ttruscott wrote:
OnceConvinced wrote:
...
Satan is not an animal, he is a spiritual being, so comparing him to other beasts created by God in the creation story just doesn't work. UNLESS Satan is a retrofit made by Christians and it really was a talking snake in the story and not Satan.
But ok, Animals are sinners. Were they also spiritual beings who were sent to earth to be born as animals as a punishment (not penance) from God? Are lambs, cockroaches, ants, kittens, and all the rest also repressing memories of sins they committed in spirit form?
I have wrestled with these ideas for many years and to be fair to you, I have come to no conclusions...there is just not enough info to know for sure.
I respect that admission and welcome speculation.
BUT I am willing to share another bit of speculation that might fit this situation, (vague enough yet?) and that is the report of many people that they know they have lived past lives. What if that were true and they really have lived multiple lives? Past lives means reincarnation or multiple lives on earth which is quite distinct from pre-existence which is one life, first pre-earth then moved to earth, which I am sure you appreciate. The point is that most of those who believe in reincarnation claim to know that the people reincarnated into new life on earth can be reincarnated as animals...see where this takes us?
Yep. That would probably tie in with your scenarios.
At the risk of going too much off on a tangent, I tend to believe that these so-called former lives are simply things that people have read in books, seen on TV, perhaps stories that have been told to them verbally at some stage, that they can no longer recall from the conscious mind, but which are sometimes dredged up by the subconscious mind (which remembers everything). I find it amusing that many people who have these beliefs of previous lives, usually believe they were someone famous or someone who experience some particularly dramatic events that most people don't experience in their lives. This for me backs up the theory that what they are remembering was stories not their own previous lives. Stories are always way more dramatic than real life.
Christians accept the verse that says die once and then the judgment as refuting reincarnation but it does not, it only refutes the idea that more lives has an evolutionary effect upon the moral quality of the spirit being reincarnated...and claims there is no moral growth over many lives; they all end like the first one with judgment.
Also since we are told that the lives of HIS sinful elect are predestined to heaven we can assume that one life is sufficient for HIM to bring HIS sinful elect to redemption and so no extra life is necessary. This would indicate that those experiencing multiple lives in truth are not elect at all.
This sets up the possibility that pagans who will never believe in Christ are counted more than once in the numbers of humans who ever lived, even many times more, increasing the count but not the number who ever lived without believing greatly but who are reborn over and over to keep HIS world filled with them. Those HE wants in abeyance could be reborn as the sinful animals, over and over. This satisfies both religions as to what happens if not as to the final outcome.
I've been thinking about some of your claims and one problem I had was the number of souls on the waiting list to get onto Earth. If you add animals into the mix and even insects we are talking billions and billions of new souls every day coming onto the planet. And what if we add microscopic organisms to the mix? What if each one of those is also a soul that sinned in Sheol. The numbers become so enumerable it's ridiculous.
IF however it's the same souls being reincarnated time and time again to Earth, then that helps with the numbers problem a bit. Only a bit mind you.
