(January 31, 2012 at 8:43 pm)Epimethean Wrote: Bgood has outed the very reason that karma is dogmatic: It doesn't work but people believe in it so much that they get pissed off when people point it out as rubbish.
Well that doesn't make the doctrine rubbish. It just means that it's not easy to practice what it preaches.
There are a lot of good doctrines in Buddhism. If a person could actually follow them all they would indeed benefit from that. Just look around at how quick everyone is to put the other person or their beliefs down. This is almost becoming the standard trait of being "human". It's truly sad.
Christianity has a lot of good moral values too in the actual teachings of Jesus. Unfortunately far too many Christans just use Jesus as an excuse to beat people over the head with truly immoral and unholy crap from the Old Testament in Jesus' name.
In fact, that's what ruins Jesus right there. The mere fact that Christianity has nailed him to the Old Testament God. That quickly destroyed all the good things he taught.
In fact, if you study both Buddhism (especially Mahayana Buddhism) and the actual moral teachings of Jesus you'll quickly see that Jesus was most likely a Mahayana Buddhist. Even the New Testament has Jesus renouncing and disagreeing with the immoral ethics taught by the Torah.
So Buddhism is probably one of the highest sources of morality that mankind has yet produced. At least in some of its forms. Specifically Mahayana Buddhism which is the Buddhism that Jesus would have been exposed to in his day (assuming there even was such a person as Jesus at all).
But you can't put down doctrines based on people who don't follow them precisely.
Buddhism teaches "Right speech, Right action, Right thoughts". Therefore if someone is speaking improperly they clearly aren't following the doctrine of Buddhism.
It's just like Christianity or anything else. Just because a person calls themselves a "Christian" doesn't mean that that speak for Jesus. And just because a person calls themselves a "Buddhist" doesn't mean that they speak for Buddha or Buddhism either.
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Ironically though, Bgood was actually RIGHT!
He explained that bad karma (i.e. bad actions or speech) can only bring forth the same. And that's precisely what's happening here. He unfortunately struck out in an act of frustration, and that "karma" (that action) is now coming back at him because he "planted it".
We sow what we reap.
It's a prefect example of karma in action.
And that's the very same principle that Jesus taught as well. Jesus was clearly a Buddhist. He taught that what we sow so shall we reap. That's the Buddhist ideal of Karma. Nothing new there.
And here we are witnessing it in action.
