Resurrection
RESURRECTION. The term resurrection is so intricately bound up with Christian ideas that it is extremely difficult to decide when it should be used for similar ideas in other religions. Obviously, the term should not be used to refer to the belief that there is an immortal element in humans (often called "soul" or "spirit") that lives on after the destruction of the body, or to the belief in some kind of continued existence in a shadowy realm of the dead. Also excluded is the idea of reincarnation, which implies that the soul is repeatedly reborn into a new body. If resurrection is defined as the revival of the body, or rather of the person as a whole, after a period of death, one finds phenomena that fit this definition only in Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, with doubtful analogies in Chinese Taoism and ancient Indian and Egyptian religions. Belief in resurrection presupposes either a monistic view of humans, which implies that humanity as a whole disappears in death and is then revived to a new existence; or a dualistic view, according to which the body dies whereas the soul or spirit lives on and is later united with the body into a renewed being.
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