be punished.  Not to deter others, or to deter the transgressor from further transgressions, but just because every wrong needs to be avenged.

Which is a consistent morality system, I guess.  It's also primitive, and ineffectual when it comes to rehabilitating and unifying people.  It leads directly to vicious cycles of violence.

That's my understanding of why God couldn't just forgive everyone.  Someone had to be punished for the sin, because...  That's how sin and punishment work in this system.  That's why the animal sacrifices were necessary for the ancient Jews, and why the divine human sacrifice was necessary for all believers thereafter.

I thought he was supposedly omnipotent though. If he cannot bypass that rule than he is not omnipotent.

[smeeprocket]

I suppose the old problem of an omnipotent and omniscient deity combined with free will has been brought up here at some point? (It's a lot of pages to read.)

I haven't heard a good answer to that one yet, tbh.

[Baffler]

Unrelated, but I enjoyed this and some others here might too. This is from Pope Benedict XVI's homily during the Immaculate Conception mass in 2005.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The human being does not trust God. Tempted by the serpent, he harbors the suspicion that in the end, God takes something away from his life, that God is a rival who curtails our freedom and that we will be fully human only when we have cast him aside; in brief, that only in this way can we fully achieve our freedom. The human being lives in the suspicion that God's love creates a dependence and that he must rid himself of this dependency if he is to be fully himself. Man does not want to receive his existence and the fullness of his life from God. [....]

Dear brothers and sisters, if we sincerely reflect about ourselves and our history, we have to say that with this narrative is described not only the history of the beginning but the history of all times, and that we all carry within us a drop of the poison of that way of thinking, illustrated by the images in the Book of Genesis. We call this drop of poison "original sin". Precisely on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, we have a lurking suspicion that a person who does not sin must really be basically boring and that something is missing from his life: the dramatic dimension of being autonomous; that the freedom to say no, to descend into the shadows of sin and to want to do things on one's own is part of being truly human; that only then can we make the most of all the vastness and depth of our being men and women, of being truly ourselves; that we should put this freedom to the test, even in opposition to God, in order to become, in reality,
fully ourselves.

In a word, we think that evil is basically good, we think that we need it, at least a little, in order to experience the fullness of being. We think that Mephistopheles - the tempter - is right when he says he is the power "that always wants evil and always does good" (J.W. von Goethe, Faust I, 3). We think that a little bargaining with evil, keeping for oneself a little freedom against God, is basically a good thing,
perhaps even necessary. If we look, however, at the world that surrounds us we can see that this is not so; in other words, that evil is always poisonous, does not uplift human beings but degrades and humiliates them. It does not make them any the greater, purer or wealthier, but harms and belittles them.

[Rolan7]

I think it's meant to be "justice", in the sense that all transgressions need to be punished.  Not to deter others, or to deter the transgressor from further transgressions, but just because every wrong needs to be avenged.

Which is a consistent morality system, I guess.  It's also primitive, and ineffectual when it comes to rehabilitating and unifying people.  It leads directly to vicious cycles of violence.

That's my understanding of why God couldn't just forgive everyone.  Someone had to be punished for the sin, because...  That's how sin and punishment work in this system.  That's why the animal sacrifices were necessary for the ancient Jews, and why the divine human sacrifice was necessary for all believers thereafter.

I thought he was supposedly omnipotent though. If he cannot bypass that rule than he is not omnipotent.

It's not a question of power.  He could just not punish people, but they'd still be guilty (under his concept of justice).  Basically the punishment is necessary because those are the arbitrary rules he made.

Now, this idea that every sin must be paid for in blood gets somewhat challenged by Jesus, who preached that we should forgive each other.  It makes sense to forgive other believers, though, because he already paid the blood debt for them.  Every sin retroactively accounts for some of Christ's suffering, so Christians should try to avoid it, but it's all forgivable.

The weirdest part to me is that the sacrifice only counts for believers.  I kinda feel like that was tacked on to gain converts, because nobody would feel compelled to join a group that says everyone is fine unconditionally.  "None can reach heaven except through me" (paraphrased) doesn't mean nonbelievers can't be pardoned, just that they wouldn't have without his sacrifice...  But the Apostles make it clear that only believers get the benefit.

It's also weird that punishment in hell is eternal, despite mortal sin being finite.  It'd make far more sense for a soul to atone for its sin until "justice" is done, then either go to heaven or cease to exist or something.  Eternal damnation exists to scare people into converting.

I suppose the old problem of an omnipotent and omniscient deity combined with free will has been brought up here at some point? (It's a lot of pages to read.)

I haven't heard a good answer to that one yet, tbh.

This is what Epicurus said:

“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?”

The answer which contradicts the least amount of scripture is that God is "bound" by his own rules (like the concept of revenge-based justice).  Which essentially means he's choosing to allow evil, making him malevolent.  Which is giving the Old Testament God a lot of credit...  He does a lot more than *allow* evil.

Edit: Made it clear who I was replying to.

[Telgin]

I suppose the old problem of an omnipotent and omniscient deity combined with free will has been brought up here at some point? (It's a lot of pages to read.)

I haven't heard a good answer to that one yet, tbh.

Yeah, I brought it up probably 20-30 pages back.  I've never seen a particularly good answer to it either.

Related to that, what Rolan7 posted is about the best answer I've seen on the nature of God, but it's not saying much.  God can't, at least from a human's perspective, be all powerful, knowing and benevolent.  The Bible seems to pretty strongly skew Him toward being pretty clearly not very benevolent.  In fact, I'd go so far as to say it's pretty terrifying if He's real and anything at all like the Bible portrays Him.

[smeeprocket]

If God were actually real, I think I'd prefer burning in Hell to following him.

But then, an eternity is probably a lot longer than it sounds. Like 100 years in I'd be all fervently religious and begging to be taken out of Hell.

But in theory I'd stand on my principals of opposing hate and oppression (and vengeance, so much vengeance)

Edit: Buddhism gets around that stuff by simply not having deities. Well, some of its forms.

Some cultures took it and built deities around it.

Most polytheist faiths also do not have omnipotent, omniscient gods.

[Telgin]

Yeah, I've thought the same but quickly came to realize that just like any other human I'd very quickly cave under the threat of more pain.  Not that it would matter once you were in Hell anyway.

And that's kind of how Christianity is portrayed around here anyway.  It really is about being spared from God rather than really loving Him or anything.  It's really amazing to listen to people say how good God is for putting their cancer into remission, when He didn't do anything to prevent it in the first place.  Or when He possibly even caused it.

I could almost buy the argument that God puts us through ordeals like that to strengthen us in the long run or something, but as I mentioned earlier in the thread that falls apart when free will goes away.  And even disregarding that, I won't stand for the intolerance.  I've honestly heard preachers preach that letting boys play with Barbie dolls or letting girls play with G.I. Joes or  having gay people near them is going to make them gay and damn them to Hell for eternity.  The same preacher also claims that "even animals know better" than to be gay, but he of course is disregarding the fact that plenty of animals have been documented to be gay.

[smeeprocket]

I suppose faith and fear are interchangeable in Christianity. I spent a long time feeling endlessly afraid and guilty because I was inevitably sinning.

It doesn't help that dogma makes for a poor replacement for morality. Especially when it is contradictory, halfway irrelevant, and utterly arbitrary.

You can justify just about anything if you convince yourself that God put the thought in your head. Though, if he existed, I suppose it would have been him. He knew it would be there before it was formed. And he knew how you'd respond.