At least 4.6 billion1 people believe they will live on after they die. They believe that somewhere, somehow, their spirit, soul, or essence will persist beyond the grave. However mystical the process, life after death is not a strange idea to them. In fact it is quite familiar and perhaps comforting.
But to that same group the idea of reincarnation – of living again in a different human or animal body – that idea sounds too strange to take seriously.
Yet I wonder why it seems so bizarre. Sure, Christians and Muslims2 reject the doctrine of reincarnation, so in a way it’s alien by default. But isn’t the shared belief in the ongoing existence of the soul, seen for itself, more strange than the variations of how it manifests among different religions?
I hope it’s clear that this is not meant to compare or criticize anyone’s religious beliefs at all. What strikes me is how easy it is to judge another’s ways as odd (or wrong, etc.) when we’re their close neighbor in “funky-town”. We see marginal strangeness in others and are blind to see total strangeness in ourselves.
Jesus might have warned against taking this too far. In Matthew we read:
“And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?…Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye."3
We tend to be blind to the profound strangeness hiding behind our everyday “normal” beliefs. That doesn’t mean we’re stupid necessarily. It means we have ample opportunities to wonder about our ways.
Going back to the reincarnation thing again (briefly I promise), the really incredible belief is not so much what we might be in the next life but that we believe there’s a next life at all. When you realize that what once seemed totally alien (reincarnation) is actually more like a variation on a theme or close copy of an unquestioned premise you held, then the sudden strangeness of your ordinary beliefs jumps out at you, like a camouflaged octopus against a coral reef revealing itself before swimming away.
And of course it’s not just in religion. The strangeness between the Russian language and German language is marginal compared to the total strangeness that humans can learn to speak at all and then say so much. The same goes for many concepts of human diversity. Diversity is delightful and refreshing and mind-expanding. And yet what I find more strange is our universal capacity to do so many strange and wonderful things. Perhaps this is the gateway to understanding our natures. Maybe strangeness is a perfect starting point for clarity. Maybe.
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Statista. “Share of Global Population by Religion 2022.” Accessed February 1, 2024. https://www.statista.com/statistics/374704/share-of-global-population-by-religion/. The world population in 2022 was estimated at 8 Billion. ↩︎
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And other world religions to be sure. ↩︎
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Matthew 7:3-5, KJV ↩︎