"I mean why the dogma?"
Your statement is at least as dogmatic as the one I made so I would ask you the same question; I mean why the dogma?
At least my statement has a basis in reality. Yours is simply unsubstantiated and factually wrong.
If you know what Christianity is, then you know it is based on the vicarious sacrificial (physical) death of Jesus Christ for sinners and the physical bodily resurrection of that same Jesus Christ. If you know what reincarnation is, then it is obvious that the these two are are diametrically opposed to one another and both cannot logically be true. Did anyone in the ancient wold believe in reincarnation? I'm sure they did but they were never considered to be Christians if they did.
Here is what Paul had to say in Athens
22So Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus and said, "Men of Athens, I observe that you are very religious in all respects.
23"For while I was passing through and examining the objects of your worship, I also found an altar with this inscription, 'TO AN UNKNOWN GOD ' Therefore what you worship in ignorance, this I proclaim to you.
24"The God who made the world and all things in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands;
25nor is He served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all people life and breath and all things;
26and He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation,
27that they would seek God, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us;
28for in Him we live and move and exist, as even some of your own poets have said, 'For we also are His children.'
29"Being then the children of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and thought of man.
30"Therefore having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent,
31because He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead."
32Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some began to sneer, but others said, "We shall hear you again concerning this."
33So Paul went out of their midst.
34But some men joined him and believed, among whom also were Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris and others with them."
What did they believe according to Acts? The necessity of repentance from sin, the atoning sacrifice of the death of Jesus, and the physical resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. NOT reincarnation! |
