Carnation
I heard someone on a radio show discuss reincarnation, and how he helps people discover their past lives.
A lot of people believe in reincarnation. Tens of millions. Maybe hundreds of millions. But listening to this guy, one thing intrigued me. Most people aren't aware of their past lives. So a question--how is not being aware of past lives, any different, functionally speaking, from not having past lives?
posted by LAGuy @ 12:11 AM
11 Comments:
You are awareness-centric
Here's the same question from the other side:
One reason that people are often happy to believe in an afterlife is that it means that they won't be obliterated by death.
All the people I know who believe in reincarnation claim that everyone around us has had many past lives. Yet this "survival" does not include the original physical body (which is buried underground), nor physical likeness, nor memories [except, allegedly, for 0.001% of people, and even for them the memories are mostly gone], nor personality -- nor, as you say, awareness. So what does survive? Whatever it is must be such a tiny part of me that I've never noticed its existence.
Why, then, should I find it comforting to be told that this unnoticed part of me will survive, and all the parts of me that I can detect will be obliterated?
Also, virtually all claims of reincarnation involve the lives being sequential. For example, Franklin Roosevelt's previous life must be someone who died prior to 1882, and his next life must be someone born (or conceived?) after April 12, 1945.
So how do we explain the increase in population? There are six billion people on this planet, but they can't all have lived on this planet in the year 1800! Even if you include other animals, the same question remains: the total number of living beings on the Earth is not constant. Maybe our population increase is equal to the population decrease of the Minbari?
I don't know how they answer the questions regarding the number of souls, but I don't think it's that hard to deal with. Perhaps there's some universal, all-encompassing soul that can be split as much as you like (it's immaterial, after all) and so get be chipped off whenver a new sould is neededl or new souls are created whenever there's a new birth and no old soul available (souls gotta start somewhere); or all souls were created at once (or were always around) and don't have to always be embodied; or maybe the number of living things throughout the universe, not just the Earth, is constant.
While I don't have any real belief in reincarnation (I suppose it might be pretty to think so in some ways at least), I think the above arguments don't really address the issue. The first comment may be more than snide. Being aware or noticing parts might not be as important as you think. There has been some recent writing of plenty of things our bodies and minds do without being aware or noticing or, if I understand it, being able to measure. The phenomena of having an idea or answer suddenly come to you has been explained (Daniel Pink maybe- I can't remember maybe it will come to me by the end of the comment)as your brain working away on background trying to put the pieces together- a non-Freudian subconscious accepting tasks and then self-directing below notice of the thinking brain.
This could mean (in the reincarnationist world) that we have the personality and outlook of the prior lives (or at least the same tabula rosa as the baby who began the prior life).
I once asked an otherwise intelligent successful businesswoman who believed in reincarnation and other aspects of spirituality about the problem of math for souls alluded to above. She said well there were some very old souls and some very young souls as if this explained it. Whats more, she sensed she was an old one and most of the problems of the world were due to the young inexperienced souls indicating me. This reinforced my belief that spirituality like religions, ideologies and other philosophies is more a style to be worn than anything else.
For what it is worth, I would note that any religion that embraces the idea of an afterlife is essentially recognizing some sort of reincarnation, even if it is reincarnation in another realm. Judaism honors the tradition that Elija will return one day, and if I understand it correctly, the debate between Saducees and Pharisees in Roman occupied Israel centered on whether there was an afterlife. Christianity is centered on the idea that Jesus died and came back (and will come back again). Belief in ghosts (which is widespread, even without formal religious doctrine) figures on the resilience of the "soul" to continue existence after the death of the body.
Reincarnation is the answer "Yes" to the question "Isn't there something more to this life we have?" By the way, my favorite explanation of reincarnation is detailed in the film "Defending Your Life." Some souls move on, some souls come back, and after 15 or 18 times, if the soul hasn't developed as intended, it ultimately may be discarded. Albert Brooks should start his own religion.
"Reincarnation in another realm" isn't reincarnation. You're leaving out the "carn" part. The key is a new body. Though, I admit, intellectually, the idea of a spirit living on, whether it's in a body or elsewhere, is about the same.
A central tenant of Christian faith is related at the end of the Apostles Creed:
I believe in the Holy Ghost;
the holy catholic church;
the communion of saints;
the forgiveness of sins;
the resurrection of the body;
and the life everlasting.
The resurrection of the body, though not really understandable to me, suggests reincarnation - apparently in a physical body. Jesus made a big deal immediately after his crucifiction, of demonstrating that he was a living, breathing, eating, feeling body - not a ghost. I think there is debate over this issue in Jewish theology as well. I don't know what Islam teaches.
If you choose to define the term "reincarnation" based on its etymology, then it would indeed mean returning to life in a body. Such a definition would include the tenets of Orthodox Judaism, Catholic Christianity, Orthodox Christianity, and some Protestants, since they all believe that in the next life we will have bodies (although those bodies will be radically different than the ones we have today).
However, the term "reincarnation" is usually used to refer to the belief that when people on Earth die, they come back as humans or other animals on the same Earth, and that -- conversely -- most (or all) humans living in the year 2010 had previous lives before their birth. That is a belief that is not held by Judaism, Christianity, or Islam.
Well if you look at it that way, then it would be odd to ask where new souls come from, since Christians, Muslims and Jews seem to believe new souls simply appear whenever someone is born.
Good point.
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