In contrast to Christians, Confucians do not conceive of the embryo as having a separate existence, and so believe that birth is the beginning of life.

ECONOMIST: Stem cell research

Second Life, as its name implies, is a virtual world in which members create an avatar and then use that character to live out a separate existence.

BBC: NEWS | Technology | Second Life 'child abuse' claim

In the ancient world, the 'gods' were rarely regarded as supernatural beings with discrete personalities, living a totally separate metaphysical existence.

NPR: Karen Armstrong: Myths and the Modern World

The Canadian-American border, the longest border in the world between two countries, is as willful an act of imagination as a work of conceptual curtaining by Christo, but its existence has made two separate peoples, with two separate stories.

NEWYORKER: Faces, Places, Spaces

Public-sector fundraisers have figured out that pretending to separate their clients from government helps sustain the existence of their government-connected institutions.

FORBES: Magazine Article

The bottom line here is that this is a separate organization, as we've noted, the existence of which is perfectly appropriate.

WHITEHOUSE: Press Briefing

The existence of a universal biometric identifier in one field might create irresistible temptations to pull together separate collections of personal information.

ECONOMIST: The measure of man | The