Cinderella is a fairy tale. In that story, a fairy godmother turned a pumpkin into a carriage by magic. Let us think about this for a moment. Can the fairy godmother use a water melon instead of a pumpkin? What if the fairy godmother used a water melon? Will the carriage be green in colour? Can the fairy godmother use a small fruit, like grape? Must she use fruits? Can she use a big stone instead? If we established a course to study how fairy godmothers make carriages out of stuff, will there be any definite conclusion?
Samsara or reincarnation is an unprovable process. Like the carriage making process in fairy tale Cinderella, we cannot come to any definite conclusion with reincarnation. For example, can we reincarnate as plants? We can come up with all kinds of reasons to argue about it but we can never come to a definite conclusion. It is like asking if the fairy godmother can make carriages out of something else besides pumpkin. Can anyone prove that she can or cannot?
The Dalai Lama reincarnated fourteen times as Dalai Lama. Is that possible? What kind of karmic law allow this kind of reincarnation? Can the 14th Dalai Lama provide a definite proof that he is the 14th reincarnation? Can he provide a definite and objective proof for his 15th reincarnation so that China cannot install their own Dalai Lama? Can he reincarnate as a woman so that the 15th Dalai Lama will be the first female Dalai Lama? Can one choose where, how and when one can be reincarnated? How come the Dalai Lama can? Does the Dalai Lama know that he can and know that he has the power to do so? Can he prove it? Or is this another Cinderella's Pumpkin Carriage proof?
The Bible said that all humans are descended from Adam and Eve. Evolution has a last universal common ancestor (LUCA) from which all living things today evolved from. So how does reincarnation account for the increasing human population? Also from one soul? Can one soul be reincarnated as two or more souls? Or is there a constant number of souls going through the reincarnation process? So how did the initial number of souls get started? Buddhists do not believe in souls. So are they right?
Major Indian religions like Hinduism, Buddhism and Sikhism took reincarnation for granted. They do not attempt to prove it. They just give solutions on how to escape reincarnation. But when a religion based their solution on an unprovable process, I think the foundation is shaky and anything built on top of it can collapse any time.
What is unprovable is not necessarily untrue. Every religion require some amount of faith. But I prefer a religion that based their faith on something provable instead of something unprovable.
... speaking the truth in love ... (Ephesians 4:15 NIV)
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