My difficulty with karma and reincarnation

You do. You can choose to be agnostic, but an atheist has an opinion.

I never quite buy the view that we are not making any moral or spiritual progress.
Slavery once universally practiced is now universally condemned.
The notion of human freedom, individual rights and representative governments, once considered the quaint fantasies of the weak and powerless are now enshrined in many goverments and world organizations.
So it is not a perfect world, and there remains much to be done but the notion that we have made no moral or spiritual progress is undeservedly negative.
It remains possible to see the world as evolving spirit, divine manifestation and sacred emmanation (a form of reincarnation, I quess).

Could be. The philosophical journal, Mind is entered as second class matter in the British post office.

Hello fellow thinkers,

Infinity demands repitition, in both exactitude and dissimilarity.
Every eventuallity MUST repeat itself infinitely.
Therefore you and I and everything else will be initiated over and over forever and ever, in our current form and also every variable imaginable.
This universe is but a grain of subatomic dust in a universe which is itself merely a grain of subatomic dust, and so on and so forth.
From everlasting to everlasting.

When I'm you I'll read this
For, through your eyes will I see
Through your mind I'll interpret it
And somewhat set it free
But I'll likely understand it not
And, what must be... Must be
So just in case I'm out of place
I'll write it whilst I'm me...

Thank you and goodnight.

Reincarnation and karma are usually separately held beliefs from Adam and Eve.
Most belief systems have an internal logic. They make sense within their own assumed facts about where souls come from, what the afterlife is like, the way God may or may not interact with people.
A lot of people are starting to mix different belief systems these days. Unhappy with the solutions offered by one religion, but not wanting to jettison the parts that make sense to them, they try to form something from the beliefs of different religions.
The results might be something innovative and profound or they might be a theological mess that seems truly delusional.
I think the main reason reincarnation has been growing in popularity is because a lot of people (myself included) question whether the existence of hell makes any sense.
That said, I think that sometimes the karma crowd can be very pretentious and seem to think they have some greater "spiritual intelligence" than other people. They don't. They are just as egotistical and full of themselves as the judgmental hellfire club.

Are n´t you being egotistical and full of yourself and just as judgemental in your generalizations ?

Nah.

Here's a generalization: Why does every message board have an asshole like you?

Someone who actually pops up in a philosophy forum posting the making sense of hell is beyond any hope...goodbye.

but the entity acting on it's own free will (which is really just chemical reactions and automated responses for a given circumstance)come back to life in another body of chemical responces based in a different wiring system way i see it i'm just an product of an immature genealogical evolutionairy process a computer that can't quite get the job done like trying to run windows vista on a zeos pantera just ain't happening. so i look at this as the one shot i get when i die there's nothing else i'm dead that's that some all knowing entity could potentially remember me into a new everlasting body for everlasting bliss or eternal suffering but that's on them i'm not the one to do that. it wouldn't be my deal i would have to say that on my own i am going to make it moreso than intentions were as to be expected. but when i die it's on me what do i do? i can't go anywhere. my brain doesn't work anymore i'm stuck suppose there is a all knowing entity with the power to say this one shall live forever in the kingdom of the lord and poof a new fully evolved fully developed body with the capabilities to live forever would appear and in my last dying moments on earth my entire life memory is caught before my eyes and i am to live on in heaven. and i wake up in my new body it's heaven where do i go i don't know anyone does anyone welcome me? how does this go? if there are afterlives and there is reincarnation as an afterlife with or without the memory but what is reincarnation without the memory old stardust recycled through the foodchain and whatever other means. right?

Our world is not perfect, and I don't think it ever will be. But we are certainly doing better than 1000 years ago. Look at # of death in wars per century, you will get a picture. Look at democratization, human rights, slavery, treatment of women and children, health care, science and our understanding of our environment... we have come a long way.

About soul accounting & reincarnation:
As I have understood it, reincarnation has its earliest roots in Hinduism ( and later in Buddhism). Anyway, it is a belief, and not a scientifically proven fact.

But as per belief...

The spirit or our consciousness is one and the same, like a vast ocean, but the waves on it are many, fleeting and recurring. A soul is like a wave that manifest on surface of ocean, and if left unresolved it resurfaces in another sapce-time as new manifestation. Also it is not a single discrete packet, but a continuation. And one wave (soul) can split in many, and many can emerge as one. Hence patterns of reincarnation can be countless. A man can become a tree, stone and a dog and all those who died in a single plane crash can come back as one single personality. Therefore this one to one accounting of souls is mere approximation for popular understanding, but not an accurate reflection of the doctrine.

I'll give a mythological example in Hindu scripture Ramayana. It is more of a metaphor, but makes the argument I am trying to make. Here Lord Vishnu, his consort Lakshmi, and "his bed" (a huge snake SheshNag) all together reincarnated as Rama, and his 3 brothers and his wife Sita. Thus 3 became 5 for the purpose of drama that unfolded in Ramayana.

Your Adam and Eve reference from point of reincarnation is very interesting. One way to look at this could be to see Adam and Eve as 2 powerful waves emerged on the consciousness and rippled further into billions of patterns as planets, starts, people, trees, plants, animals and entire cosmos.

Again reincarnation is belief, and stories associated with are metaphors for larger understanding of life as movement is much longer journey than meets the eye.

Bluesky, this is a very nice post, both for its content and the manner in which you express it. A2K has been experiencing alot of snotty behavior on the part of its "philosophers" lately. I find relief in your civility.

Thanks JL!!