To avoid overloading google; metempsychosis is transmigration (of souls).tiltbillings wrote:Metempsychosis was one among a number of after death options, and not necessarily the dominant one before the Buddha.chownah wrote:I guess that the concept of rebirth long predates the Buddha. So, I'm wondering why was rebirth (evidentially) such a popular idea long before the Buddha......
From this post I take that perhaps my question is better phrased as:
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I guess that the question about after death experience long predates the Buddha. Also, I guess that all of the concepts from before the Buddha were wrong as judged from a Buddhist standpoint. So, I'm wondering why was the question about after death experience (evidentially) such a popular idea long before the Buddha......and why did so many different views (wrong views from a buddhist standpoint) come about and how was it that they were even before the Buddha so hotly debated?
In other words, leaving Buddhism and the Buddha aside, what is it about after death experience that made it such a common and diverse group of beliefs? I have some ideas on this of an obvious sort but I''m wondering what things others can come up with......if there is any interest.
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I guess then that it is easily seen that people fear death so they think about it as an inevitable evil or they might be looking for a way out of it. Rebirth, (or transmigration if you prefer) becomes the way out it..... Since the priests or ascetics who offered this way out of the inevitable evil of death would certainly find an audience and in that audience would be many people frantically desperate to believe I guess. Also, these transmigration theories are (in spite of them being wrong view from a Buddhist perspective) very believable even though they were not factual (from our Buddhist perspective).....am this popularity was easily maintained because these transmigration theories are for most people not falsifiable.......they were all false but they dealt with a topic in a way that could not be proven wrong......and people (as can be seen even today) are easily led by false logic and fallacious arguments.
chownah