Philosophy Now Forum

i am a foster mom to a child - this child recently freaked out when there was a news item on tv about some villagers somewhere being killed by a huge mudslide

horrible yes but the reaction seemed odd

after removing her from the tv room and calming her down she started talking

she told me that before living with us and before living with the mommy-who-yells (her biological mom) she had another mommy and daddy and three older sisters and there was a mud slide and they all ran away but she could not keep up with them and drowned in the mud and after that came to live with mommy-who-yells and then us

i asked her what happens when people die and she told me that they become babies again and go and live with a new mommy and daddy

now she may well have heard the idea of reincarnation discussed - such topics are talked about in our household from time to time - but neverthless this seemed very specific and beyond the scope of anything a casual discussion of reincarnation may have put in her head

i did some reading on this

apparently someone did a study of this in India - and found that children from Muslim families were not less likely than children from Hindu families to spontaneously come up with the sort of reincarnation story - even though Muslim children would be less exposed to the idea

not sure what to make of ths, curious if anyone has any relevant and useful thoughts

I personaly have always believed that death an birth are two sides of the event. I think it's the obvious thing to assume.