Edwards catalogues common sense objections which have been made against reincarnation. 1) How does a soul exist between bodies? 2) Tertullian's objection: If there is reincarnation, why are not babies born with the mental abilities of adults? 3) Reincarnation claims an infinite series of prior incarnations. Evolution teaches that there was a time when humans did not yet exist. So reincarnation is inconsistent with modern science. 4) If there is reincarnation, then what is happening when the population increases? 5) If there is reincarnation, then why do so few, if any people, remember past lives?
To answer these objections, believers in reincarnation must accept additional assumptions. They assume that when a human dies, before he is reincarnated, he exists as an astral body invisible, completely undetectable by scientific instruments, yet somehow able to travel at a very high speed and penetrate
material objects like walls, roofs, and human bodies. He can travel and see things even though deprived of a brain and eyes and means of locomotion. After a period of time, one's astral body picks out or is thrown into a woman's body at the moment of conception. Even though the person may have been very old and knowledgeable at death, when reborn he has a new, different baby's body and none of his memories. Yet he is somehow the same person.
To account for the great increase in population, it must be assumed that many souls incarnated on this earth did not live on it previously. They must somehow have migrated from some other planets or dimensions or god knows what. Finally, most people must have done bad in past lives because they will enter the wombs of mothers in poor, over-populated countries where their lives are likely to be miserable. Acceptance of these silly assumptions, Edwards says, amounts to a crucifixion of one's intellect."
