# A question for religionist (and Mambo)

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-for-religionist-and-mambo/73423>\
**Category:** Great Debates\
**Created:** [July 22, 2001, 8:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-for-religionist-and-mambo/73423 "2001-07-22T08:00:58Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![Kaje](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/f04885/32.png) [@Kaje](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kaje)\
**Post date:** [July 25, 2001, 11:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-for-religionist-and-mambo/73423/21 "2001-07-25T11:12:11Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Edlyn \*  
> **Governments cannot not exist without individuals. The credit belongs to those who are more spiritually enlightened or matured who strive to love their neighbor as themselves.**

This wasn’t something you said, just an extra nitpick… The individuals who were “spiritually enlightened or matured” who originally strove to create this government on principles that would allow it to remove some these terrible burdens from society were hardly religious. Again, nobody here claimed this, but I hate hearly southern baptists talking about how if only they were in power, this world would be a better place. The “founding fathers” certainly were “enlightened” and “matured”, but in more of a secularly humanistic way.

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**Author:** ![Freyr](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/freyr/32/5763_2.png) [@Freyr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freyr)\
**Post date:** [July 30, 2001, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-for-religionist-and-mambo/73423/22 "2001-07-30T03:09:12Z")

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\*\*Kaje wrote:

My question for you is this: Do you presently have any recollection of your past lives? If not, then what good do these purgatorial (pardon my expression) epiphanies have?\*\*

**Edlyn** gave some good responses, but let me add some of my own. No, I don’t have specific memories of past lives. What I do have are often “hunches” or flashes of inspiration that a particular problem is one that I need to pay attention to. Especially if that problem keeps presenting itself over and over. That’s been my experience, YMMV. Yes, my “evidence” is entirely subjective, but it’s satisfying enough for me. I’m here only expositing my own belief system, not to prove it.

**If so, what drugs were you on and why aren’t you sharing? If this was what happened, by now wouldn’t everybody follow this kind of system?**

A lot of people **DO** follow this system. Modern Hindus, Buddhists and other eastern faiths incorporate the idea of multiple lifetimes into their dogma. Apparently, so did many pre-Christian faiths in Europe.

**If we remembered our past lives or the realizations we had in the brief “afterlife”, then we shouldn’t be wasting our time with other religious or philosophical viewpoints since we have pretty much cleared that mystery up.**

_shrug_ You raise an interesting point. I’ve given my belief system lots of thought and read lots of literature on how Hindus and Buddhists conceive of the multiple lifetime concept. What I’ve come up with is satisfying to me. What other people do about it is their business, not mine. I’ll let them do the reading and let them reach their own conclusions.

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