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Forums - General - Which concept has done more good in the world? Karma or The God of Abraham?

ultima on 02 September 2013
Machiavellian said:
snyps said:

I know which idea has done the most harm.  But Which do you think has done the most good?  For clarification... the god of Abraham is the God in Jewish, Christian, and Muslim Holy Books.   Yes, It all started with Abraham and his One God.  Ppl branched into many directions but it's the same idea.  I can't say a lot for christianity..  I read the red print: Christ's own words.  I beleive the red words have done a lot of good.  But the black print not so much.  Especially when you consider all the jewish, muslim, chistian wars and other acts christ would not have been kool with.

 

Karma is, I think, better.  You do good because you want good things to happen to you.  You don't cause harm for the same reason.  When some one screws you, and not in a good way, you let the world sort it out. 

 

What are your thoughts?  God of Abraham or Karma?

There is no accountability for Karma.  When something goes wrong, when the world does not work out the way you thought it should or when your good deeds go unnoticed, people get bitter.  The problem with wanting people to do to you as you do to others is that its dependent on just that.

The bible teaches that you do good because you want to obtain Christ like personification.  Meaning you do not do good because you want to be notice, accepted or people to do the same for you.   You do good because that’s what Christ would do.  he seeks no justification for his action.  He seeks no glory and he does not seek anyone to accept his good deeds, he just does it.

 

Seeking good only to see it happen to you is actually a selfish want.  Most times people get bitter or dishearten when their good deeds go unnoticed because they are looking for the acceptance of Man. So for the people who seek the reward of their GOD, they feel its more dependable than seeking the reward of man.

So do what Jesus did? Like destroy fig trees in inexplicable rage because they don't have figs? Like bring up that you're the son of someone important in every sentence? I guess those actions need no explanation. You just do them.

@bold: the philosophy of karma, and the Christian teachings are quite similar: if you do good, then you get rewarded, and if you do bad, then you get punished. The only difference is that in Christianity, the reward/punishment is infinite. Which is extremely unfair. No finite set of deeds is worthy of an infinite reward or punishment. In other words, Christians are much more selfish, since the reward they seek is infinite.



           

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ultima on 02 September 2013
Slimebeast said:
snyps said:
Slimebeast said:
It doesn't matter if it has done more good than any other idea if it's true. And Christianity is true.



That's just thumping your bible.

Not just thumping the bible, but partly.

The second sentence is what you describe as bible thumping, yes, and it's actually the core of Christianity, to claim that Christ is God. Yes, it could be described as bible thumping, but there's nothing wrong with that, it works that way. The Good News spread that way.

My first sentence though, has to do with what I think is the interesting part. Our search for truth. I am making a point about it, because I'm not primarily interested in comparing ideologies and beliefs and try to determine which is "better" for mankind by some contemporary, humanistic standards. I am interested in truth. And a Karmic worldview just doesn't make any sense.

The belief in karmic justice, that if somebody does wrong to you, "you let the world sort it out" is idiocy to me, because it's not just childish, but unlikely and unlogical, and so therefore it just can't be true, and that's why in my opinion it ultimately doesn't matter much, if any, if the belief in karmic justice by some measure causes people to behave in a "good" or "better" way than any other worldview.

The irony here is unreal! You claim that Christianity is the truth, then make fun of karmic philosophy for being unlikely and "unlogical". LOL!

So let me get this straight. There is an almighty supernatural being that hates for his name to be taken in vain, that is the jealous type, that demands that you do nothing on the holy sabbath, that finds the smell of burning animal flesh pleasing, that once only cared about his chosen race of Jews, that later had a complete paradigm shift and sent his son to be tortured and killed by humans, by impregnating a Jewish virgin, so that humans could be forgiven of their intrinsic sins, then resurrected his son and raised him to heaven to serve alongside him, then inspired a few monks to write contradictory manuscripts of Jesus's life, then inspired yet others to compile these contradictory manuscripts into biblical canon, effectively expanding his religion by letting everyone (not just Jews) to qualify to worship him. You know what, you're right. That's totally likely and logical.



           

ultima on 02 September 2013
SxyxS said:


karma is based on the principles of cause and effect.It makes it easier to reach awareness,to get independent,to grow up because there is no god you can hide behind and who can be missused as excuse for the own evil intention.
Several Bhuddism teachings were acceppted by modern western psychologist as very useful.

Abrahams God is based too much on arbritrariness(especially the muslim version).
A strange god who first was a racist(preferring jews as chosen people) unfair(abandoning them all for worshipping this golden cow-thing,though not all of them has worshipped the golden bull)
jealous(demanding people to sacrifice their children for him)merciless(punishing all egytians for the sins of few)
blasphemic(pretending to be more powerfull than chuck norris)
illogical(claiming to be almighty but unable to create a being that is more powerfull than he is)

in the sequel(bible nt) god abraham improved his behaviour,sent his son to forgive all our sins(but the positive effect of this isn't really working)sacrificed his own son(therefore judas and the jews can't be blamed for the death of jesus as it was gods plan to let his son die.they only did what he wanted to happen.

in the third part-quran(similar to
movies where the third part is usually the worst by far)
he sent a pedophile,massmurdering prophet whose hobbies were making war,enslaving non-muslim people(this tradition is still alive in sudan)killing jews and calling them sons of pigs and apes.
This time he changed even his name to Allah and he turned into a merciless guy who was just interessted in ruling the world.

comparing these facts i'd slightly tend to say that karma is better somehow.

comparing karma with the teachings of jesus i'd say they are equal.

Beautifully written! Totally agree!



           

Slimebeast on 03 September 2013
ultima said:
Slimebeast said:
snyps said:
Slimebeast said:
It doesn't matter if it has done more good than any other idea if it's true. And Christianity is true.



That's just thumping your bible.

Not just thumping the bible, but partly.

The second sentence is what you describe as bible thumping, yes, and it's actually the core of Christianity, to claim that Christ is God. Yes, it could be described as bible thumping, but there's nothing wrong with that, it works that way. The Good News spread that way.

My first sentence though, has to do with what I think is the interesting part. Our search for truth. I am making a point about it, because I'm not primarily interested in comparing ideologies and beliefs and try to determine which is "better" for mankind by some contemporary, humanistic standards. I am interested in truth. And a Karmic worldview just doesn't make any sense.

The belief in karmic justice, that if somebody does wrong to you, "you let the world sort it out" is idiocy to me, because it's not just childish, but unlikely and unlogical, and so therefore it just can't be true, and that's why in my opinion it ultimately doesn't matter much, if any, if the belief in karmic justice by some measure causes people to behave in a "good" or "better" way than any other worldview.

The irony here is unreal! You claim that Christianity is the truth, then make fun of karmic philosophy for being unlikely and "unlogical". LOL!

So let me get this straight. There is an almighty supernatural being that hates for his name to be taken in vain, that is the jealous type, that demands that you do nothing on the holy sabbath, that finds the smell of burning animal flesh pleasing, that once only cared about his chosen race of Jews, that later had a complete paradigm shift and sent his son to be tortured and killed by humans, by impregnating a Jewish virgin, so that humans could be forgiven of their intrinsic sins, then resurrected his son and raised him to heaven to serve alongside him, then inspired a few monks to write contradictory manuscripts of Jesus's life, then inspired yet others to compile these contradictory manuscripts into biblical canon, effectively expanding his religion by letting everyone (not just Jews) to qualify to worship him. You know what, you're right. That's totally likely and logical.

I didn't make fun of karmic justice, I just dismissed it as unlikely, based on primitive and naive feelings and wishes (Christianity is also largely based on a human individual's primitive and naive wishes and hopes, and there's nothing wrong with that, that's the motive for the believer to seek truth, to seek God) and being unlogical without any evidence.

If you're gonna make an argument for karmic justice, what do you base it on other than it's a nice idea? Explain how is it grounded in reality. Go ahead.

It's much more logical that there exists a mediator, an almighty God, who makes sure that some form of justice is enforced (according to Christianity not in this dark and evil world but in the next), than to believe in the Bhuddist Wheel of life, that all living things must repeatedly be reincarnated until they can escape carnal existense, being guided by a nameless karmic force who just evens out everything.

God is not racist just because he chose the a small, wicked tribe (the Jews) to use as a tool and mediator to prepare the world for the ultimate

It's not simply a paradigm shift. The Old Testament and the history of the Jews (even according to the Jews themselves, it's not just a Christian interpretation) is a preparation for the messiah, a saviour for the whole world.

Everything connects together in a brilliant way, the whole history from Adam, to Abraham, to Jesus, to present day, to the end of the world and finally the world to come.



Porcupine_I on 03 September 2013
badgenome said:
Karma. I've never met a stripper named God of Abraham.

I did, but he wasn't anything special



“It appeared that there had even been demonstrations to thank Big Brother for raising the chocolate ration to twenty grams a week. And only yesterday, he reflected, it had been announced that the ration was to be reduced to twenty grams a week. Was it possible that they could swallow that, after only twenty-four hours? Yes, they swallowed it.”

- George Orwell, ‘1984’

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weaveworld on 03 September 2013

'Common sense' is the best gooddoer of all time. Too bad not a lot of people posess that quality.



dsgrue3 on 03 September 2013
Slimebeast said:

Not just thumping the bible, but partly.

The second sentence is what you describe as bible thumping, yes, and it's actually the core of Christianity, to claim that Christ is God. Yes, it could be described as bible thumping, but there's nothing wrong with that, it works that way. The Good News spread that way.

My first sentence though, has to do with what I think is the interesting part. Our search for truth. I am making a point about it, because I'm not primarily interested in comparing ideologies and beliefs and try to determine which is "better" for mankind by some contemporary, humanistic standards. I am interested in truth. And a Karmic worldview just doesn't make any sense.

The belief in karmic justice, that if somebody does wrong to you, "you let the world sort it out" is idiocy to me, because it's not just childish, but unlikely and unlogical, and so therefore it just can't be true, and that's why in my opinion it ultimately doesn't matter much, if any, if the belief in karmic justice by some measure causes people to behave in a "good" or "better" way than any other worldview.

This post was hilarious to me for how inept it was.

Karma and Christianity are similar in that they both share the idea that things will be sorted through some authority, be it "the world" or "god". It is some pervasive force that doles out judgement. Both are absurd, for the same reason.

Guess when you're blinded by one side, you can't see the overlapping stupidity. By the way, the word is "illogical".

OT: Karma, no brainer. No one has ever been compelled to murder or terrorize as a result of it. 



MTZehvor on 03 September 2013
snyps said:
MTZehvor said:
By the definition of the word "more," it's fairly obvious that belief in the God of Abraham has done more, simply because more people believe in him than have ever believed in Karma. Far more acts of "goodness" can be attributed to believers in God simply because there are more of them that have done good acts. The same can be applied to be evil question as well. Far more people have done evil in the name of the God of Abraham (regardless of whether their beliefs are well placed or not), because there are far more believers.

It's simple counting, really.



I don't believe you can say there's more chritians than people who believe in karma. Half of the world believes in karma. Even christians. It's a common philosophy in all of asia and india too. I don't have hard numbers and you make a valid point. I'm just saying, that's my understanding.

Then I suppose we need a more concrete definition of the term "karma." Karma is the belief that, when you die, the various amounts of good and bad deeds that you have done during your life are weighed against each other, and you are reincarnated into a new life, the quality of which depends on how moral of a life you lived. If you lived a morally upright life, you are likely to be reincarnated into a higher quality life; if  you lived a bad life, you may be reincarnated into a lower status person, or perhaps even an animal. Going by this definition of karma, no, half the world does not believe in it, and certainly no Christians do.

If you are simply defining karma as "believing that at some point your good actions will be rewarded, and your bad actions will be punished," then yes, you could make the claim that more people believe in karma than do God (or at least the God of Abraham). However, that in and of itself is one of the central pillars of essentially all religion, so this comparison is a nearly impossible one to make. There's no way to determine for sure how many people are acting simply out of goodwill, or acting because they believe they will be rewarded for it, or whether there's a combination of the two motives.

So it really all comes down to what exactly you mean by "karma."



Slimebeast on 03 September 2013
dsgrue3 said:
Slimebeast said:

Not just thumping the bible, but partly.

The second sentence is what you describe as bible thumping, yes, and it's actually the core of Christianity, to claim that Christ is God. Yes, it could be described as bible thumping, but there's nothing wrong with that, it works that way. The Good News spread that way.

My first sentence though, has to do with what I think is the interesting part. Our search for truth. I am making a point about it, because I'm not primarily interested in comparing ideologies and beliefs and try to determine which is "better" for mankind by some contemporary, humanistic standards. I am interested in truth. And a Karmic worldview just doesn't make any sense.

The belief in karmic justice, that if somebody does wrong to you, "you let the world sort it out" is idiocy to me, because it's not just childish, but unlikely and unlogical, and so therefore it just can't be true, and that's why in my opinion it ultimately doesn't matter much, if any, if the belief in karmic justice by some measure causes people to behave in a "good" or "better" way than any other worldview.

This post was hilarious to me for how inept it was.

Karma and Christianity are similar in that they both share the idea that things will be sorted through some authority, be it "the world" or "god". It is some pervasive force that doles out judgement. Both are absurd, for the same reason.

Guess when you're blinded by one side, you can't see the overlapping stupidity. By the way, the word is "illogical".

OT: Karma, no brainer. No one has ever been compelled to murder or terrorize as a result of it. 

There's similarity from your atheist perspective, but the concepts are philosophically different. In Christianity the authority who enforces the justice is a person (God). It's a concept not just grounded in childish hope, but grounded in logic. In Bhuddism the authority for karmic justice is a cosmic nameless force and that's illogical.



dsgrue3 on 03 September 2013
Slimebeast said:
dsgrue3 said:
Slimebeast said:

Not just thumping the bible, but partly.

The second sentence is what you describe as bible thumping, yes, and it's actually the core of Christianity, to claim that Christ is God. Yes, it could be described as bible thumping, but there's nothing wrong with that, it works that way. The Good News spread that way.

My first sentence though, has to do with what I think is the interesting part. Our search for truth. I am making a point about it, because I'm not primarily interested in comparing ideologies and beliefs and try to determine which is "better" for mankind by some contemporary, humanistic standards. I am interested in truth. And a Karmic worldview just doesn't make any sense.

The belief in karmic justice, that if somebody does wrong to you, "you let the world sort it out" is idiocy to me, because it's not just childish, but unlikely and unlogical, and so therefore it just can't be true, and that's why in my opinion it ultimately doesn't matter much, if any, if the belief in karmic justice by some measure causes people to behave in a "good" or "better" way than any other worldview.

This post was hilarious to me for how inept it was.

Karma and Christianity are similar in that they both share the idea that things will be sorted through some authority, be it "the world" or "god". It is some pervasive force that doles out judgement. Both are absurd, for the same reason.

Guess when you're blinded by one side, you can't see the overlapping stupidity. By the way, the word is "illogical".

OT: Karma, no brainer. No one has ever been compelled to murder or terrorize as a result of it. 

There's similarity from your atheist perspective, but the concepts are philosophically different. In Christianity the authority who enforces the justice is a person (God). It's a concept not just grounded in childish hope, but grounded in logic. In Bhuddism the authority for karmic justice is a cosmic nameless force and that's illogical.

@Bolded&Underlined

This is why no rational person can take your type seriously. There is nothing logical about a faith position; it is devoid of logical arguments and all forms of evidence.

God is a person? So "he" is comprised of matter and resides in a dimension with space? I think most of your bretheren would disagree with the description. I'll just sit here in total bewilderment as to how this is "grounded in logic". Heh.

I'd love to hear what similarities exist between the rejection of a position and the position itself, because logically that is a ridiculous statement on your behalf. Maybe you should stop pretending to know anything about logic and simply admit you know very little about anything.