The subject of religion is, for better or for worse, intimately entwined with the subject of reincarnation. So, as reincarnationists, it serves us to pay attention. Is it possible for humanity to phase religion out entirely, or is religious thought so programmed into us that no matter how logic-based we become, we will never be able to shake off the gods?
 
On the one hand, a team of mathematicians have predicted, in a new paper based on census data stretching back 100 years, that organized religion will all but vanish eventually from nine Western-style democracies. Read the article here. On the other hand, we have increasingly faith-based politics in the U.S., extremists of all faiths abound in what seems like every corner of the world, spiritual concepts are endeavoring to match up beautifully with the most cutting edge scientific concepts, and atheists in China are trying to control the reincarnations of spiritual leaders…

 

Controlling the Means of Reincarnation

From Eavesdropping on The Times Magazine (The New York Times)
By SCOTT MALCOMSON
 
I’m trying once again to wrap my mind around the idea that an avowedly atheist group (the Chinese Communist Party government) insists on its power to certify reincarnations.
 
The Dalai Lama yesterday renounced his political power to represent Tibetans from his exile in India. (If he were Bob Dole he could have said, “I come before you not as a king, but just a god.”) He has been making this point for a while – the Tibetan government in exile has had an elected prime minister since 2001; the next election is on March 20. But the Dalai Lama seems more serious this time, and the three leading candidates are not monks. The holy man, in short, is trying to take religion out of politics.
 
For the complete article click here.

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