Just give me that old-time atheism! by Salaman Rushdie

[Prosperity]

Just give me that old-time atheism!

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&call_pageid=971358637177&c=Article&cid=1116770647079&DPL=IvsNDS/7ChAX&tacodalogin=yes

"Not believing in God is no excuse for being virulently anti-religious or naïvely pro-science," says Dylan Evans, a professor of robotics at the University of West England in Bristol.

Evans has written an article for the Guardian of London deriding the old-fashioned, "19th-century" atheism of such prominent thinkers as Richard Dawkins and Jonathan Miller, instead proposing a new, modern atheism which "values religion, treats science as simply a means to an end and finds the meaning of life in art."

Indeed, he says, religion itself is to be understood as "a kind of art, which only a child could mistake for reality and which only a child would reject for being false."

Evans' position fits well with that of the American philosopher of science Michael Ruse, whose new book, The Evolution-Creation Struggle, lays much of the blame for the growth of creationism in America — and for the increasingly strident attempts by the religious right to have evolutionary theory kicked off the curriculum and replaced by the new dogma of "intelligent design" — at the door of the scientists who have tried to compete with, and even supplant, religion.

A staunch evolutionist himself, he is nevertheless highly critical of such modern giants as Dawkins and Edward O. Wilson.

Evans' "Atheism Lite," which seeks to negotiate a truce between religious and irreligious world views, is easily demolished.

Such a truce would have a chance of working only if it were reciprocal — if the world's religions agreed to value the atheist position and to concede its ethical basis, if they respected the discoveries and achievements of modern science, even when these discoveries challenge religious sanctities, and if they agreed that art at its best reveals life's multiple meanings at least as clearly as so-called "revealed" texts.

No such reciprocal arrangement exists, however, nor is there the slightest chance that such an accommodation could ever be reached.

It is among the truths believed to be self-evident by the followers of all religions that godlessness is equivalent to amorality and that ethics requires the underpinning presence of some sort of ultimate arbiter, some sort of supernatural absolute, without which secularism, humanism, relativism, hedonism, liberalism and all manner of permissive improprieties will inevitably seduce the unbeliever down immoral ways.

To those of us who are perfectly prepared to indulge in the above vices but still believe ourselves to be ethical beings, the godlessness-equals-morality position is pretty hard to swallow.

Nor does the current behaviour of organized religion breed confidence in the Evans/Ruse laissez-faire attitude. Education everywhere is seriously imperilled by religious attacks.

In recent years, Hindu nationalists in India attempted to rewrite the nation's history books to support their anti-Muslim ideology, an effort thwarted only by the electoral victory of a secularist coalition led by the Congress party.

Meanwhile, Muslim voices the world over are claiming that evolutionary theory is incompatible with Islam.

And in America, the battle over the teaching of intelligent design in U.S. schools is reaching crunch time, as the American Civil Liberties Union prepares to take on intelligent-design proponents in a Pennsylvania court.

It seems inconceivable that better behaviour on the part of the world's great scientists, of the sort that Ruse would prefer, would persuade these forces to back down.

Intelligent design, an idea designed backward so as to force the antique idea of a Creator upon the beauty of creation, is so thoroughly rooted in pseudoscience, so full of false logic, so easy to attack that a little rudeness seems called for.

Its advocates argue, for example, that the sheer complexity and perfection of cellular/molecular structures is inexplicable by gradual evolution.

However, the multiple parts of complex, interlocking biological systems do evolve together, gradually expanding and adapting — and, as Dawkins showed in The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe Without Design, natural selection is active at every step of this process.

But, as well as scientific arguments, there are others that are more, well, novelistic. What about bad design, for example? Was it really so intelligent to come up with the birth canal or the prostate gland?

Then, there's the moral argument against an intelligent designer who cursed his creations with cancer and AIDS. Is the intelligent designer also amorally cruel?

To see religion as "a kind of art," as Evans rather sweetly proposes, is possible only when the religion is dead or when, like the Church of England, it has become a set of polite rituals.

The old Greek religion lives on as mythology, the old Norse religion has left us the Norse myths and, yes, now we can read them as literature.

The Bible contains much great literature, too, but the literalist voices of Christianity grow ever louder, and one doubts that they would welcome Evans' child's storybook approach.

Meanwhile religions continue to attack their own artists: Hindu artists' paintings are attacked by Hindu mobs, Sikh playwrights are threatened by Sikh violence and Muslim novelists and filmmakers are menaced by Islamic fanatics with a vigorous unawareness of any kinship.

If religion were a private matter, one could more easily respect its believers' right to seek its comforts and nourishments.

But religion today is big public business, using efficient political organization and cutting-edge information technology to advance its ends. Religions play bare-knuckle rough all the time, while demanding kid-glove treatment in return.

As Evans and Ruse would do well to recognize, atheists such as Dawkins, Miller and Wilson are neither immature nor culpable for taking on such religionists.

They are doing a vital and necessary thing.

Salman Rushdie is the author of The Satanic Verses, Fury and many other books.

Salman Rushdie

[Ancalagon the Black]

The older Rushdie has gotten, the less insightful and the more tiresome his writing has become.

I don’t know where to begin criticizing this piece. Oh yeah, how about here?

Such a truce would have a chance of working only if it were reciprocal — if the world's religions agreed to value the atheist position and to concede its ethical basis, if they respected the discoveries and achievements of modern science, even when these discoveries challenge religious sanctities, and if they agreed that art at its best reveals life's multiple meanings at least as clearly as so-called "revealed" texts.

This section, which Rushdie uses as a stepping stone to go off into what’s essentially a self-indulgent rant, makes several false assumptions about the philosophy he’s attacking. Primarily among these is the fact that new atheism does not require any such reciprocal truce to be struck. Science will never be able to disprove the existence of God – believers can always retreat to a point beyond the domain of science – and sweeping statements about God made by scientists don’t really have much more meaning than such statements by anyone else.

What follows the excerpt above has some good points but is mainly a bunch of things thrown together than most creationists on this board have heard a thousand times and have ready responses for.

[Prosperity]

This section, which Rushdie uses as a stepping stone to go off into what’s essentially a self-indulgent rant, makes several false assumptions about the philosophy he’s attacking. Primarily among these is the fact that new atheism does not require any such reciprocal truce to be struck. Science will never be able to disprove the existence of God – believers can always retreat to a point beyond the domain of science – and sweeping statements about God made by scientists don’t really have much more meaning than such statements by anyone else.

When the idea retreats beyond science into the "god just is and does" region it becomes irrelevant. At that point there will be no more of a facade of the logic behind god. Science and religion can finally and irreperably be seperated. It will be acknowledged as blind faith nothing, and that is fine that is the way it should be.

It is a self indulgent rant, but that is not necessarily a bad thing.

[Ancalagon the Black]

Originally posted by Liberty

When the idea retreats beyond science into the "god just is and does" region it becomes irrelevant. At that point there will be no more of a facade of the logic behind god.

Why is that a good thing? The Dalai Lama accepts all the teachings of science, and he's cool with it.

In fact, I remember reading an interview with the Dalai Lama where he explicitly said that any tenet of Buddhism would have to be amended if it came explicitly in conflict with science. A reporter asked, "Even reincarnation?" He replied, yes, even reincarnation. But then he smiled and said something like, "But that's going to be tough to disprove."

[OrangeSkin]

One of Buddhism's main tenents is that it fulfills and remains in harmony with the laws of science. Logically, this is impossible to disprove, because a devout buddhist could always refer back to the "life force" (I forget what the actual name is) and claim that it breathes life into science. Infact, Buddhism is probably the hardest religion to refute logically because it has an answer for virtually everything.

OK, sorry for the tangent. Continue on.

[Ignatius J.]

nm

[Prosperity]

Originally posted by Ancalagon the Black

Why is that a good thing? The Dalai Lama accepts all the teachings of science, and he's cool with it.

In fact, I remember reading an interview with the Dalai Lama where he explicitly said that any tenet of Buddhism would have to be amended if it came explicitly in conflict with science. A reporter asked, "Even reincarnation?" He replied, yes, even reincarnation. But then he smiled and said something like, "But that's going to be tough to disprove."

Well Buddhism is barely a religion I don't how people started worshipping Buddha but as far as I know Buddha never claimed to be divine, it is more of a philosophy, but as people always do they started worshipping him. And if Buddhism is in harmony with Science that is great, but there are still billions of non buddhist. Try saying that about Christianity, Islam, or Hinduism. There is really nothing wrong with believing what you want to but to claim it has a scientific basis like the IDers are trying to IS wrong.

I would think reincarnation is pretty easy to disprove, we would just have to kill everything I mean it would be tough to be reincarnated when there are no living things left. Or inversely, we would just grow more and more living things, where would all those extra souls come from?

[OrangeSkin]

Liberty, I'm not Buddhist but I've always had an interest for it. Its main tenent is that ANYONE can become a Buddha after reaching a certain stage of enlightenment. There isn't just ONE Buddha, there have been many, and their teachings are the foundation for cotemporary Buddhism. It takes many lifetimes of accumulated knowledge to become a Buddha, which entails compassion, wisdom, teaching, etc. Once one arrives at Buddhahood and "dies" he is absorbed into Nirvana, an eternal state of bliss. I'm not totally clear on the details, but I think that's basically it.

Buddhism IS most definitely a religion. There doesn't need to be some sort of "untouchable" being hovering above everything. That's the main difference between Buddhism and Christianity, Judaism, etc. The divine is attainable by the common man. It just takes several lifetimes of dedication. Therein lies the appeal for millions of Buddhists across the world and the thousands more (mainly westerners) that convert from their traditional religions each year.

And good luck trying to disprove reincarnation. If someone kills virtually everything on the planet (which would be one hell of a difficult task in the first place), they then would have to kill themselves as well to avoid corrupting the experiment. Hence, there wouldn't be one living thing around to observe the occurences, completely debasing the foundation of science. If you can't observe the results of your experiment, then your experiment is null in void.

As far as the Buddhism end of it, you're not going to remember your past life after you've been reincarnated anyway. If everyone on the planet died and everyone was reincarnated, the world would merely continue as it had before. Nobody would say, "I recall being a cat in a past life...this reincarnation thing MUST be true."

Liberty, you have to accept that some things are beyond the power of human observation. Any scientist worth his salt will tell you that modern science has revealed to us less than 1% of the world at large. It must be a sad existence for you if your entire life is based on what roughly 300 years of modern science has revealed to us. Despite all the advances, it is still an inherently limited field in comparison to the vast expanse of religious thought.

An abstraction (i.e. religion) cannot be disproved by concrete observations, because those observations only speak upon what they're observing, not what they're not observing. When science tries to remove an observation from its fundamental base (i.e. humans evolved from monkeys) and apply it to something which it has no relation to (i.e. since humans evolved from monkeys and religion has no mention of this, religion must be untrue) then science is overstepping its observable bounds and becoming a religion in and of itself.

[Prosperity]

Originally posted by OrangeSkin

Liberty, I'm not Buddhist but I've always had an interest for it. Its main tenent is that ANYONE can become a Buddha after reaching a certain stage of enlightenment. There isn't just ONE Buddha, there have been many, and their teachings are the foundation for cotemporary Buddhism. It takes many lifetimes of accumulated knowledge to become a Buddha, which entails compassion, wisdom, teaching, etc. Once one arrives at Buddhahood and "dies" he is absorbed into Nirvana, an eternal state of bliss. I'm not totally clear on the details, but I think that's basically it.

Buddhism IS most definitely a religion. There doesn't need to be some sort of "untouchable" being hovering above everything. That's the main difference between Buddhism and Christianity, Judaism, etc. The divine is attainable by the common man. It just takes several lifetimes of dedication. Therein lies the appeal for millions of Buddhists across the world and the thousands more (mainly westerners) that convert from their traditional religions each year.

And good luck trying to disprove reincarnation. If someone kills virtually everything on the planet (which would be one hell of a difficult task in the first place), they then would have to kill themselves as well to avoid corrupting the experiment. Hence, there wouldn't be one living thing around to observe the occurences, completely debasing the foundation of science. If you can't observe the results of your experiment, then your experiment is null in void.

As far as the Buddhism end of it, you're not going to remember your past life after you've been reincarnated anyway. If everyone on the planet died and everyone was reincarnated, the world would merely continue as it had before. Nobody would say, "I recall being a cat in a past life...this reincarnation thing MUST be true."

Liberty, you have to accept that some things are beyond the power of human observation. Any scientist worth his salt will tell you that modern science has revealed to us less than 1% of the world at large. It must be a sad existence for you if your entire life is based on what roughly 300 years of modern science has revealed to us. Despite all the advances, it is still an inherently limited field in comparison to the vast expanse of religious thought.

An abstraction (i.e. religion) cannot be disproved by concrete observations, because those observations only speak upon what they're observing, not what they're not observing. When science tries to remove an observation from its fundamental base (i.e. humans evolved from monkeys) and apply it to something which it has no relation to (i.e. since humans evolved from monkeys and religion has no mention of this, religion must be untrue) then science is overstepping its observable bounds and becoming a religion in and of itself.

Short response because I don't have time.

For any religion, at SOME point there must have been some observable evidence atleast pointing to it. So if you say religion is a completely abstract idea how did the first person start believing? Of course, that assumes n it isn't all made up and actual observed things were not misinterpreted.

[chomerics]

Originally posted by Ancalagon the Black

The older Rushdie has gotten, the less insightful and the more tiresome his writing has become.

I don’t know where to begin criticizing this piece. Oh yeah, how about here?

This section, which Rushdie uses as a stepping stone to go off into what’s essentially a self-indulgent rant, makes several false assumptions about the philosophy he’s attacking. Primarily among these is the fact that new atheism does not require any such reciprocal truce to be struck. Science will never be able to disprove the existence of God – believers can always retreat to a point beyond the domain of science – and sweeping statements about God made by scientists don’t really have much more meaning than such statements by anyone else.

What follows the excerpt above has some good points but is mainly a bunch of things thrown together than most creationists on this board have heard a thousand times and have ready responses for.

AtB Have you read Satanic Verses? Is it a worth while read?

BTW, thanks for the recommendation on Focaults Pendulum, it's a great book. . . but I must admit, I need to keep the dictionary right next to me while reading it Eco's prose is quite stimulating though, and it definately opens up my eyes as to what a great writer actually is able to do. I have the Name of the Rose for after I finish the pendulum, but before that I am going to read Ghost Wars (SHF loved it). It's a book on Bin Laden, the CIA, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and our dealings with him as an ally then as a threat.

As for all religions, if I was ever to become religious, I would most likely choose Buddhism. I don't necessarily believe in the different truths or the precipts, but I do like the philosophy on life. I also like the fact that they are a creationless religion, as they don't have their version of creation practiced in the religion. IF I was to go with a religion, I would choose one based more on how to treat others, not necessarily on the afterlife aspect. Personally I do think there is a whole karma bit to the world, as I stringently believe that if you treat others with respect and kindness, good things will happen in your life. On the other hand, if you are a complete a$$, you will get yours one day.

[PokerPacker]

Originally posted by Liberty

Well Buddhism is barely a religion I don't how people started worshipping Buddha but as far as I know Buddha never claimed to be divine, it is more of a philosophy, but as people always do they started worshipping him. And if Buddhism is in harmony with Science that is great, but there are still billions of non buddhist. Try saying that about Christianity, Islam, or Hinduism. There is really nothing wrong with believing what you want to but to claim it has a scientific basis like the IDers are trying to IS wrong.

I would think reincarnation is pretty easy to disprove, we would just have to kill everything I mean it would be tough to be reincarnated when there are no living things left. Or inversely, we would just grow more and more living things, where would all those extra souls come from?

according to buddhism, you will leave the process of reincarnation when you are one with the universe (or something like that) and enter the state of nirvana- complete bliss. therefore, all you have done is put everyone in a happy place

[chomerics]

Originally posted by Liberty

Short response because I don't have time.

For any religion, at SOME point there must have been some observable evidence atleast pointing to it. So if you say religion is a completely abstract idea how did the first person start believing? Of course, that assumes n it isn't all made up and actual observed things were not misinterpreted.

I see what you are saying with Buddhism being a philosophy, but it is so much more then just that. As for how it came to be, you really should read up on the religion. From what I understand, the first Buddah found enlightenment, and then taught others how to find it. THere is definitely something mystical about their meditation, and how they can completely disassociate themselves from their surroundings while in meditation.

I saw a discovery special on some Zen Buddhists and it was pretty fascinating. They were somewhere in Nepal I believe, and they go through a meditation ritual once a year. This ritual has them sit outside in strict meditation for 10 hours with nothing but their robes on, and the temperature is below zero. These Zen Buddhists are somehow able to completely regulate their body temperature during meditation, and the outside elements do not effect them at all. During the special, If I remember correctly, they strapped a few temperature measurement devices to some of their bodies during this outside meditation and their temperature never dropped, it actually increased. One of those things science can't figure out right now.

[Prosperity]

Originally posted by chomerics

I see what you are saying with Buddhism being a philosophy, but it is so much more then just that. As for how it came to be, you really should read up on the religion. From what I understand, the first Buddah found enlightenment, and then taught others how to find it. THere is definitely something mystical about their meditation, and how they can completely disassociate themselves from their surroundings while in meditation.

I saw a discovery special on some Zen Buddhists and it was pretty fascinating. They were somewhere in Nepal I believe, and they go through a meditation ritual once a year. This ritual has them sit outside in strict meditation for 10 hours with nothing but their robes on, and the temperature is below zero. These Zen Buddhists are somehow able to completely regulate their body temperature during meditation, and the outside elements do not effect them at all. During the special, If I remember correctly, they strapped a few temperature measurement devices to some of their bodies during this outside meditation and their temperature never dropped, it actually increased. One of those things science can't figure out right now.

I would read up on it, but it doesn't really interest me anymore.

I know my temp rises when I have a fever, maybe they were just sick and overcame some of the symptoms with sheer will power. Who knows.

.

[Prosperity]

Originally posted by chomerics

As for all religions, if I was ever to become religious, I would most likely choose Buddhism. I don't necessarily believe in the different truths or the precipts, but I do like the philosophy on life. I also like the fact that they are a creationless religion, as they don't have their version of creation practiced in the religion. IF I was to go with a religion, I would choose one based more on how to treat others, not necessarily on the afterlife aspect. Personally I do think there is a whole karma bit to the world, as I stringently believe that if you treat others with respect and kindness, good things will happen in your life. On the other hand, if you are a complete a$$, you will get yours one day.

Really, you like the philosophy? I think if you really applied in real life you would just be asking to get screwed over. Too pacifist for my liking. Sometimes bad stuff happens to good people and good things happen to bad people. More often than not it is random, and if it isn't random then it is the bad persona that gets his way. It sucks but that is just the way it turns out to work.

[Prosperity]

ok I am back

Buddhism IS most definitely a religion. There doesn't need to be some sort of "untouchable" being hovering above everything. That's the main difference between Buddhism and Christianity, Judaism, etc. The divine is attainable by the common man. It just takes several lifetimes of dedication. Therein lies the appeal for millions of Buddhists across the world and the thousands more (mainly westerners) that convert from their traditional religions each year.

If you can never remember the past lifetimes how can you have the knowledge then? Seems nonsensical.

BTW the second part of this paragraph is pointlesss.

And good luck trying to disprove reincarnation. If someone kills virtually everything on the planet (which would be one hell of a difficult task in the first place), they then would have to kill themselves as well to avoid corrupting the experiment. Hence, there wouldn't be one living thing around to observe the occurences, completely debasing the foundation of science. If you can't observe the results of your experiment, then your experiment is null in void.

I didn't say it would be plausible to do so, but it is possible isn't it? Actually it seems like one of the easier things to disprove, no metaphysical nonesense. But really, whether I can disprove it or not is not the point is it? The point is to push the boundries of religion into faith and out of reason. I will admit, if religious people are allowed to make up the rules for their gods then it will be impossible to disprove them since they would be outside the system in theory.

So what we have is something that is impossible to prove, and possible to disprove. People believe in this why?

Liberty, you have to accept that some things are beyond the power of human observation. Any scientist worth his salt will tell you that modern science has revealed to us less than 1% of the world at large. It must be a sad existence for you if your entire life is based on what roughly 300 years of modern science has revealed to us. Despite all the advances, it is still an inherently limited field in comparison to the vast expanse of religious thought.

Many years of what? It is only recently that we have seen the exponential growth of progress. You keep your thousands of years of primitives and I will keep my three hundred years of science.

BTW let's not get into a pissing contest on which of us pities who more. Because frankly I pity you for thinking faith is a good enough reason to have faith. You pity me for not knowing the love Jesus or whatever yada yada yada.

An abstraction (i.e. religion) cannot be disproved by concrete observations, because those observations only speak upon what they're observing, not what they're not observing. When science tries to remove an observation from its fundamental base (i.e. humans evolved from monkeys) and apply it to something which it has no relation to (i.e. since humans evolved from monkeys and religion has no mention of this, religion must be untrue) then science is overstepping its observable bounds and becoming a religion in and of itself. [/b]

It isn't about disproving anything, it is about having plausible reasons to believe in whater you happen to believe. Why don't believers understand that?

BTW if religion says the universe was created in six days when if fact the word day becomes meaningless in that context and is impossible then religion IS wrong. Tough luck, that is what happens when you listen to people born over a thousand years before the scientific age.

[Ancalagon the Black]

Originally posted by chomerics

AtB Have you read Satanic Verses? Is it a worth while read?

Yes and yes, although I would certainly recommend Midnight's Children and The Moor's Last Sigh over it. Don't bother with The Ground Beneath Her Feet and throw Fury in the nearest recycling bin if you see it.

Originally posted by Liberty

Really, you like the philosophy? I think if you really applied in real life you would just be asking to get screwed over. Too pacifist for my liking. Sometimes bad stuff happens to good people and good things happen to bad people. More often than not it is random, and if it isn't random then it is the bad persona that gets his way. It sucks but that is just the way it turns out to work.

I'm not sure what you're on about here, but it's certainly not anti-Buddhist. Pretty much everything you said would be met with absolute agreement by a Buddhist.

[Prosperity]

Originally posted by Ancalagon the Black

Yes and yes, although I would certainly recommend Midnight's Children and The Moor's Last Sigh over it. Don't bother with The Ground Beneath Her Feet and throw Fury in the nearest recycling bin if you see it.

I'm not sure what you're on about here, but it's certainly not anti-Buddhist. Pretty much everything you said would be met with absolute agreement by a Buddhist.

I am saying there is no such thing as Karma

[chomerics]

Originally posted by Liberty

Really, you like the philosophy? I think if you really applied in real life you would just be asking to get screwed over. Too pacifist for my liking. Sometimes bad stuff happens to good people and good things happen to bad people. More often than not it is random, and if it isn't random then it is the bad persona that gets his way. It sucks but that is just the way it turns out to work.

That's not saying that everything works out in life, but in general I completely agree with the cliche' do unto others as you would have them do unto you. It is basically the foundation of Buddhist principals.

As for the pacifistic nature of the religion, yes it is a bit too pasifistic for me. I am more of a free thinker and I like tolerance, but I am by no means a pacifist. I do think there is a time and a place when force is necessary.

As for applying to philosophy in life, I actually try to apply it. I always try to treat others with respect, tolerance and kindness. I am always a friend with somebody before I am an enemy, and you need to screw me over for me to become your enemy. I will add though, I am not afraid to challange people when I feel like I am correct, and I do not aviod confrontation when it is necessary.

I just think if I was ever going to follow a religion, it would be Buddhism as it more follows how I try to live my life now.

[Major Harris]

Originally posted by Liberty

So what we have is something that is impossible to prove, and possible to disprove. People believe in this why?

Many years of what? It is only recently that we have seen the exponential growth of progress. You keep your thousands of years of primitives and I will keep my three hundred years of science.

BTW let's not get into a pissing contest on which of us pities who more. Because frankly I pity you for thinking faith is a good enough reason to have faith. You pity me for not knowing the love Jesus or whatever yada yada yada.

It isn't about disproving anything, it is about having plausible reasons to believe in whater you happen to believe. Why don't believers understand that?

BTW if religion says the universe was created in six days when if fact the word day becomes meaningless in that context and is impossible then religion IS wrong. Tough luck, that is what happens when you listen to people born over a thousand years before the scientific age.

your lack of faith disturbs me, admiral.

[Ancalagon the Black]

Originally posted by Liberty

I am saying there is no such thing as Karma

I think you have a very New Age understanding of karma. In Hinduism and Buddhism, karma doesn't mean at all what people in the West often use the term for.

[Prosperity]

Wikipedia: In Buddhism, only intentional actions are karmic "acts of will". The 'Law of Karma' refers to "cause and effect", but Karma literally means "action" - often indicating intent or cause. Accompanying this usually is a separate tenet called Vipaka, meaning result or effect. The re-action or effect can itself also influence an action, and in this way, the chain of causation continues ad infinitum. When Buddhists talk about karma, they are normally referring to karma/action that is 'tainted' with ignorance - karma that continues to ensure that the being remains in the everlasting cycle of samsara.

This samsaric karma comes in two 'flavours' - 'good' karma, which leads to positive/pleasurable experiences, like high rebirth (as a deva, asura, or human), and bad karma which leads to suffering and low rebirth (as a hell-sufferer, as a preta, or as an animal).

There is also a completely different type of karma that is neither good nor bad, but liberating. This karma allows for the individual to break the uncontrolled cycle of rebirth which always implies suffering, and thereby leave samsara to permanently enter Nirvana.

The Buddhist sutras explain that in order to generate liberating karma, we must first develop incredibly powerful concentration, and proper insight into the (un)reality of samsara. This concentration is akin to the states of mind required to be reborn in the Deva realm, and in itself depends upon a very deep training in ethical self-discipline.

This differentiation between good karma and liberating karma has been used by some scholars to argue that the development of Tantra depended upon Buddhist ideas and philosophies.

Understanding the way enables sex to be of important to all universal law of Karma provides order to a beginningless and endless universe. Alongside this view is the related notion of Buddhist rebirth - sometimes understood to be the same thing as reincarnation - which has its roots in the principle of Karma.

Well I don't know what the above really means, but you are right it isn't what I thought it was.

My understanding of Buddhism is very shallow so I won't talk about anymore until I know what I am talking about.

[Predicto]

Originally posted by Liberty

Well I don't know what the above really means, but you are right it isn't what I thought it was.

My understanding of Buddhism is very shallow so I won't talk about anymore until I know what I am talking about.

What the? You just violated the first rule of the Tailgate!