How to debunk reincarnation when its a world wide belief?

God Almighty, the mental gymnastics of snowflake syndrome will never cease to amaze me.

Ima just gona quote from some father seraphim rose, for those that know had personal experience in this belief system. But here you go if genuinely asking*The idea of reincarnation: that the soul after death does not undergo the Particular Judgement and then dwell in heaven or hell awaiting the resurrection of the body and the Last judgement but (evidently after a longer or shorter stay on the *astral plane) comes back to earth and occupies a new body, whether of a beast or of another man*

See how this is starting to sound?
*This idea was widespread in pagan antiquity in the West, before it was replaced by Christian ideas;b but it's spread today is largely owing to the influence of Hinduism and Buddhism, where it is commonly accepted. Today the idea is usually *Humanized*, in that people assume their *previous lives* were as men, whereas the more common idea both amount Hindus and Buddhists and among ancient Greeks and Romans is that it is rather rare to achieve *incarnation* as a man, and that most of today's *Incarnations* are as beasts, inscets, and even plants. Those who believe in tghis idea say that it accounts for all the many *injustices* of earthly life, and well as for seemingly unexplainable phobias: if one is born blind, or in conditions of poverty, it is as a just reward for one's actions in a *previous life*(or, as Hindus and Buddhist say, because of one's*bad karma*) if one is afraid of water, it is because one drowned in a *previous existence*
*Believers in reincarnation do not have any very thorough philosophy of the origin and destination of the soul, nor any convincing proofs to support their theory; it's main attractions are the superficial ones of seeming to provide *justice* on earth,of explaining some physic mysteries, and of providing some semblance of *immortality*for those who do not accept this on Christian grounds.*
That's all im quoting from the book, you can get pic related if you want this is only a footnote the books covers more than this, but yea pretty well put out. And i also think, second book related covers this topic im sure.

Well, if pics would want to show up, you can find the one i quoted in *The soul after death* By Father Seraphim Rose. And The Eternal Tao, which i hear is pretty good from people that are far eastern Converts.

almost all of them either descended from Dharmic (Indian) or Pythagorean traditions.

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I come from a background where this is a long established belief and have seen firsthand what this belief does. The origins of this belief is mostly an attempt to establish some sort of justice and order in the world. Why are some people born in better situations than other people? Why do good things happen to some people and bad to others?

It was common for people to believe that illness, diseases and other bad things happen because of punishment of sin, however what about a righteous person or a young child who had done nothing? The explanation then became that it was punishment for sin in a previous life. The result was also that good things that happen to people, such as being born beautiful or in a good family or wealthy was also a result of good deeds in a previous life.

Now this is disaterous and actually quite distasteful for most people once they come to terms with what this actually means. To anyone who subscribes to this, they will have to conceed that if their child daughter gets raped brutally, it's because she committed some terrible sins in her past lives. Yup, let them try and deal with that. It's victim blaming in the worst sense. Anything bad that happens to you, any misfortune is really the product of a just universe punishing you (even if you don't remember it).

We actually know many rich and powerful people are horrendous and evil, same with beautiful people or people born in wealthy families. Wealth, never having to suffer illness, being born very attractive etc can actually in reality be a curse, warping your viewpoint on many things. Similarly acting through evil and immoral ways are the best ways in general of securing great wealth, for you and your subsequent families.

This forms of thinking heavily reinforce social classes, and caste in one form or the other. Many people think this is a result of Hinduism only but it is 100% not true - Buddhism while claiming to not care about caste actually still heavily cares about caste because the doctrine of rebirth/reincarnation/karma naturally creates this. The only difference that Buddhism removes compared to Hinduism is while Hinduism bars lower caste people from ever becoming a priest in this life had generally has to work their way up, Buddhism does allow lower caste people to become a monk. The vast majority of all Buddhist people though do not believe that you can acheive liberation in this lifetime itself, and the vast majority just focus on doing good deeds (primarily feeding monks as they view this to be the highest good deed), so that they will get a more favorable rebirth, which will make it easier. Hence if you are from a rich family it means that you have been doing many good deeds in your previous life and you are of good stock and better, and vice versa, if you are poor it is because you have been doing negative sins in your past life.

This is why there was a brutal slave system in Tibet, why for many marriage proposals they care about what caste and family you come from, etc. All the Buddhas came from a high caste and birth. There are no stories about a Buddha being born from a low caste, because it simply doesn't work that way. Same goes for the Avatars of gods in Hinduism, the gurus in Sikhism/Sikhi etc.

In addition, a big issue that reincarnation has is, why is there any real motivation to make big changes or do much in this life?

Copying from a previous comment about Buddhism, but this applies to any philosophy/religion which subscribes to rebirth/reincarnation:

cont

2. Re-birth/Re-incarnation: Again according to canonical scriptures, the Buddha says that we have had uncountable past lives. He refuses to talk of the creation of the the universe, saying it's not conducive towards liberation, but also in one place in the Pali Canon he does provide some sort of creation type story. Regardless, many times it's said that we all have innumerable past lives. However in order to add some sort of urgency to it, it's said that to have a birth in an age where the teachings of a Buddha is accessible is very rare, perhaps once every 1000 births, and so we shouldn't waste this opportunity. Now to someone this might give you some sense of urgency - to anyone who doesn't know about mathematics. It has and can be proven for example, that there are *equal* number of even numbers vs natural numbers. There are also *equal* numbers of numbers divisible by 5 as natural numbers, or numbers only divisible by 1 million. If indeed we have innumerable past lives, then even if we only encountered the teachings of a Buddha once every 1 billion lives, we would be encountering them the same number of times as if it was every life. It's hard to grasp if you don't know math, but this is definitely true.

Regardless another way of looking at it is that there is truly no urgency in Buddhism. Your current life is no more important than the billions and billions, and literally uncountable other lives you've had. Each life becomes virtually insignificant, since the number of lives we've lived is claimed to be infinite. We can keep going back and find more lives apparently, it never ends. Other than just making your life insignificant, it adds a lot of complacency to life.

Thanks for the insight.

i'd like to add to that that since karma is basically something you have to take your spiritual master's word on, then you could be serving someone who is actually more karmatic then you but puts on a holy facade. how do we know that Siddhartha himself wasn't lying through his teeth, and that he was actually some demon sent to dissuade people from the truth? i mean, he was from a christian perspective but i'm asking this to a hypothetical Buddhist

honestly as much as it might be hearsay and such, usually saints and even probesbends who have NDEs or visions of the spiritual world never say that we reincarnate, so i would rather listen to people who have been blessed by God then some maroon robed monk sitting on a tigerskin rug in Tibet who doesn't even know if the universe actually exists.

Only semi-related but I've met a Buddhist woman in the past who was vocally against the helping of & charity for disabled people. She believed that them being reincarnated as a disabled person (whether it be a severe mental condition or physical handicap) meant that they had committed some horrible crime in their previous life, and so they deserved resentment and contempt rather than compassion.

Agree to disagree, we don't even know what will happen to us as Christians when you really look at it objectively. By all means it is a heretical belief, and there is no reason to entertain it on the grounds of scripture, but far more important than either resurrection or reincarnation is the Theological virtue of Hope.

So the following would be my idea:

Yep, it's amazing how false theological teachings cause immeasurable difficulties in the secular sphere.

"Nihilist reincarnation" is a variant I've encountered in the west and popular among Nordicists. Basically, as matter is recycled from animals to plants etc so is the soul recycled between beings. 18th-20th century spiritists use the principle of attraction to explain that souls naturally gravitate to vessels appropriate to their resonances. Atlantean priest into Pythagoras, into Rosicrucian, etc. Generally this form of reincarnationism only distinguishes between initiated/uninitiated, though. I think this is mainly the result of an anchoring to the material. Developing a conception of the noetic realm outside of a catch-all Nirvana or Hades soul soup is important. Eternal line, not wheel, basically.

How can a carrot "do good" enough to be reincarnated as a Man or an Ox?

Some beliefs you can't attack head-on, not necessarily because it's hard to "debunk" them but because those beliefs, like reincarnation, are attached to deeper, more insidious beliefs that must be dealt with primarily, like the fundamentals of Buddhism and Hinduism. Those first, deeper beliefs affect the epistemology and determines what they will believe about other issues.

is the right answer. Unless you have the Holy Spirit helping you and you can rightfully show >>650927's answer to the person with the erroneous worldview, you can't really debunk reincarnation.

Was Irenaeus retarded? He explained it in Phaedo

I think he's trying to describe the Holy Spirit, but lacks the literary background. Specifically the allegory of the vine with unfruitful branches pruned, and others grafted on.

Browsing an internet forum has nothing to do with it. Why would you think that?
(Go read the Bible more. And maybe some theological texts on the subject. And go outside more so you can discover more believers in your area.)

politheism was, and in part still is, a world wide beliefs my yakuza friend.