I think that the concept of multiple lifetimes has been blown out of proportion through man's fear of man's God and our own vivid imaginaions being dulled by television and other forms of media to the point that our brains are chomping at the bit to bite onto some fantacist idea and hold on for dear life.

Nevertheless, I believe in life after death, through other means.

I've learned that every trait, characteristic, feeling, emotion, sentiment, and thought we use to define ourselves as living, breathing humans was taught to us, through direct receptive learning, or through other, more heartless methods like the infliction of pain or fear or doubt. If one goes back through his/her own experiences, they'll see that everything could've turned out totally different had something been altered in that person's past. I wouldn't be the man I am today had I been raised in a basement in Uganda and taught completely different things about my place in the world and what it means to be a human being. Due to this, I've begun to question who really lives and dies in the first place, if everything we know about this world came from this world(specific reigons, areas, cultures), and therefore can be altered, positively or negatively.

If you want to live after you die, learn and teach. Since everything we know comes from this Earth, the only way to gaurantee your own immortality is to teach as many people as you can as many things as you can, to ensure that these pieces of information will be here for the next generation to use, and build with. Evolution in action, killah.