Two thirds of the way through my life..., and pausing to have a brief evaluation of my life thus far, and to consider the question of where do i go from here, i feel inclined to pitch in my lot with the re-incarnation advocates, if only on the simple logic that, if aspiring to a much higher state of spiritual wisdom is the overall intention of human existence, then, just one life span hardly seems sufficient enough to achieve this goal. Even for the most spiritually attuned person...if, indeed, there is such a person in existence at the moment.
You are correct, Hugh, that God's plan is to move us on to the next Life Span, an Eternal one! Much better plan!
I too have thought about reincarnation and the karma issue. I don't know that I believe it though. If it's karma, then I must have been a b*tch in my past life, but for some reason I don't think so. If it is reincarnation, then I think it is more likely that our bad circumstances are set upon us to help us learn the lesson set before us. Plus if any of this is a possibility, I think that we ourselves set the lessons we need to learn before we come back each time. If it's true, I hope to come back on another planet.