Born-again rationalism

A Pew Forum survey has found that some 22% of Americans believe in rebirth; that this life is not the end of our one and only animate experience but just part of a sentient continuity. The Pew also observes that if a predominantly Christian country could have such a sizeable ratio of believers, then that percentage would probably be much higher in other cultures. T

hink India, for example. But in that case why do scientists and similar people who favour evidence based rationality over what they deem to be woolly minded concepts not pay much, if any, attention to things like reincarnation? There’s a simple explanation: it reeks of God — and, God forbid, a purpose behind the unmystery of life. Yet it exposes an inherent bias in science too namely, not to get its hands dirty delving into matters that don’t conform to scientific rules of existence.

It’s the reason why meteorites were not taken seriously for a long time because they said “stones can’t fall out of the sky” or hypnotism was considered arcane poppycock by the post Industrial Age medical community. There was simply too much of the miraculous involved in them. But what if living again after death had nothing to do with any big guy in the sky?

What if some new Darwin were to discover that rebirth was merely another blind ingredient in the evolutionary continuum? Who then pointed out to us that Krishna for instance was not only not a god but didn’t necessarily even believe in one when he said, “You and I, Arjuna, have lived many lives” with no karmic overtones.