actually.. the pre-christian hebraic mythology ascribed Elijah to be an angel from Creation, not an incarnation, but a vision. Angels in Biblical literature can appear in the illusory form of human beings (as with those who visited Abraham or Jacob) but are not in the flesh, are not literal incarnations, rather they are spiritual beings who can manipulate human sensory perception to appear like flesh, but by no means have any. This is deep Hebrew mysticism..
Christians inherit this tradition, and so if John The Baptist is truly an incarnation of Elijah, then he was not specifically a REincarnation, but rather was perhaps the only true incarnation in human flesh of the angel we call Elijah. But the Church does by default accept reincarnation in regards to Elijah, as the Church accepts the Elijah in his first appearance "was a man of like-minded weakness as ourselves" and so logically he must be a reincarnation in the form of John the Baptist..

perfect synopsis.. if folks could just understand that then perhaps there might not be so much infighting about the Bible.. We don't get into such serious arguments (even to the point of killing each other) over Shakespeare or Homer do we?


"if I don't see you anymore in this life.. I'll catch you in the next one so don't be late ;)"

1. Do you believe you were someone else in a previous life?

Sometimes I've thought about this and thought it was freaky that I could have already inhibited so much information from my many lifecycles. But to be honest I don't think I have.

2. Do you believe you will return as someone else after you die?

Not really. There is a chance that when we die, there's nothing right? Just darkness?

3. Have you ever had a near-death experience?

Aside from choking on coins when I was younger, not really.

5. Have you ever been with someone as they actually died?

Not AS they died. But I saw someone get stabbed in the city when I was about 7. It was a massive article in the newspaper the next day and apparently the guy had been getting texts off people saying they were going to murder him. And so he escaped abroad for a few months and came back thinking it was safe. Turns out he wasn't safe and after been stabbed, died in hospital 5 hours later. I wonder if this has had any influence on me as a young adult and how I've developed... I'm certainly desensitized a lot.

4. Does your own death ever cross your mind? Do you even care?

It will get us in the end, no point worrying. Why spend life anticipating the thing that will end it when we could seize the moment? Though sometimes I wonder why I care so much about material possessions... when I die all my possessions will be worthless to me anyway.

1. Do you believe you were someone else in a previous life?
Perhaps. I've been reading vedic texts and quite a bit about Buddhism, although in terms of reincarnation it leaves me blank with questions of who I was and what I did to progress to the form of human. I'm quite indifferent about this question.

2. Do you believe you will return as someone else after you die?
No idea

3. Have you ever had a near-death experience?
When I was young I almost fell off a cliff, and had a severe allergic reaction that caused my throat to cave in and I had to go to the ER.

4. Have you ever been with someone as they actually died?
My father had a heart attack when I was 3. I was in the room next to them when it happened playing "The Little Mermaid" game on NES, and now thoughts of the game are plagued with an unhappy neorolinguistic correlation of the death.

5. Does your own death ever cross your mind? Do you even care?
Yes, but it doesn't bother me. I believe it does to everybody, just sometimes it's more on a conscious level than others.

no one claims the Illiad or Shakespeare is the word of a GOD who demands you listen and follow instructions.

I was hit by a car. I thought GREAT in a sarcastic tone.

Rob, that was a duh moment, I do believe that was exactly my point with Sonic Gail's post ;)


but I am very glad we can agree on this. And there were many many folks who did in fact hold Homer's poetry to be divine, they were just not as uptight about it as the Pat Robertson crowd..

bit muddled but you got there in the end:)

not necessarily.. I do not myself hold John the Baptist to a be a REincarnation, I agree with the hebrew mystics in this regard.

why

Because I don't believe in the doctrine of reincarnation. I believe in the Resurrection, which by definition excludes reincarnation, because if my eternal and living soul shall be resurrected and reanimate my body, then how could I be reincarnated? The Mayans teach that your flesh and blood is merely an illusion in the first place, that your soul is all that exists, and it creates your body out of its own imagination forming the pure energy of the material universe into the shape of your body. I agree with this..

therefore I do not believe in reincarnation specifically, I believe in reanimation true, but that a soul does not incarnate two separate or distinct manifestations of flesh and blood, rather you have a solitary flesh, which you can reanimate eternally if in the will of God(s).

My soul can recreate my body, why does it then need to take on different flesh than that which I already possess?

I prefer John the Revelator.

do you think this because you want it to be true or do you have any evidence of it ever happening to anybody ever

over john the enforcer?

quote pasting ftw
"I would love to believe that when I die I will live again, that some thinking, feeling, remembering part of me will continue. But much as I want to believe that, and despite the ancient and worldwide cultural traditions that assert an afterlife, I know of nothing to suggest that it is more than wishful thinking. The world is so exquisite with so much love and moral depth, that there is no reason to deceive ourselves with pretty stories for which there's little good evidence. Far better it seems to me, in our vulnerability, is to look death in the eye and to be grateful every day for the brief but magnificent opportunity that life provides."

"Life is but a momentary glimpse of the wonder of this astonishing universe, and it is sad to see so many dreaming it away on spiritual fantasy."

want what, Resurrection to be true? From my own out of body experiences, I am fully conscious of my spiritual self, and it exists entirely separate from my body, that being said, I am fully confident that if I can animate my body at will at this moment, then in the future surely I can reanimate it as well.

cops make me nervous. even when I'm innocent.

the problem is, you never know when you'll run into one who wears a black cod-piece.

ok, now you are so synchronized with my thoughts that it is scary.. who sent you? Do you have my house bugged?

I am not allowed to answer that. I'm sorry. :(

i like the sense of that if because its too if not