The YOLO Problem

 

YOLO vs Reincarnation/Rebirth 

  

The Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) have always had a YOLO (You Only Live Once) problem.  While much of the world believes in some sort of regenerative cycle to our lives here the Abrahamic faiths focus on a single shot to determine if we spend eternity in Heaven or in Hell.  Not really fair, to my mind.  Even as a child I realized that there was no way we all receive the same opportunities.  How can it be fair that Elon Musk and a street beggar in Mumbai are being judged by the same criteria?   

 

The problem for these faiths is that they want to maintain control over their adherents, stressing sin vs salvation.   The belief is if people knew they had unlimited tries to "get it right" they might choose to get it right the next time around.  It is an insurmountable task and I cast it aside decades ago.  While reincarnation and rebirth are technically different, I generally just use the term "reincarnation" to mean any form of regenerative cycle.   

 

And here's where the hedge maze comes in.  It is not possible for any single soul to make it from the farthest edge to the center on a single try.  We are all evolving as we pass through time.  The farthest edges of the maze is from when our ancestors were predatory pack hunters.  Souls are the eternal part of us so it is conceivable that the soul has gone through all the ages that have preceded the here and now.  The soul has been tried and tempered though millennia of lives.  And our souls are being tried and tempered right now.

 

It helps to remember that we do not have souls.  We are souls who have bodies.

 

When the body dies the soul is released.  There is a brief review of how we got to where we did and then when it is time to return to the body the soul returns to the maze in the same place reached the last time.  So there is an incentive to make right choices, but that only applies to those who realize there is a goal that actually can be attained by "mere mortals."

 

Because there is nothing "mere" about us.  We contain within us all the power of GDW (God Dao Whatever).  Even the Bible says so.  "For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil."  (Genesis 3:5)  I think this passage may refer to an ancient memory of when our most primitive ancestors discovered empathy. It is that moment when we discovered that there was a difference between good and evil.  It was also the moment when we discovered we had free will and could choose our path instead of being led purely by instinct.