..续本文上一页 for them now, it is certain that we will strongly regret our choices later.
Do past and future lives exist
Through long-term detailed study, we found that they do indeed exist. Unfortunately, many people are absolutely ignorant of this. Of course, for those who have little exposure to knowledge, it is understandable that they may not comprehend this, but some intellectuals think they are wise and learned, yet they don”t recognize the existence of past and future lives. This is indeed sad for humankind.
Historically, since ancient times, the concept of past and future lives has always been present in society. Both Roman and ancient Greek philosophers believed in the existence of past and future lives. For example, Plato believed that after death, humans” souls were reincarnated as humans or other sentient beings based on the wholesome and unwholesome actions they had performed when they were alive. As for ancient Chinese culture, Confucian philosophy also does not deny the reasonableness of past and future lives. Someone asked Confucius: “What happens to humans after death
” Confucius replied: “What is the point of studying life after death while we do not even fully understand our present life
” Confucius highly advocated secular, worldly matters, and so he chose to avoid talking about future lives, but he did not confirm or reject future lives. As for other religions, most of them directly acknowledge the existence of past and future lives. For example, in Taoism there is a longing for immortality, and Christians and Catholics believe that after humans die, those who have done wholesome deeds will be reborn in heaven, and, in contrast, those who have done unwholesome deeds will fall into the hell realms, and so on.
As we can see, believing in past and future lives is not a unique feature of Buddhism. Coverage of this concept is extremely broad, spanning many world religions. If you haven”t thought about this before, you may want to read some books about ancient cultures to find out how other religions and philosophers viewed this concept.
Close Bond between Scientists and Religion
Not only sages and scholars of the past acknowledge past and future lives. A majority of many recent prominent scientists, who have made a significant contribution to humankind and who give impetus to the development of human history, also have religious faith, as well as recognize this view. For example, Mr Gallup from the USA investigated the faith and religion of three hundred famous scientists in the past three hundred years. He found that 242 of them had religious faith, 20 of them didn”t have any faith, and for 38, their attitude to religion could not be determined. In other words, 92% of scientists have religious faith. In particular, within Nobel Laureates, those who had religious faith accounted for 93.27%.
Nowadays, many intellectuals believe that among human beings, scientists are the most rational people, and it is therefore impossible for scientists to recognize any religion. This presupposition can easily be disproved by the statistics above. Whether it is Albert Einstein, Isaac Newton, Galileo Galilei, or Thomas Edison, by looking at their biographies we can see that not only did they believe in religion, they also had a great enthusiastic passion for it. Even though Buddhism had not spread into western countries at that time and the main religion was Christianity, the concept of past and future lives was still widely accepted by these scientists.
In fact, if we do not acknowledge the existence of past and future lives, we feel that life consists of only a few decades, and therefore it is better to enjoy it while we can; there is no need to worry about what happens in future lives. Guided by this world-view and life-view, our …
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