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I just finished a memoir. The central dramatic question is, “Am I my grandfather?”
It is generally believed that I am my grandfather. In 254 pages, I tried to tell the story of my life and how I perceived the cultural phenomenon of my people.
My grandfather had an uncompleted mission that he vowed to come back and complete. I have not started tackling the mission. It is not even well defined. But I see myself being positioned by forces beyond my control to take it on.
As far as I know, there is no empirical proof that death is the end of life. There is no evidence that it is not, either.
If death is the end of life, the world will be a lot different. For one, all religions will become useless. Without a humongous reward for living a good life, man will be worse than he is today.
Those who are deeply invested in the outcome of the afterlife questions will continue to engage in the search. They will pick up one clue after another while at the same time expanding the frontiers of the mystery.
In the Igbo mythology from which I hail, the creator has a complex relationship with the deities who were once spirits and who were once man in this world. The cycle goes thus: the creator makes the man; the man dies and becomes a spirit; the spirit reincarnates until it is accomplished enough to become a deity and that is when it returns to be part of the governing council of the creator.
In the life continuum of the Igbo, those who commit suicide do not reincarnate. They have done the greatest damage to the body and as such do not deserve to inherit another.
My story does not fit your typical reincarnation story. It does not even raise points of argument. Instead it goes beyond all that to present the reason why we needed to invent reincarnation even if it does not exist.
We know by physical observation that there are other worlds. There is still not a full understanding of the interactions between our world and the other worlds. In the same way, we know there is something inside the body that is beyond the body. That is the thing that stays awake while the body rests.
We are so immature in our very young world to understand all the vibes that surround us.
Do you believe in reincarnation?
RSS 
If death is the end of life, the world will be a lot different. For one, all religions will become useless. Without a humongous reward for living a good life, man will be worse than he is today.
I think there is likely a spiritual dimension to life. And death. Religions would not become useless if there was no afterlife because the social utility of the common bond these organisations (can) create would still exist. People may, ironically, need to believe even more if it was definitively proven that there was no afterlife. I don’t think people need a reward to live a good life.
One of the problems I see with (some) religion is their need to chastise people, to make them feel deeply guilty and then to insert themselves as the great liberators. In this sense, religion is a waste of time. Religion which is deeply spiritual and about emancipation and freedom, that is something different.
Reincarnation ? Maybe... I’ll tell you when I come back as a talk show host. The Greek who thought you would be coming back as a dog may have been dyslexic - he may have meant a ”god”. :P
Personally and in matters of faith, I tend to take Pascal’s Wager...
:)
(...) even though the existence of God cannot be determined through reason, a person should wager as though God exists, because so living has everything to gain, and nothing to lose.
:)
Am I my dog? Hmm..that brings a smile to my face…
Gasp! Am I the frog I once ran over?
Maybe, I’d wish to be resurrected as Lindsay Lohan and pull those skirts a little lower. And if I were resurrected into Beyonce, I’d tell Malaysia to their face, ”Worry about your sodomy trials instead of my cleavage!” But I’d definitely trim off those fugly lumps of flesh on either hip.
Dog?