Exploring Reincarnation

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Recommended: Arguments for reincarnation in Hinduism

Exploring Reincarnation
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For as long as man has been on this earth, one of the most popular questions without a finite answer has been, what happens after we die? Each culture, religion, organization, family, and any other group of people has had their own views about this subject for as far back as history goes, and probably even farther. One particular answer to this question is reincarnation. The simple version of reincarnation is re-birth. When one dies, they lose their physical being, but their soul lives on and is re-born into another body. According to the Buddhists, “Central to the belief in rebirth is the idea of an individual stream-consciousness. As an unceasing flux of primal spiritual energy, it acts as a concurrent link with the new body conceived in the mother’s womb. The nature of rebirth is closely linked with, or is the effect of, past thoughts and deeds. Rebirth is thus an essential part of the natural law of causality.” (pg. 74, child incarnate) The western world has traditionally been quick to dismiss the idea of reincarnation as nay say. They don’t believe it is possible for someone to be reborn into a new body, most of the time due to religion, mainly Christianity and Judaism, both of which have rejected reincarnation as a valid theory. The Eastern half of the world however, has consistently accepted reincarnation. Four hundred million Buddhists, Hindus, Jains, and Sikhs believe in reincarnation according to statistics. (Christie-Murray, 50) Although the western world has had increasing numbers of people believing in reincarnation, it is still widely disregarded. In the west, we live in a very materialistic age, and for that reason, very little consideration is given to anything besides the present. Reincarnation should not be disregarded so easily however, because there are a lot of logical reason it can be, and probably is, true. There is overwhelming evidence of reincarnation beliefs in every period of time, so it is not some notion that was recently just made up for comfort or stability. There are many stories of people who can remember vivid details of their former lives, and even biological evidence such as birthmarks that are a result of an injury in a prior life. Reincarnation can also be a good explanation for child geniuses like Mozart, and even the current Dali Llama.

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