---In [email protected], <jr_esq@...> wrote : What do you mean by moral reciprocity?
Moral reciprocity concerns the mental effects based on the theory of karma. We know that there is a natural physical law in the universe which we call cause and effect which the ancient Indians termed "karma". The question is, does this karma theory work also n the mental level? Do bad thoughts create the bad things that happen to ourselves and to others? According to yoga theory, you build up samskaras due to karma -the actions in this life and in your past lives. You can remove the samskaras through tapas - "burning off" the accumulated layers of past actions. But, yoga will not remove all the samskaras - there's always a trace of karma because you still maintain a human body with food, coarse or fine, and thoughts and volitions. There is always an innate clinging to human nature. Patanjali says that the ideal state for awakening is the cessation of thoughts; you simply have to *isolate* the Purusha from the prakriti and then realization can occur on it's own, or not. Karma is a Buddhist concept, along with samsara and moksha, from the shramana tradition, "of which Buddhism and Jainism are continuations." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karma http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karma ---In [email protected], <richard@...> wrote : Based on the theory of karma, there are no chance events - everything happens for a reason. Karma works on all levels, from a single bade of grass up to the highest devas. According to the theory of karma, the is causation and reaction - human excrement always flows downstream and gravity sucks. There are no exceptions. The question is - does karma also work on the level of moral reciprocity? ---In [email protected], <jr_esq@...> wrote : No, I'm not converting to Judaism. I just reacted to the words written by Bhairitu based on the issues raised by Carde recently and the cosmological models that have been discussed here for the past week or so. But it is interesting to know what the current Jewish rabbis are thinking about the Jewish role in the Middle East conflict. For both the Jews and Arabs, they blame their mutual animosity on the failure of Jews to perform their duties as the "Chosen People" in the Bible. On the other hand, for us outside their culture, the conflict appears to be an ancient struggle for land and revenge. But they have managed to include the rest of the world in their age-old family feud. As we can see, the Americans and European nations are inextricably now involved in this feud in Iraq and Syria, although it appears to be an Islamic issue. As such, we are subjected to terrorists attacks in our cities, such as those that occurred in Paris, France. It would be foolish to think that the current terrorist attack in Paris is an isolated event. You may think that Genesis is a mere fictional story. But for the Jews and Arabs, it is real up to this day. And somehow, we too are involved in this drama as reluctant participants. Nonetheless, some evangelical Christians may or may not welcome this event as the sign for the coming of Armageddon and the subsequent Rapture. ---In [email protected], <[email protected]> wrote : ---In [email protected], <jr_esq@...> wrote : None of us is a machine or random in here. According to rabbi Kraft, humans came from Adam and Eve. In Hebrew word analysis, Adam means both the spirit of Hashem and the mud from the earth. Are you in the process of converting to Judaism John? Just curious as you seem to be posting a lot of Old Testament cosmology these days. My guess is that Bhairitu is wondering whether we are too predictable in our responses on here. I also think randomness and machinelike thinking play a part in everyone. When we get a stimulus that requires a response we have many options and we all probably cycle through many memes of explanations we've picked up on our journey through life. What we consider the best response will be the one that chimes best with what we have persuaded ourselves is reality, and we have different ways of persuading ourselves, some insist on hard 5 sigma data before accepting new cosmological theories (me) and others judge incoming data by how well it fits in with other things they (or someone they respect) have decided is true. Clearly we can kid ourselves in a major way or can close down options because they don't fit, which is fine as long as you are sure they don't. Most science is done in people's heads to work out whether an experiment is even worth the effort. Definite randomness there in the creation of ideas to test, but channelled towards a hopefully correct response to explain the machine which is what we are. Somehow... Truth is tricky but Genesis is a great story. One of my faves. ---In [email protected], <noozguru@...> wrote : Are you machinelike or random?
