--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "James F. Newell" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > 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
If you took the time to read the research you would see the genetic markers for Person Permanence have strong evolutionary consequences - the propensity to believe in an afterlife is a side effect of the gene. This propensity is not subject to natural selection. snip > > In any case, whether there is a hard-wired belief or not is completely > irrelevant to whether or not reincarnation actually occurs. It is highly relevant. Because of our inability to conceptualize non-consciousness we have a strong need to fill in the blanks. We all come with strong feelings or intuition of an afterlife. This is a basic desire like our predisposition to like sweets or/and fats. It means when confronted with the observable data that supports that dead things are dead we have an extremely strong desire to deny it. If reincarnation occurs - what is the evidence? All evidence is fantastic, requires leaps of faith in the supernatural, and comes with bizarre rules - like only certain people have "insight" into their past lives (Why do past life believers domonstrate poor source monitoring?), Why do these people all have different conceptions about the details of the process. Buddhist and Hindu versions differ and there are difference between sects. Does it cross species - is there some sort of karmic judgment involved to people move up? Is personality lost? Do people remain in the castes? Can they become inanimate objects? Why do Catholics bypass reincarnation and go straight to the pearly gates? The evidence that it does not occur is stronger. For in order to believe that death is death one only needs to accept things as they are. Physics does not have to change. Physical conditions are met to hold consciousness. The physical conditions stop - consciousness stops. I remember Thich Nhat Hanh likened it to a candle and a flame. A match, the wax and a wick make the flame possible. Take away part of these basic conditions and the flame goes away. With the later, it leaves open the possibility that there is some sort of universal consciousness/intelligence that may or may not continue after the physical conditions desist. But that consciousness/intelligence is largely abstract and bears no consequence to us. You telling me to believe in unicorns becasue you have absolute proof. Yet your proof is obscure and depends on speculation. I am saying I will continue to be skeptical about unicorns until I see one for myself or at the very least see some very credible evidence. Why should I accept the fantastic over the obvious? s.
