> Speaking of rebirth, the belief in reincarnation (which is central to most forms of Buddhism) is certainly religious in nature. Same with the belief in karma.
By the way, it is worth mentioning, not all Buddhist take this literally. Alan Watts told there were some Buddhists, understanding kind of like this (in my own words, I can't find the original quote now):
At any given moment you are never the same person you were in the previous. Your personality changes, your body atoms get replaced with new ones. The past you is already in the past. Today you are distinct from yesterday you. You are reincarnating right now. Like an immutable value in functional programming can never be changed, you can (or you can't, this depends on the programming language) just assign a similar value derived from it with some change applied to the same identifier. So if you practiced well, the future you (in this life time from the conventional point of view) is a reincarnation of you which will reap the fruits of "good karma" (karma being just the causes (mostly mental) causing you to behave a certain way and get into certain situations because of this - nothing mystical). And the fruits are there: even if good doings fail (not necessarily) to lead you to good health and financial prosperity, mental practice results are here to greatly help you cope with any problems you face and also to help you behave in a more constructive way.
By the way, it is worth mentioning, not all Buddhist take this literally. Alan Watts told there were some Buddhists, understanding kind of like this (in my own words, I can't find the original quote now):
At any given moment you are never the same person you were in the previous. Your personality changes, your body atoms get replaced with new ones. The past you is already in the past. Today you are distinct from yesterday you. You are reincarnating right now. Like an immutable value in functional programming can never be changed, you can (or you can't, this depends on the programming language) just assign a similar value derived from it with some change applied to the same identifier. So if you practiced well, the future you (in this life time from the conventional point of view) is a reincarnation of you which will reap the fruits of "good karma" (karma being just the causes (mostly mental) causing you to behave a certain way and get into certain situations because of this - nothing mystical). And the fruits are there: even if good doings fail (not necessarily) to lead you to good health and financial prosperity, mental practice results are here to greatly help you cope with any problems you face and also to help you behave in a more constructive way.