Where do souls come from?

One isn't supposed to victim blame in Buddhism though kamma implies that it is fine and dandy. There are a variety of virtues, suttas, and rules that argue against it. In fact unyielding love and aid towards everyone especially those who have done wrong is praised. Exceptionally highly. If you can genuinely love, wish well upon, and aid someone who has done wrong you have conquered a bit of the self and the ego. Conquering and destroying those concepts is part of the end goal. You conquer yourself and reality as a whole with Enlightenment. And then leave. Because you won the game.

Kamma being a non-sentient god makes very little sense according to Buddhist cosmology unless this god lives as long as the universe and is affected by its own rules. It must also be affected by anatta and Dukkha or by Buddhism's way of thinking it cannot exist within reality.

The only way it could exist eternally is if it exists outside reality and things that exist outside reality are considered incapable of interacting with reality. This is why The Buddha is considered to have never returned or done anything after his death by many traditional accounts. He's left reality and can't come back or do anything to it. All we have are his teachings as they were recorded.

As for kamma not fitting in with physics as we know it...blame The Tipitaka. I personally ignore the issue because I don't find thinking about it to be all that useful to myself nor do I place much stock in the idea.

edited 10th Jul '11 1:45:33 PM by Aondeug

If someone wants to accuse us of eating coconut shells, then that's their business. We know what we're doing. - Achaan Chah

So the Christian belief that Jesus died for humanity sins make sense from a Buddhist standpoint? That's interesting.

Anyway back to the original question. Souls come from a sack that is carried by the perky planter, The Grim Reaper sister

A better term is Law of Reality as opposed to physics. Now stop nitpicking.

My name is Cu Chulainn. Beside the raging sea I am left to moan. Sorrow I am, for I brought down my only son.

The difference between "reality" and "physics" is far more nit-picking than pointing out that tremendous paradigm shift involved.

I think my use of "god" was slightly confusing; it's a "god" in the Abrahamic sense, an eternal, intelligent, arbitrarily-powerful thing. However, I stand by my point that implementing karma requires an incredibly high level of abstract thinking, and so can't be done purely through unthinking physical principles.

Da Rules excuse all the inaccuracy in the world. Listen to them, not me.

Jesus and dying for sins: According to some forms of Buddhism yes that does make sense to a degree. I am not sure if a Bodhisatta would be considered capable of dying and taking on all the bad kamma of all living humans let alone all living things (they seek to save everything from existence).

And such a being cannot exist within Buddhism's view of the universe according to what texts we have available which is what I am currently explaining and working off of. Such a being would have to exist outside of reality and as stated earlier such a being cannot interact with reality or return to it.

The Celestial Buddhas, before anyone brings them up as a possible "YOU ARE INCONSISTENT WITH THIS", are merely incredibly long lived gods who haven't died yet. So long lived that other gods have ant-like life spans in comparison. The Pure Lands that they and the Bodhisatta (who can keep dying as much as they want) hang out in also exist within reality. They just happen to exist in a different time-space...thing. Naraka (commonly called Hell, but it's really more like Purgatory) seems to work in a similar fashion in that they don't exist in normal space-time nor does it exist on earth. It exists in an entirely different plane of existence that exists on top of our own. Possibly the god realm(s) too. In fact I feel certain they do because Buddhism really likes that idea. Hell the fucking ghosts probably do too. On that note our ghosts are alive and die. If it has any form of sentience it is alive and it dies. Everything dies in Buddhism.

By those same texts and that same tradition kamma is one of the laws of reality and works as I have described it. You can say "But you are not arguing its validity well" to which I will say "I am not arguing at all. I am describing it based on really old books because I think it's fun". Again I don't care about the validity of the concept though if you are curious about arguments I have seen in favor of it they can be summed up as "Our understanding of how reality works is immensely poor and it operates based on something else or maybe physics is entirely wrong in this regard and needs rewriting", "The Bhikkhu fucked up the idea immensely and it actually meant something else entirely in regards to the scale but it still works somehow", and possibly "I am a Buddha and I do not feel like answering questions about reality and how it works at this moment; now go sit on your ass and think about breathing".

edited 11th Jul '11 11:01:56 AM by Aondeug

If someone wants to accuse us of eating coconut shells, then that's their business. We know what we're doing. - Achaan Chah

I thought the Dallai Llama was only a Bodhisatta...

My name is Cu Chulainn. Beside the raging sea I am left to moan. Sorrow I am, for I brought down my only son.

"It happens, and there's certainly a corrolation, but it's not always the case." - Diamonness

It doesn't have to "always" be the case for it to be a concern. The problem is that it "often" is the case, making belief in souls an "often" harmful superstition.

EDIT: This isn't to deny that people have the right to believe in it, but at the same time, I have a right to question it.

edited 12th Jul '11 10:17:50 AM by neoYTPism

Neo: Yes, you absolutely have a right to question it. However, correct me if I'm interpreting this wrong, you oppose the belief because you think it leads to opposition of helpful tech and research. Correct?

My name is Cu Chulainn. Beside the raging sea I am left to moan. Sorrow I am, for I brought down my only son.

Dia: The Dalai Lama may or may not be a bodhisatta. Many consider him to be such and to my knowledge he does not claim to be one. Others claim that he is not a bodhisatta. I know of very few who consider him to be a fully Enlightened being. That is to say a arahant or Buddha. People disagree wildly on who gets considered a bodhisatta and who's a Buddha and others run around claiming themselves to be either or and others still deny it when people label them as such.

The issue is one of heavy subjectivity.

If someone wants to accuse us of eating coconut shells, then that's their business. We know what we're doing. - Achaan Chah

As one who is also fascinated by the divine and whatnot, I have to ask; does it matter where souls come from? Or how? As long as we're here and breathing, we shouldn't question the nature of our existence.

For what it's worth though, I believe that souls exist because, well, they're just some sort of spiritual phenomena, an existence that just can't be grasped by human, and maybe even divine, minds.

And wouldn't a beforelife essentially be the same thing as the afterlife? At least that's what I believe.

"I'll show you fear, there is no hell, only darkness." My twitter

"I believe our future depends powerfully on how well we understand this cosmos, in which we float like a mote of dust in the morning sky."

The universe is a scary place. It's even scarier when you don't know what's out there.

edited 12th Jul '11 3:05:22 PM by Yej

Da Rules excuse all the inaccuracy in the world. Listen to them, not me.

Striving towards that information could be useful. It also may not be necessary to reaching Enlightenment. Either way I do think we should strive for answers. Always testing and looking and always walking. It may help ease our minds and may make reaching that final state easier.

edited 12th Jul '11 3:06:54 PM by Aondeug

If someone wants to accuse us of eating coconut shells, then that's their business. We know what we're doing. - Achaan Chah

@Yej: "The Sky calls to us, if we do not destroy ourselves. We will one day, venture out to the stars."

I agree with you though. We should learn more about the universe at large, but at he same time, we should be careful of what exactly we learn, and how we use that knowledge. There are things mankind wasn't meant to know for a reason, after all.

If you're saying that we should seek answers about ourselves (both as individuals, and as a species as a whole.) before we seek the truth. Then I agree with you.

"I'll show you fear, there is no hell, only darkness." My twitter

We should work on both. At the same time. Sometimes not. It depends.

If someone wants to accuse us of eating coconut shells, then that's their business. We know what we're doing. - Achaan Chah

What things could we possibly not mean to know about the universe?

Da Rules excuse all the inaccuracy in the world. Listen to them, not me.

Only the things we are incapable of perceiving at all.

If someone wants to accuse us of eating coconut shells, then that's their business. We know what we're doing. - Achaan Chah

...for now. Besides, then we just build machines to perceive for us.

edited 12th Jul '11 3:45:46 PM by Yej

Da Rules excuse all the inaccuracy in the world. Listen to them, not me.

By perceiving at all I also meant that not even the machines could perceive it. As in there is no way and never will be a way to perceive it in any form. Not even interpretations of it could be perceived.

If such things do exist then oh well. If not then oh well. It's pointless to even ponder about them. That is what I would define as "things man was not meant to know" though. It's pointless to ponder about it though.

Sitting on your ass and thinking about breathing is much more productive.

edited 12th Jul '11 3:48:27 PM by Aondeug

If someone wants to accuse us of eating coconut shells, then that's their business. We know what we're doing. - Achaan Chah

Such things do not exist by definition. That doesn't mean they're not interesting, though.

edited 12th Jul '11 3:53:33 PM by Yej

Da Rules excuse all the inaccuracy in the world. Listen to them, not me.

Since we can't perceive them we can't know if they actually do exist. They may exist though I think. I don't think wondering about them serves any useful purpose. It's not fun either.

It's much more fun to sit on your ass in order to reach The Other Shore. I wonder what that's like. My wondering about the paradox of non-existent existence that is also existent non-existence is proof that I am very far from the goal though.

edited 12th Jul '11 4:03:01 PM by Aondeug

If someone wants to accuse us of eating coconut shells, then that's their business. We know what we're doing. - Achaan Chah

They do, they are just beyond the perception of anything bound by the rules of the physical realm.

If a chicken crosses the road and nobody else is around to see it, does the road move beneath the chicken instead?

In traditional hebrew theology there were the Gates of Guf. Here's one example of it being applied to modern media:

http://wiki.evageeks.org/Guf

A single phrase renders Christianity a delusional cult.

Then they're still perceptible. If they're not perceptible, that means they're not having any effect on the universe, ergo they don't exist.

Da Rules excuse all the inaccuracy in the world. Listen to them, not me.

Dualism is stupid, souls don't exist.

"Coffee! Coffeecoffeecoffee! Coffee! Not as strong as Meth-amphetamine, but it lets you keep your teeth!"

UNLESS YOU ARE NIBBANA.

...but then you also don't exist. It exists but doesn't exist. It's not the total death of your existence, but it's the death of perception. And yet not.

INTRIGUING.

Maybe it means I become god and get to make my own universe. That'd be cool.

Though everything in reality exists, but doesn't exist as well though for a different reason. Namely the mind makes everything. Without the mind nothing exists. However other minds will continue to exist after your mind dies so everything exists.

edited 13th Jul '11 10:58:39 AM by Aondeug

If someone wants to accuse us of eating coconut shells, then that's their business. We know what we're doing. - Achaan Chah