Here are my concluding thoughts:

I believe I have stated my case sufficiently to buttress my own argument. Yapa has stated his. A convincing argument is made not by running around in circles talking about the same thing but by the quality of the ideas presented and how logical and sound the reasoning process behind it is. In that spirit, I encourage the reader to read Yapa’s comments and mine carefully and come to their own conclusions.

Still awaiting a reply from you to my post of February 5, 2010 @ 10:17 am

Are you really busy or ……… ?

I believe Christians believe in Rebirth
I also believe that they believe in Karma (Pali word meaning Action)

My reasons are given in my post below. Hope you have now got the time as I saw a post from you addressed to yapa yesterday.

Calling your attention to my post of February 5, 2010 @ 10:17 am, in response to yours of February 4, 2010 @ 11:28 pm

You believe you were created from the earth of the ground? Same way you can believe the truths of the same kind, I have no problem.

God! please protect this man, made of earth!

I have no way to stop you accepting whatever you want. Even you can call pen a pencil. You can call a lie a truth as well. I cannot stop fooling yourself with a prejudiced mind. Continue with your good work. I never wanted to answer you or your questions.

God bless you!

Calling your attention to my post of February 5, 2010 @ 10:17 am, in response to yours of February 4, 2010 @ 11:28 pm

You are not second to any but thank you very much for your Kind thoughts of encouragement

Is there any connection between you and “Rav” of the following?

http://www.groundviews.org/2009/11/25/the-transformation-of-buddhism-in-sri-lanka/#comment-11229

Thanks!

Very good explanation about kamma and re-birth. I am also waiting to give some more when the right time comes. I should say you have been maintaining your excellent consistency throughout. Keep it up.

Thanks!

Your main problem according to me is you understand something else from anything. I can’t help it. You say you have learnt Buddhism a lot. I think same thing must have happened to it. I have seen many people who even sleep on text books, but ultimately found to be unsuccessful in their exams. I don’t know whether you are in that category. But I can’t help feeling pity about you.

thanks!

Even after reading the thread from the beginning and reading the first few posts you still try to maintain that it is not an attack on Buddhism either your comprehension is wanting or you have a selective filter before you (and you wonder why I brought your attention to that fact!!).

Buddhist philosophy has no Ethnic owner though you try to denigrate it as such, in your TWISTED mind, in order to fit it to whatever AGENDA that you have in mind. Does your religion have a CAST OWNER?

Hinduism had a CAST OWNER and probably still do. The intervention of the Supreme Court of SL was needed to obtain “EVEN the Right of Worship” at a Hindu Temple (Kovil), to a very large section of the Tamil community who were DEPRIVED of it by the High Cast Tamils.

The Jews think they are the CHOSEN people where Christianity is concerned. IS GOD White, Black or Brown or Yellow?
What Language does he Chose?
What Race does He Chose?
What Country does He Chose?

So which Chosen group do you belong to?

You jump in at the Tail End of a Discussion and post your Crappy Questions without having the decency to read what went before. You accuse people of things that they did not even write about.

You state
I did not come for an argument with you, and I will not intend to do so either. I was reading Mr. Yapa’s argument and yours with SomewhatDisgusted.
Unquote

In the FIRST place I did not have an “ARGUMENT” with SomewhatDisgusted, for the SIMPLE reason that both He and I have the same views about an Omnipotent CREATOR GOD. If you Learn to READ rather than glance, you will have that confirmation from SomewhatDisgusted himself in this post of his January 14, 2010 @ 7:11 pm

You state
“You believe Buddhism is superior and can prove its teachings scientifically with evolution and all field of sciences and theories. Then, there are others who feel similar ways of their beliefs. I think that is natural as some of us are either born into a system of religion or adopted them later on and that’s ok to feel whichever the way people feel until they must examine teachings for themselves thoroughly to find if such beliefs are superior, and founded on myth or facts.”

You really have a problem in comprehending what you read.

Your FIRST sentence is TOTALLY out of line. I stated that I have no interest in CONVERTING people to believe in either Karma or Rebirth. Hence I had no interest in PROVING either of these concepts and I did not try to prove either of them.

I recognize your right to believe in anything that you want, as long as you don’t come out on a “Public Forum” and Pontificate on the “Transformation of Buddhism” in Degrading terms. Once you do that, you are inviting searching questions about YOUR beliefs which will of course be unpalatable to the said believers.

Secondly, even the most ardent proponents of the Concept of a CREATOR GOD who is Omnipotent, Omniscient, Omnipresent and Merciful could not sustain it, not due to anything else, but due to the INFERIORITY of that concept. It has more holes in it, than a Seive. So don’t blame it on Buddhism.

Since you have raised the concepts of Rebirth and Karma let’s have a FAIR look at both.

Do Christians BELIEVE in Rebirth?
I say they do what do you say?

Karma is a Pali word for “Action”. In a religious sense it means that Karma is followed by Vipaka (Pali word for result). This concept is present in Hinduism, Jainism etc. It is also present in Christianity (God will punish you for the wrongs you do or reward you for the good things you do – action and result).

Karma has a different meaning in relation to Buddhism. In Buddhist Philosophy Karma means “Mindful Action” this is premeditated action. I believe EVERY Legal system in a Democracy makes this distinction (please correct me if I am wrong).

In Buddhist Philosophy there is a result (Vipaka) accruing to you when you do something “KNOWINGLY” it could be either good or bad. Some of the Actions that you do, do not bring IMMEDIATE results and some do. Those that do not bring immediate results can bring results later. As far as the CURRENT BIRTH is concerned there is no proof necessary as the results are visible during a lifetime.

Whether the results of an action that has not brought about a result in this birth gets carried over to the next is uncertain (to me at least, as my knowledge of Buddhism has still not reached that level of maturity). However I BELIEVE in it, given what I see during this birth. Probably I will KNOW it when my knowledge of Buddhist Philosophy deepens and my mind becomes sharper. So till then, as far as I am personally concerned, it is a belief based on good faith, after observing what happens in the current birth. It is not a BLIND belief.

BTW I too respect honesty but will definitely challenge unjustified criticism.

You equated Buddhism with Science ( “learn modern Science or Buddhism before talking what is familiar to you”). What “Science” you may be talking about I was guessing. Perhaps, your “Eastern science” and “logic” combined can make up a better term, may be “Scientology”.
I think I learned a lot about Buddhism lately than what I had learned in my secondary level.

Thanks

I do not get why you are telling me all that. I noticed as I looked through your posts you said that statement quite often. That statement tells me that you feel more superior and threatened and challenged of your beliefs! I believe that statement is just an excuse. All this “Superiority”started with the rise of “Sinhala Buddhism” in Sri Lanka.. This is not the only time or the website that I have heard or seen this statement of “attack”. Please don’t insult people in the name of a religion
I did not come for an argument with you, and I will not intend to do so either. I was reading Mr. Yapa’s argument and yours with ‘SomewhatDisgusted. Then, I wanted to express my views on the ongoing debate over “Karma” and “Reincarnation” where I saw someone is honest and fair separating the facts from Myths in his analogy of those concepts.

You believe Buddhism is superior and can prove its teachings scientifically with evolution and all field of sciences and theories. Then, there are others who feel similar ways of their beliefs. I think that is natural as some of us are either born into a system of religion or adopted them later on and that’s ok to feel whichever the way people feel until they must examine teachings for themselves thoroughly to find if such beliefs are superior, and founded on myth or facts.

Hope you realize someone going to accept things at face value while others go above the authority and tradition and apply, analyze and sort out what is fact and what’s not. In that process, people have to be honest, impartial, and fair then one can arrive at true results in the final analysis.

Now it appears that you are somewhat deviating from the subject as reasonable argument is presented in the thread whose views are fair and honest, and using a fair and standard criteria on both religious beliefs. I respect honesty. I may respectfully disagree on things i may have to accept on a scale, but I appreciate the fairness, logic and reasoning that being demonstrated in arriving at conclusions.

This thread was an attack on Buddhism. The commentators attacked assuming they had a superior belief. Their source of Authority was a chronicle called the Bible which itself is steeped in myth. Hence any argument based on the Bible was not tenable.

My writings were aimed at destroying this superiority complex of the Zealots who wanted to convert the world, not to convince anyone about Rebirth or Karma.

Rebirth is an accepted concept in Christianity, Hinduism, Jainism, Islam, and almost any major religion and of course Buddhism. The difference is the NUMBER OF TIMES it is supposed to occur. I was not arguing either for Rebirth or Karma, so please get your facts straight.

God is supposed to be Omniscient, Omnipresent, Omnipotent and Merciful. The first question is why such a God could not produce his own set of Rules written by his own hand without having to depend on the “Inspiration” of his own “creation” to write one for Him. In the absence of such an authoritative text an argument based on inspirational writing becomes worthless.

The ONLY document claimed to be written by GOD is the stone Tablets containing the 10 commandments. I have used it to breakdown Creator arguments.

I have used Scientifically known facts about Genetics to breakdown creation fallacies. I have also questioned God’s great Plan of procreation when he created ONLY one man and One woman (created from the same man).

Was Incest part of this Great Plan of Procreation?

My interest was to breakdown the “CREATOR” arguments not to convert the reader to accept Rebirth or Karma.

You are welcome to try an ESTABLISH the theory of Creation.

You are back to square one. If you don’t know, please learn. If you have no capacity to learn please understand that. These are subtle and complex things. Again you are talking of obsolete science to ascertain these ever existing subtle things. Learn modern Science or Buddhism before talking what is not familiar to you. You can talk on emotions, but those are outdated methodologies. The best thing one can do is to accept the realities. You can never be able to existence of god to kamma or reincarnation. Just go through the massive resource of Internet and ascertain yourself the reality. Read Bible fallacies and contradictions and also about kamma and reincarnation on Internet. Please don’t try to cheat yourself and console yourself. You are weeping and mourning around the bush.

Thanks!

Yes, I read some of the arguments that I missed here. Frankly, you or Mr. Yapa have not proved or could prove the existence of “Karma”, “reincarnation” and or disprove “creation”. Both of you have put forth great deal of explanations and going on any conceivable theory (and making up new formulas) to substantiate your efforts on this argument, but you are unable to prove anything simply because there aren’t any. So the bottom line is those who want to accept “karma”, and “reincarnation” and “creation of God” must accept by faith alone.
The scientific theories cannot prove or disprove religious thoughts, concepts and beliefs. I consider such efforts are just wishful thoughts. The ultimate fact is the religion is an individual choice based on a person’s own perception, reason, belief, faith and conviction.
If you insist that you gave proof of existence of “karma” and “reincarnation”, I may have to ask you same questions others already asked before for which you could not provide proof other than faith.

OTC, you both tried many methodologies and ideas to find a proof for your position but it is an impossibility. Mr.Yapa indicated that we accept things without proofs. He said, political scientist accepts political theories without proof, Social Scientist accepts many things without proof, Natural Scientist accepts many things without proofs and even Mathematicians accept many things without proofs. So he implies that we must accept “Karma” and “reincarnation” also without proof!
I am not a theologian but I know what I believe. I don’t assume others may have left this website because they cannot argue with you. Their responses clearly indicated why they would not prefer to do so. Your arguments /questions are just twisted and misinterpreted scriptures. No matter what they answered you, you would throw back the same questions at them.
Thanks