The conversation is too massive for me to have time to reply to everyone, but I think I will step in here. That is a good point about what might be pre-wired in. In fact, evolution works very slowly, so the pre-wiring would have had to occur over the past couple of million years. It is hard to see how a belief in an afterlife would have helped Paleolithic Homo sapiens (I don't know why the spell checker says that is wrong. I double-checked the dictionary and that is what the dictionary says) and earlier species, to survive. It is a complicated idea so would require selection of several genes, which would require a very large number of deaths of early people not having the genes to become set in by evolution. Why would not having that belief have caused almost all early humans without that belief to die before reproducing? Perhaps when something shows up in brain research, it is only emotions associated with the belief, not the belief itself, which is being detected. It is also, by the way, generally thought that neurological research is not yet able to detect specific ideas that someone is thinking.
In any case, whether there is a hard-wired belief or not is completely irrelevant to whether or not reincarnation actually occurs. Note that all my derivations start with data which is highly commonplace. Jim --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "sparaig" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "Stu" <buttsplicer@> wrote: > > > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "sparaig" <LEnglish5@> wrote: > > > > > > Top posting. No comments at bottom: > > > > > > Both Jews AND Christians expoused a belief in reincarnation at some > > point. > > > > > > Some Jews still do. > > > > > > L > > > > > > > > A very small percentage. In Catholicism the belief in reincarnation > > is heretical. As for the very small portion of Jewish mystics that > > have such beliefs it is not at all like the Eastern notion of a wheel > > of birth and death. The common Jewish notion of the afterlife is > > "Ashes to ashes and dust to dust". > > > > Only two characters in the Bible manage to have an afterlife. Elijah > > and Jesus - who both rise up to heaven with their bodies. For the > > rests of us we will rise from the graves on Judgment day like in a > > zombie movie. > > > > The concept of a soul surviving the body came from the writings of > > Greek pagans like Aristotle. He was all the rage of early middle age > > theologians. > > > > Body or no body, the predominant western afterlife myth is a one way > > street. > > > > s. > > > > In which case, the "hard-wired prediliction for believing in it" isn't too strong, > eh? > > > Lawson >
