Hemant Mehta

[The Grand Nudger]

Also, does intent count?  For example, if I kicked dogs because I felt that they were clearly devolved human beings justly punished by the weight of their karmic debt to be, in this life, a dog.....?

I mean, whose to say I'm not part of karmas grand plan of pain?  There's gotta be some provision in there, because otherwise I feel as though a good person can find themselves being kicked -as- a dog, for the karmic crime of kicking dogs who were most likely pedos or whatever in some previous life.  Those people have to be punished, I mean, do you really want to live in a universe where the bad guys get away with it?

It's all so very confusing.  Are there graphs?

[Little Rik]

Also, does intent count?  For example, if I kicked dogs because I felt that they were clearly devolved human beings justly punished by the weight of their karmic debt to be, in this life, a dog.....?

I mean, whose to say I'm not part of karmas grand plan of pain?  There's gotta be some provision in there, because otherwise I feel as though a good person can find themselves being kicked -as- a dog, for the karmic crime of kicking dogs who were most likely pedos or whatever in some previous life.   Those people have to be punished, I mean, do you really want to live in a universe where the bad guys get away with it?  

It's all so very confusing.  Are there graphs?

It is of course very confusing because you refuse to pay attention to what I said.
You ask question after question without even care to understand the first simple answer.
You already made up your mind that karma and reincarnation is all bull so no wonder that
you don't get it.
As the person can not enter a house that is locked up also the message can not enter a mind
that is not interested in understanding.
You really shouldn't worry whether a dog previously was a pedo or an animal with less consciousness
than the dog that you try to kick.
You do not know so it is wise not to take any risk and even if that dog was a human that did horrible things you have no right to punish him.

You are not the one who is in charge for the karma law nor a judge nor you have been given the authorization to dispense punishments therefore if you take any decision that affect anybody else (dog or not dog) then you attract karma unless you kick it because your safety is in danger.
In this case no karma apply.  

---

Easy Em.
I already explained this point several times.
Is a pity that you miss it.
Never mind.
I will go through this topic once again.
Plants and animals are driven by instinct.
Whatever they do they never build any karma.
Mother nature drive them to do and to behave in a certain way.
There is no such a thing as a bad dog or a bad animal.
It is like your little little kids.
If they brake a glass you have no right to hit them but as soon as they grow up and after they develop
some consciousness they become more and more responsible for what they do and the karma law apply to them in the good or in the bad.
Humans have enough consciousness to distinguish between the right and the wrong so they are responsible for their actions.
Got it now?  

Well, I'm sorry I missed it... but I can only read you in small doses

So non-human animals get an auto-upgrade, is that it? Is that straight to human, or is there a linear progression/hierarchy of animals that they have to go up through? Ie what is a 'worse' animal to reincarnate into and what is a 'better' one? Nature is a pretty brutal business all round but arguably some animals have it easier than others in terms of suffering, depending on where they are in the food chain etc.

As I just explained to Kem we do not know whether an animal was a human in the previous life (DEVOLUTION) or a different animal with less consciousness.
Only the entity that administer the karma law is aware of that.
We shouldn't really worry about that.
As far as the evolution of the consciousness goes the matter evolve into vegetation, into animals, into humans and back in the mind of the cosmic thinker once the cycle is completed.
The problems for humans arise as they leave the animal stage and turn into humans.
Below the stage of human karma does not apply but for human it does because in human most of the instinct leave place for free will and therefore decision making are not driven by instinct (mother nature) anymore.

Remember also that the old saying apply.......NO BRAIN NO PAIN..... so for an animal to be killed and eaten is not as painful as for us human which nervous system is a lot more complex.
When we breathe we kill millions of tiny germs that are in the air.
When we eat we also kill because the food contain live things.
When you walk in the street we kill tiny creature that are in the ground or footpath.
There is no way that we can avoid killing but there is a way to avoid doing more damage than we should
like eating low low consciousness form of lives such as in a vegetarian or vegan diet.
In this case the karma is almost nil if apply at all.  

In other words, how does 'reincarnation allocation' work going downwards (devolving) relative to someone's bad karma in death? Is it based on the amount of suffering an animal would supposedly endure in life (ie quality of life) or is related to the animal's supposed degree of consciousness/intelligence

Could be both or could only be related to the level of consciousness.
Obviously a human that turn into an animal because of his-her bad karma lose his-her consciousness
to the level of the animal that is going to be reincarnated in.
At the same time such an animal could well be punished a lot further according to his-her bad karma or simply stay in animal form or plant form or stuck in the matter for ages and ages.
Take some of the people who engaged in mass killing like Stalin, Pol Pot or other.
They may well be reincarnated into animals for thousand of times or be turn into matter as well.
Only the one who administer the karma law knows.  

[The Grand Nudger]

It is of course very confusing because you refuse to pay attention to what I said.

I think you might have that completely backwards, lol, but hey....nbd.

You ask question after question without even care to understand the first simple answer.
You already made up your mind that karma and reincarnation is all bull so no wonder that
you don't get it.
As the person can not enter a house that is locked up also the message can not enter a mind
that is not interested in understanding.
You really shouldn't worry whether a dog previously was a pedo or an animal with less consciousness
than the dog that you try to kick.
You do not know so it is wise not to take any risk and even if that dog was a human that did horrible things you have no right to punish him.

Well, ofc -I- have no rights in Rikistan, but ostensibly this "entity" of karma you're talking about does or could use me as a tool...which is the focus of the question I asked?  I'm just wondering how it all pans out in that scenario?  Is there, like, an SS defense for karma.  "I was only following mein karmic fuhrers entity orders!"...or will that karmic entity be all like  "hahahah noob trolled you hard! Bam...syphilis!"

You are not the one who is in charge for the karma law nor a judge nor you have been given the authorization to dispense punishments therefore if you take any decision that affect anybody else (dog or not dog) then you attract karma unless you kick it because your safety is in danger.
In this case no karma apply.  

Right, but that's precisely the problem.  What happens to those individuals who kick dogs as part of karmas grand karmic justice plan to punish those pedos placed in a dog body?  

Also, about that, it doesn't seem like much of a punishment to be a dog.  Unless, I mean, you're a human consciousness trapped in a dogs body or something (but even then).  I don't think that we'd have missed it if the latter where the case, if there were people inside our dogs.  What's the word on that?

[emjay]

Well, I'm sorry I missed it... but I can only read you in small doses

So non-human animals get an auto-upgrade, is that it? Is that straight to human, or is there a linear progression/hierarchy of animals that they have to go up through? Ie what is a 'worse' animal to reincarnate into and what is a 'better' one? Nature is a pretty brutal business all round but arguably some animals have it easier than others in terms of suffering, depending on where they are in the food chain etc.

As I just explained to Kem we do not know whether an animal was a human in the previous life (DEVOLUTION) or a different animal with less consciousness.
Only the entity that administer the karma law is aware of that.
We shouldn't really worry about that.
As far as the evolution of the consciousness goes the matter evolve into vegetation, into animals, into humans and back in the mind of the cosmic thinker once the cycle is completed.
The problems for humans arise as they leave the animal stage and turn into humans.
Below the stage of human karma does not apply but for human it does because in human most of the instinct leave place for free will and therefore decision making are not driven by instinct (mother nature) anymore.

Remember also that the old saying apply.......NO BRAIN NO PAIN..... so for an animal to be killed and eaten is not as painful as for us human which nervous system is a lot more complex.
When we breathe we kill millions of tiny germs that are in the air.
When we eat we also kill because the food contain live things.
When you walk in the street we kill tiny creature that are in the ground or footpath.
There is no way that we can avoid killing but there is a way to avoid doing more damage than we should
like eating low low consciousness form of lives such as in a vegetarian or vegan diet.
In this case the karma is almost nil if apply at all.  

In other words, how does 'reincarnation allocation' work going downwards (devolving) relative to someone's bad karma in death? Is it based on the amount of suffering an animal would supposedly endure in life (ie quality of life) or is related to the animal's supposed degree of consciousness/intelligence

Could be both or could only be related to the level of consciousness.
Obviously a human that turn into an animal because of his-her bad karma lose his-her consciousness
to the level of the animal that is going to be reincarnated in.
At the same time such an animal could well be punished a lot further according to his-her bad karma or simply stay in animal form or plant form or stuck in the matter for ages and ages.
Take some of the people who engaged in mass killing like Stalin, Pol Pot or other.
They may well be reincarnated into animals for thousand of times or be turn into matter as well.
Only the one who administer the karma law knows.  

Thanks for your answers but I see two major problems with the whole idea:

1) It seems to me this 'system' breaks down when animals are considered... that at the level of humans, with their karma, it's fairly well defined, but where 'devolution' to animals and 'evolution' from animals is concerned, it becomes decidedly vague and arbitrary, down to the arbitrary decisions of this 'cosmic thinker' who one can imagine, as you describe it, as keeping a ledger on every person, recording their punishment arbitrarily in the form of x lifetimes as say, a worm... or any variation on that. In other words there appears no systematic means for 'non-karmic' consciousness to 'evolve', only the arbitrary decisions of the cosmic thinker. So is that how you see Karma? As essentially no different from the Christian god doling out arbitrary punishment... ie not a systematic cycle of some kind... which is the impression I'd got of what you meant when reading you in the past... but rather an arbitrary judgement?

2) More importantly, once punishment has been administered and a being begins his 'sentence' as it were... x lifetimes as a given animal or whatever arbitrary variation on that the 'cosmic thinker' has decided upon, the resulting animal lives lack the conscious faculties to understand why they're being punished. Ie a punishment is only any good if the person being punished knows why they're being punished... but there's no way a worm for instance could understand what human transgressions it was being punished for, and thus surely it renders the punishment moot?

[Hammok Man]

If i could interrupt the discussion on Reincarnation or whatever this thread had devolved into for just a second.

I have a comment about the video.

I think it is kind of funny.

One statement the guy made about "Conservatives waging a war on science."

I am both an atheist and very conservative.  

Not all of us (atheists) lean toward the left.  It is my belief that we are a sizable non vocal group who do not advertise their atheism, but logically just cannot swallow the bullshit any more.  The fact that because of my political beliefs I am written off as a simpleton gets irritating.    I would be willing to say that most well educated conservatives are well grounded in logic and science.  Many religious conservatives (lets not forget liberals) do not hold their religious beliefs to the same standard of logic/reason and science because that is the nature of faith and belief.  This does not make them idiotic, blind followers who do not question what the church tells them.

Please keep that in mind when you make snap judgments, or stereotypical statements.

OK please resume your previous discussion.

[The Grand Nudger]

 Many religious conservatives (lets not forget liberals) do not hold their religious beliefs to the same standard of logic/reason and science because that is the nature of faith and belief.  This does not make them idiotic, blind followers who do not question what the church tells them.

That's exactly what it makes them, Hammok..but, like you said...that's the nature of faith and belief.

[Hammok Man]

 Many religious conservatives (lets not forget liberals) do not hold their religious beliefs to the same standard of logic/reason and science because that is the nature of faith and belief.  This does not make them idiotic, blind followers who do not question what the church tells them.


I can see how this can be misinterpreted.

I was referring to how these people live their day to day life and make everyday decisions.  The vast majority do not ask themselves "Hmm, what does the church think about this?"
Instead they use a combination of past experience, and education to come to a conclusion.

[Whateverist]

Very glad to have you here to represent the conservative perspective, Hammok.  Don't feel alone though, Brewer is in your camp and there are other atheists in there with you.  I'm your opposite on that score but I'm very interested in understanding what motivates conservatives.

So many questions I have for you.  The big one might be to ask if you voted for Trump and if you think he is representative of what conservatives seek in politics.  (I'm guessing not.)

You have probably heard of the six moral foundations.  Presumably the liberal/conservative divide can be understood as a difference in emphasis between us in those foundational values.  

---

Moral Foundations Theory was created by a group of social and cultural psychologists () to understand why morality varies so much across cultures yet still shows so many similarities and recurrent themes. In brief, the theory proposes that several innate and universally available psychological systems are the foundations of “intuitive ethics.” Each culture then constructs virtues, narratives, and institutions on top of these foundations, thereby creating the unique moralities we see around the world, and conflicting within nations too. The five foundations for which we think the evidence is best are: 
1) Care/harm: This foundation is related to our long evolution as mammals with attachment systems and an ability to feel (and dislike) the pain of others. It underlies virtues of kindness, gentleness, and nurturance.
2) Fairness/cheating: This foundation is related to the evolutionary process of reciprocal altruism. It generates ideas of justice, rights, and autonomy. [Note: In our original conception, Fairness included concerns about equality, which are more strongly endorsed by political liberals. However, as we reformulated the theory in 2011 based on new data, we emphasize proportionality, which is endorsed by everyone, but is more strongly endorsed by conservatives]
3) Loyalty/betrayal: This foundation is related to our long history as tribal creatures able to form shifting coalitions. It underlies virtues of patriotism and self-sacrifice for the group. It is active anytime people feel that it's "one for all, and all for one."
4) Authority/subversion: This foundation was shaped by our long primate history of hierarchical social interactions. It underlies virtues of leadership and followership, including deference to legitimate authority and respect for traditions.
5) Sanctity/degradation: This foundation was shaped by the psychology of disgust and contamination. It underlies religious notions of striving to live in an elevated, less carnal, more noble way. It underlies the widespread idea that the body is a temple which can be desecrated by immoral activities and contaminants (an idea not unique to religious traditions).  
We think there are several other very good candidates for "foundationhood," especially:
6) Liberty/oppression: This foundation is about the feelings of reactance and resentment people feel toward those who dominate them and restrict their liberty. Its intuitions are often in tension with those of the authority foundation. The hatred of bullies and dominators motivates people to come together, in solidarity, to oppose or take down the oppressor. We report some preliminary work on this potential foundation in , on the psychology of libertarianism and liberty.

---

So as a liberal I very much emphasize 1, 2 and 6.  I wonder if you feel the same way about 3, 4 and 5?  Presumably we can all find something in each category which fits.

If I were to start a thread in which to explore these differences, any chance you'd care to participate?

[Little Rik]

As I just explained to Kem we do not know whether an animal was a human in the previous life (DEVOLUTION) or a different animal with less consciousness.
Only the entity that administer the karma law is aware of that.
We shouldn't really worry about that.
As far as the evolution of the consciousness goes the matter evolve into vegetation, into animals, into humans and back in the mind of the cosmic thinker once the cycle is completed.
The problems for humans arise as they leave the animal stage and turn into humans.
Below the stage of human karma does not apply but for human it does because in human most of the instinct leave place for free will and therefore decision making are not driven by instinct (mother nature) anymore.

Remember also that the old saying apply.......NO BRAIN NO PAIN..... so for an animal to be killed and eaten is not as painful as for us human which nervous system is a lot more complex.
When we breathe we kill millions of tiny germs that are in the air.
When we eat we also kill because the food contain live things.
When you walk in the street we kill tiny creature that are in the ground or footpath.
There is no way that we can avoid killing but there is a way to avoid doing more damage than we should
like eating low low consciousness form of lives such as in a vegetarian or vegan diet.
In this case the karma is almost nil if apply at all.  




Could be both or could only be related to the level of consciousness.
Obviously a human that turn into an animal because of his-her bad karma lose his-her consciousness
to the level of the animal that is going to be reincarnated in.
At the same time such an animal could well be punished a lot further according to his-her bad karma or simply stay in animal form or plant form or stuck in the matter for ages and ages.
Take some of the people who engaged in mass killing like Stalin, Pol Pot or other.
They may well be reincarnated into animals for thousand of times or be turn into matter as well.
Only the one who administer the karma law knows.  

Thanks for your answers but I see two major problems with the whole idea:

1) It seems to me this 'system' breaks down when animals are considered... that at the level of humans, with their karma, it's fairly well defined, but where 'devolution' to animals and 'evolution' from animals is concerned, it becomes decidedly vague and arbitrary, down to the arbitrary decisions of this 'cosmic thinker' who one can imagine, as you describe it, as keeping a ledger on every person, recording their punishment arbitrarily in the form of x lifetimes as say, a worm... or any variation on that. In other words there appears no systematic means for 'non-karmic' consciousness to 'evolve', only the arbitrary decisions of the cosmic thinker. So is that how you see Karma? As essentially no different from the Christian god doling out arbitrary punishment... ie not a systematic cycle of some kind... which is the impression I'd got of what you meant when reading you in the past... but rather an arbitrary judgement?

1) A Christian God has got the hell as punishment and that is hate which it doesn't make any sense.
There are two things that God can not do.
One is that He-She (God has no sex) can not hate because hate means that there are imperfections in God creation so considering that God is perfect is impossible that He create imperfections therefore hell is not possible.
Yoga on the other hand is all for rehabilitation and at the end all the problems will be solved.

2) Now let us talk about your idea that karma is a punishment.
Not true Em.
Suppose that you are a teacher and one or some of your students fail.
What would you do?
Would you punish them?
No, you would not but you rather would fail them so they will repeat the year.
If these students are not ready to go higher in their studies it is obvious that they can not pass and go
higher.
Their consciousness and intellect is not ready to go higher so the only logic thing to do is to repeat and wait for an other opportunity to go higher.
At the same time if humans are not good enough to be humans they should be lower to the level of animals, plants or matter waiting for future opportunity do become humans once again and do right this time.  

Of course to be lower down is felt as a punishment but it really isn't.
It is like a jigsaw puzzle.
There are many pieces and there are many puzzles.
The rule is that every piece must go in the correct puzzle as every creature must be located in the correct place whether is in a human body, animal, plant or matter.

2) More importantly, once punishment has been administered and a being begins his 'sentence' as it were... x lifetimes as a given animal or whatever arbitrary variation on that the 'cosmic thinker' has decided upon, the resulting animal lives lack the conscious faculties to understand why they're being punished. Ie a punishment is only any good if the person being punished knows why they're being punished... but there's no way a worm for instance could understand what human transgressions it was being punished for, and thus surely it renders the punishment moot?

It doesn't work like that Em.
There is no such a thing as punishment but as I just explain above is all about putting a particular consciousness in a medium that most fit it in order to perform better.
If a human behave like a dog then a dog body is most suited to his-her ability to perform and when that dog will be sick and tired of being a dog then he-she will develop the intuition to go higher and reach once again the human consciousness.
If however some people like killing other people they may be reincarnated as carnivorous animals and when these animals will be sick of killing then they may be reincarnated in something else that doesn't required killing.
It is all about what people wish to do in life.
If they do bad and are turned into lower form of lives then they wouldn't know why they are in an animal body since their consciousness has been lowered.
Why should they remember?
They have chosen that change.
The feeling to go higher once again will help them to change for the better.  

---

It is of course very confusing because you refuse to pay attention to what I said.

I think you might have that completely backwards, lol, but hey....nbd.

You ask question after question without even care to understand the first simple answer.
You already made up your mind that karma and reincarnation is all bull so no wonder that
you don't get it.
As the person can not enter a house that is locked up also the message can not enter a mind
that is not interested in understanding.
You really shouldn't worry whether a dog previously was a pedo or an animal with less consciousness
than the dog that you try to kick.
You do not know so it is wise not to take any risk and even if that dog was a human that did horrible things you have no right to punish him.

Well, ofc -I- have no rights in Rikistan, but ostensibly this "entity" of karma you're talking about does or could use me as a tool...which is the focus of the question I asked?  I'm just wondering how it all pans out in that scenario?  Is there, like, an SS defense for karma.  "I was only following mein karmic fuhrers entity orders!"...or will that karmic entity be all like  "hahahah noob trolled you hard! Bam...syphilis!"

You are not the one who is in charge for the karma law nor a judge nor you have been given the authorization to dispense punishments therefore if you take any decision that affect anybody else (dog or not dog) then you attract karma unless you kick it because your safety is in danger.
In this case no karma apply.  

Right, but that's precisely the problem.  What happens to those individuals who kick dogs as part of karmas grand karmic justice plan to punish those pedos placed in a dog body?  

Also, about that, it doesn't seem like much of a punishment to be a dog.  Unless, I mean, you're a human consciousness trapped in a dogs body or something (but even then).  I don't think that we'd have missed it if the latter where the case, if there were people inside our dogs.  What's the word on that?

1) There can not be people inside a dog.
If a human being has been lowered to the level of a dog due to the karma law then there is no more human being but a dog.

2) No human being can be in charge to act as a karmic avenger.
If that would be the case then free will wouldn't apply any more but because it apply is obvious that no human being can cover the role of an avenger.  

[emjay]

Thanks for your answers but I see two major problems with the whole idea:

1) It seems to me this 'system' breaks down when animals are considered... that at the level of humans, with their karma, it's fairly well defined, but where 'devolution' to animals and 'evolution' from animals is concerned, it becomes decidedly vague and arbitrary, down to the arbitrary decisions of this 'cosmic thinker' who one can imagine, as you describe it, as keeping a ledger on every person, recording their punishment arbitrarily in the form of x lifetimes as say, a worm... or any variation on that. In other words there appears no systematic means for 'non-karmic' consciousness to 'evolve', only the arbitrary decisions of the cosmic thinker. So is that how you see Karma? As essentially no different from the Christian god doling out arbitrary punishment... ie not a systematic cycle of some kind... which is the impression I'd got of what you meant when reading you in the past... but rather an arbitrary judgement?

1) A Christian God has got the hell as punishment and that is hate which it doesn't make any sense.
There are two things that God can not do.
One is that He-She (God has no sex) can not hate because hate means that there are imperfections in God creation so considering that God is perfect is impossible that He create imperfections therefore hell is not possible.
Yoga on the other hand is all for rehabilitation and at the end all the problems will be solved.

Nice point you've got there about the impossibility of hell  

2) Now let us talk about your idea that karma is a punishment.
Not true Em.

It wasn't my idea of karma... in all my readings on Buddhism (not the same as Yoga I know, but similar in some respects) I've never understood it to be about punishment, just cause and effect... but I just got the impression from how you were talking that it was how you saw it... hence asking you if that was the case... which you've now answered in the negative. So we can drop that now.

Suppose that you are a teacher and one or some of your students fail.
What would you do?
Would you punish them?
No, you would not but you rather would fail them so they will repeat the year.
If these students are not ready to go higher in their studies it is obvious that they can not pass and go
higher.
Their consciousness and intellect is not ready to go higher so the only logic thing to do is to repeat and wait for an other opportunity to go higher.
At the same time if humans are not good enough to be humans they should be lower to the level of animals, plants or matter waiting for future opportunity do become humans once again and do right this time.  

Of course to be lower down is felt as a punishment but it really isn't.
It is like a jigsaw puzzle.
There are many pieces and there are many puzzles.
The rule is that every piece must go in the correct puzzle as every creature must be located in the correct place whether is in a human body, animal, plant or matter.

The question still remains though, what role do you ascribe to the 'cosmic thinker'? Ie whether punishment or rehabilitation, as an arbitrary judge/teacher, assigning devolutions on a case-by-case basis? Basically, as an intelligent agent making arbitrary decisions? As opposed to some systematic cycle without need for any arbitrary element.

2) More importantly, once punishment has been administered and a being begins his 'sentence' as it were... x lifetimes as a given animal or whatever arbitrary variation on that the 'cosmic thinker' has decided upon, the resulting animal lives lack the conscious faculties to understand why they're being punished. Ie a punishment is only any good if the person being punished knows why they're being punished... but there's no way a worm for instance could understand what human transgressions it was being punished for, and thus surely it renders the punishment moot?

It doesn't work like that Em.
There is no such a thing as punishment but as I just explain above is all about putting a particular consciousness in a medium that most fit it in order to perform better.
If a human behave like a dog then a dog body is most suited to his-her ability to perform and when that dog will be sick and tired of being a dog then he-she will develop the intuition to go higher and reach once again the human consciousness.
If however some people like killing other people they may be reincarnated as carnivorous animals and when these animals will be sick of killing then they may be reincarnated in something else that doesn't required killing.
It is all about what people wish to do in life.
If they do bad and are turned into lower form of lives then they wouldn't know why they are in an animal body since their consciousness has been lowered.
Why should they remember?
They have chosen that change.
The feeling to go higher once again will help them to change for the better.  

But I would argue a similar point to my previous point; that since (at least most) non-human animals lack reflective capabilities (at least presumably) then it's still the same problem as before... that a non-reflective animal cannot wish to be anything other than it is, and therefore seems that in those cases there can be no impetus for 'evolution'.