Do you believe in retribution in the afterlife?

[LionsandBears]

This is one of my favourite topics. I believe in reincarnation. Apparently early versions of the Bible included reincarnation, but they were edited out by Charlemagne. Obviously, I am not a Bible expert though, having never read anything other than a Children's Bible.

I've read a couple of great books, including Life between Lives by Michael Newton, and Many Masters, Many Lives by Brian Weiss. These two are both psychiatrist/psychotherapists who separately have used hypnosis to investigate life in the Afterlife. I read both books thinking oh yeah. A lot of it reconfirmed my own beliefs. A lot was new. The hypothesis is that all souls are reborn many times. The Creator or God creates us to incarnate on this or other worlds. We choose the life ahead of time, based on lessons we need to learn. We are then born but lose our memory of the Before life, in order to be able to express free will. The lessons we learn in our life help us to evolve as souls. Over many thousand of lifetimes, we evolve in to perfect souls until we no longer need to be reborn and merge with the Godhead.

Life between lives is like a community and school for souls. We evolve in groups of like souls. Our soul group is at a similar level of evolution. We have soulmates who we meet over and over in our lives. Some souls act as our guides in life. In some lives, as we evolve, we become guides to others. So your grandma, uncle or fabourite techer may not be part if your soul group, but they may be your soul teachers. After we die, we go through different levels depending on our soul evolution. Older souls go through fewer steps than new souls. We debrief with our guides and then meet with our soul group to go over the lessons in life.

Eventually, after a period of rest, we choose our next life with guidance from others. We are then born to parents we choose and the next life brings us opportunities to further evolve.

All this reinforced things I already believed on some level. I always knew or hoped I'd meet my soulmate. I was certain he would come from overseas, which he did. My biggest struggle with this is, did we choose to have two babies die? If so, what lesson are we supposed to learn and have we learnt it? It's something I've been talking with someone who is schooled in Buddhism about. Something about having agency in our choices. Obviously we didnt choose for our babies to die. I just need to understand it more on a spiritual level.

I suppose one reason I've always felt so sad about people who commit suicide. Not only is it a complete waste, with a whole heap of pain and suffering left for friends and family to live with, but also because I believe by taking a shortcut like that, it means that person will have to cone back and do it all over again next time and that next time it may be more difficult. It's that thought that has sustained me at times.

[Phteven]

And strangely I started thinking of Hitler too... the idea that yes, what he did was wrong and horrible, but what if he isnt in a "hell" for someone to later have mercy on him.. what if he was being used a tool for others to learn from... a great big lesson for mankind to learn what NOT to do..... ????? Hmmmmmm... pondering......

I don't see that the 2 things are mutually exclusive. In my reality we can learn and he can go to hell. I believe in a merciful God and I also believe that he is non-interventionalist so I find it very difficult to conceive of a reality in which millions of innocent people are killed in the most horrific ways just to help us learn a lesson. I can't reconcile that much cruelty with my view of a merciful God.

[LionsandBears]

I believe we have free will. Hitler made his choices through his free will. Those who followed him had free will. The only people without free will are the mentally incapacitated including the insane. One of the best books I've ever read was written by Victor Frankl, a psychotherapist who survived Auswitz, called Man's Search for Meaning. One of the most profound passages are about how, when a person is naked and starving, when all their friends and family have been murdered, no matter what happens to them, in the end they have free will. Whatever happens in life, the meaning that a person subscibes to that event is what matters.

Nelson Mandela was incarcerated for 27 years. He was tortured and abused. Yet he choose the meaning of that suffering for him.

As to retribution. I believe a soul who commits evil in a life will review that life in the Afterlife. They may need time apart for cleansing or something. Then, at some stage, they will choose to be reborn into a life or lives where they will balance out their actions. Not as punishment but as a lesson, as part of their evolution. This will involve suffering until they learn to ivercome suffering. Maybe this is part of God's mercy. Not hell, but a chance to pay back for previous mistakes.

[STARRYSKY]

I resonate with Lime and Lions and bears on this... I don't believe in God as such but a higher energy, group conciousness, source, what have you...we are all like little Gods (I will use the term as its probably easiest to get) who will eventually evolve into a higher state and re join the main GOd (does that even make sense?) lol

So no retribution in the afterlife as there is no "after life " as such, we are all on a "journey" (I hate that term but it fits here) of personal enlightenment...