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China To Control Reincarnation Of Tibetan Buddhists
The Chinese government has banned Buddhist monks in Tibet from reincarnating without permission from the State Administration for Religious Affairs.
According to the Chinese government, the restriction on reincarnation is "an important move to institutionalize management of reincarnation."
Observers see this as yet another attempt by the government of China, which brutally overthrew the free government of Tibet fifty years ago, to consolidate its power over the people in the country.
This law would supposedly give the Chinese government the power to control the next reincarnation of the Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of the Tibetan Buddhists.
(The Dalai Lama)
Science fiction fans are unsurprised by this turn of events. In Roger Zelazny's Hugo award-winning 1967 novel Lord of Light, a remote planet is settled by the descendants of the original crew that crashlanded. Reincarnation, the transfer of the person from an old body to a young one, is achievable scientifically.
However, the original crew uses scientific reincarnation as a way to control the population. If you don't please the ruling authorities, you don't get a good body when you present yourself at the Hall of the Masters of Karma when you are old.
Read a bit more at MSNBC.
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 8/18/2007)
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