I don't believe that, and never have, and never will. Why can't I remember my past lives, so I don't make the same mistakes?

"It's appointed unto man once to die, after this, the Judgement."

that's one of my big struggles with believing in reincarnation is that

if we are learning why dont we come knowing what it is we need to

learn.

that and, if we chose our life why would anyone chose a horrible life?

and i dont mean just a rough life, but a truly horrible life that so many

people have to suffer through. or what lesson can be learned in a life

that lasts 8 hours?

so many questions…

The intervening hand of the creator cannot be discounted. If coincidence is a steering device

I could understand or start to understand and still hold firm to my convictions on free will. 7 billion

I need to read more and more often or move somewhere with reliable TV and a library. The world

just got a little more crowded for me. /laugh.png' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':unsure:' />

Hee, hee! /laugh.png' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':D' />

I believe in coincidence. Having the same birthday, apartment number is coincidence (I think). But I also believe in destiny. I have seen it play a hand in my life many times.

For example, if I attended a different University I never would have met my husband or my college roommate. Our alma matre was not on my husbands or my radar but we both got great scholarship offers based on our test scores and ended up going there. We also ended up in the same dorm, on the same floor with rooms directly across from each other but we only met because we were both selected by our dorm floors to act as Representatives at a meeting. When we met, it was like I had always known him and he felt the same way. He and I both firmly believe that we have been together for many lifetimes even though he did not believe in reincarnation until we met.

My college roommate and I were matched by a computer. What were the odds that she would turn out to be like a sister to me? We had nothing in common on the surface. In fact, she was very much like my brother who I just could not understand at all and had no real connection with. His way of thinking was completely alien to me. Through knowing and understanding my roommate, I came to understand and accept my brother. I don't think that he and I would ever have been more than strangers with the same parents if I hadn't met her. Seriously. In return, my family became her surrogate family and had a big impact on her. She told me once that no one had ever said that anything was wrong or right to her before she met my parents. Her parents just assumed she would know what was right, I guess. She and my mother grew really close and looked so much alike that when people met us for the first time they assumed that my roommate was my mother's daughter.

My best friend and I met on a Nile cruise. She booked her trip 18 months prior to the departure date. I booked it 2 days before its departure date because I happened to buy a paper that I usually didn't read for a train journey. That paper contained a tiny ad making a fantastic offer on the cruise but only if you could leave immediately. I got the last spot available on the ship. The ship held 20 passengers and she and I were two of them. After our first day on the tour, it was like I had known her my whole life. She was an American widow of an Englishman living in England and I was an American wife living in Scotland. There is absolutely no way we would ever have met without the hand of fate intervening and we came into each other's lives at just the right time for both of us. I believe it was destined.

So put me down as a huge believer in fate, destiny, whatever you want to call it. I don't see how it interferes with free will at all. We are put into certain situations by fate: what we do in those situations is our free will.

Consider a murder by a stranger. Think of all the events that are required to bring such a murderer and a random victim together. For example, a young woman walks to a convenience store and the murderer just happens to be in the parking lot when she gets there. Think about that. If she had forgotten her purse and had to go home for it, or had stopped to chat with a friend on the way, he probably would have been long gone by the time she arrived. Or if he had a flat tire on his way, he wouldn't have been there. So many things could have prevented them from coming together. IMHO, fate brought the two of them together in that parking lot but it was his free will to choose to kidnap and kill her.

I do run on, don't I?