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Belief in Reincarnation
00:09:36
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| Do you believe in... | |
| Is that the word? | |
| Because reincarnation has two meanings. | |
| You come back in your own body at some point, or you come back as another person in the next life. | |
| It's a very common belief. | |
| By the way, it's held by all sorts of people you might not expect. | |
| I know that in... | |
| In mystical Orthodox Judaism, there is a belief, Gilgul Nefashot, the transmigration of souls. | |
| Now, I happen not to believe in this. | |
| I believe that there is a heaven, I believe there is a hell, or if you will, in more, not sophisticated, but acceptable language, I believe that there is punishment and reward after death. | |
| But I don't believe that I come back as another person. | |
| It's a tempting belief because, let's say, you know, what if you're a baby that dies? | |
| That's it? | |
| Is that your whole chance at existence? | |
| For the people who believe in reincarnation, well, that baby will come back just as another human being. | |
| But if you have no remembrance of who you were in the past life, for all intents and purposes, you're dead anyway. | |
| If you're Joe Smith in this life, and you come back as Mary Gonzalez, Joe Smith is dead. | |
| Now you say, Joe Smith's soul continues, but Joe Smith's soul is not aware. | |
| At least, has not transmitted that awareness to Mary Gonzalez. | |
| You are really Joe Smith. | |
| On the other hand, to be fair, I have a close friend who studied hypnosis. | |
| He hypnotized a young woman many years ago who believed that she was on a, I believe, a 19th century caravan in the United States. | |
| She described... | |
| I don't know where it was. | |
| So Oregon? | |
| She was in Oregon. | |
| Oh yeah, you know this really well. | |
| Oh yeah. | |
| So remind me, what was she? | |
| She was on a wagon train? | |
| And the details she knew, I don't even think she'd ever been to Oregon. | |
| Not in this life anyway. | |
| And she knew details of the crossing of Oregon, which really only somebody who did it... | |
| Or had studied for years Oregon wagon trains, which I suspect she didn't study, would know. | |
| So I want you to understand, I don't have passion on this subject. | |
| It may be true that we do come back as somebody else. | |
| Now call 1-8 Prager 776. 877-243-7776 Do you believe in this? | |
| Are you skeptical? | |
| Are you antipathetic? | |
| How do you react to it? | |
| The problem of the unjust suffering in this life is so great that people have devised many, many But I was raising the difficult issue of karma in Hinduism, | |
| that you come back in this life and it's a reward or a punishment based on how you acted in a previous life. | |
| But then why would I want to show pity to somebody who's suffering in this life? | |
| If I believe that they were evil in the last life and that's why they were suffering. | |
| I don't know the answer to that one either. | |
| 877-243-7776 Do you know somebody who believes in it? | |
| Do you believe in it? | |
| Do you reject it? | |
| Do you think it's more than wrong? | |
| It's actually against your faith. | |
| Or your moral convictions, whatever it might be. | |
| 1-8 Prager 776. Alright, let's see what you folks have to say here. | |
| Santa Clarita, California, and Sean, hello. | |
| Hey Dennis, how are you today? | |
| Really well, thank you. | |
| So, in a Philosophy 101 class, I gave quite a few examples. | |
| Of why I reject it, but I end with this strong one. | |
| Let's say I get called to work on an emergency and I have to call a friend or family member to come watch my young child. | |
| While I'm at work, that family member sexually abuses my child. | |
| Now, in karma or reincarnation, something my child did in a previous lifetime demanded that this would happen to him in this lifetime. | |
| And so my question to my professor was, should I call the police, or should I just let karma act out? | |
| Yeah, well, that was what I raised as a problem. | |
| If all suffering is merited, you did such awful things in past life, why would I feel bad for you, let alone help you? | |
| You're right, you're not allowing karma to work itself through if you help the person. | |
| I have one historical example, if you have the time. | |
| If you're brief, I have the time. | |
| Okay, the killing fields in Cambodia, there were Christian organizations in Buddhist countries handling all the Buddhist refugees, but there were no Buddhist organizations helping their fellow Buddhists. | |
| And the reason is, is because Buddha said you're an island unto yourself. | |
| And so that was the distinction that the Judeo-Christian view of compassion was taking care of these refugees, whereas the Buddhist understanding rejected compassion. | |
| Well, I'd love a Buddhist to respond. | |
| What you said made sense to me, but I would like to have a Buddhist response. | |
| I had a Buddhist monk on my first radio show. | |
| My first radio show was called Religion on the Line. | |
| It was on ABC in L.A. It was an incredibly popular show. | |
| And I don't take credit for it. | |
| I inherited a popular show. | |
| I made it more popular, but I inherited one. | |
| Priest, rabbi, minister, different ones each week. | |
| After five years, I opened it up to every religion on earth. | |
| And I had virtually every religion on earth. | |
| I had a Buddhist monk on once. | |
| And I said, because this was the way I could bounce off my understanding of religions off people who practice it. | |
| That was the best. | |
| It was a blessing from God I had that show. | |
| Ten years to the week. | |
| So I said to him, I said, I just want to understand something. | |
| Is it the Buddhist ideal that if you lose a loved one, you don't lament, you don't cry? | |
| That's the way of things, and you accept it, and you don't... | |
| Because you don't place your emotional world in the hands of others, as it were. | |
| Anyway, he said, yes, ideally you would not cry. | |
| That's right, if you were a Buddhist. | |
| Because he didn't have children, he was a monk. | |
| So I used a brother or sister as the example. | |
| So people work these things out if they can. | |
| Yeah, San Fernando, California. | |
| Joe, hello. | |
| Hello, Joe. | |
| Hello, Mr. Breger. | |
| I'm not going to ask you how you are because you're wonderful, period. | |
| Thank you. | |
| That's sweet. | |
| I definitely reject it to the fact that in this universe of everything, most things do have a purpose. | |
| And if we come back and we don't have any memory of past life, what's the point? | |
| It's a real waste of time. | |
| That is common sense religiously. | |
| Right, so I fully understand that. | |
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No Great Religious Answer
00:00:19
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| But I want you to understand nobody has a good answer to many of these problems. | |
| What do you do with a baby that has suffered? | |
| I'll keep you on because I'm curious. | |
| There's no great religious answer to that either. | |