Give your vote on past lives: yes or no?

Brynna asked an interesting question last week--do past lives really exist?

I will readily admit that I have no clue. A google search for "past lives" gives you more than 147,000,000 hits. That's 147 million.

There is the idea that a finite number of souls actually exist, so they have to be "recycled." There is the idea of Akashic Records, a place where all the lessons a person is to learn are held for examination before a soul comes to Earth. These are said to be similar to the "collective consciousness." There are belief systems which claim no one can be good enough to live in paradise on their first try.

Each of those "academic" arguments for or against past lives seem logical. I mean, other resources are finite, why shouldn't souls be? If birds "know" to migrate, why shouldn't humans "know" things? If you're completely honest with yourself, are you good enough for an eternity in paradise?

See, they all make sense, don't they?

Now let's look from a more "emotional" point of view. How do you explain a child's fascination with a certain period of time? It would be easy to say "oh, the parents push it." In some cases, I'm sure that's true. It wasn't in my child's, however.

When the kid was young (she's going to be a high school senior this year), she was homeschooled. In fact, she didn't "go" to school until the 9th grade. Because of that, we were able to focus on some of the things that interested her. Like ancient Egypt. For weeks at a time. And I'm not talking about the pharaohs. She wanted to learn about the "regular people." For weeks at a time. When she finally left Egypt (I used to joke that we spent more time there than the Israelites did), it was on to... the American Revolution. Do you think she wanted to learn about General Washington? Try again. She wanted to know what it was like to just be "home" at that time.

So, either I have an odd kid, or she felt some connection to the everyday people of those time periods. (To be truthful, there are days where it could go either way...) Makes ya think, though.

I don't know what the answer is. I think it's possible. Heck, just about anything is possible. On the other hand, would't more people have "memories" of the past? And most of the arguments "against" past lives are seeped in fundamental Christianity. Then again, how can you prove it when someone says "I was the Queen of Sheba" ? Really? How many Queens of Sheba where there?

There ya have it. Can you see why I'm completely stuck in the Land of Maybe? Do you believe? Convince me. I want to hear what you think... and WHY!

Blessings!

Nichole