Buddhism and Karma (Religion)

by dhw, Thursday, January 24, 2013, 16:10 (4319 days ago) @ David Turell

GEORGE: Here is a discussion of what is wrong with Buddhism, from an atheist who has taught at a Buddhist school:-http://rationalist.org.uk/4021/the-dark-side-of-buddhism-I did a search for 'Karma' on this site and it appears to have been discussed between dhw and B-M on an 'Afterlife' thread a couple of years ago, but to avoid confusion I thought it best to start anew. B-M's experience of Buddhism appears to be at odds with the version expounded in this article.-DAVID: George, glad you are participating again. You are bringing in wonderful material. I would love to see Matt or Tony respond to this, the conclusion of the article [...]-My thanks too. This is fascinating stuff. Some people regard Buddhism as a philosophy rather than a religion, but just like most religions it seems to have lots of different forms, as does the concept 'karma'. This one sounds like a strange perversion of BBella's favoured afterlife! According to one of my reference books, some versions maintain that you're stuck with what you've got, so if you've been a bad boy you will remain a bad boy (Brahman), whereas others (Jain) give you the chance to stop enjoying yourself and work your way to being released from the cycle of rebirths. (My reference book doesn't put it in quite those terms.) Our author must have landed among some Brahmans, but we need Tony or Matt to enlighten us further.
 
What struck me most forcibly was the author's clear distress at the effect of these insensitive teachings on his students. One of the arguments I find most misleading and downright insulting is some religious folks' insistence that without their particular version of God, there would be no empathy or morality in the human world. Most forms of (mainly atheist) Buddhism teach compassion and respect for all living things, and the implication that atheists ... not to mention agnostics ... would be incapable of such finer feelings is utter nonsense. As we've seen from the articles about the pope, faith in God does not automatically engender empathy or morality, and as we can see from this article, the absence of God makes not the slightest difference to the author's concern for his fellow beings. These comments are a digression from the topic of karma, but it's a good excuse to get them off my chest!