Pt.3 Karma and god concepts

As I began to distance myself from Christianity, I continued to study ideas and concepts from the major world religions. I didn't desire to replace one religion with another, but I was interested in different concepts of the divine that other cultures possessed. I will be giving very basic concepts about different faiths, please forgive me in advance for any errors, as my specialty is protestant Christianity.

In general, I noticed that Hinduism and Buddhism search internally for god, the ultimate reality. The Abrahamic faiths, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam search externally for god, the ultimate reality. However certain sects of the Abrahamic faiths, Kabbalah, Gnosticism, and Sufi search for god  internally as well.

These faiths all agree that sin comes from inside of a person. They agree that sin can take you off of the path of god. They also agree that desire is the root of sin. On the other hand, they have wildly different remedies for sin, and what sin will ultimately cost. For Hinduism and Buddhism, sin ties into the ideas of karma and reincarnation. For Islam and Christianity, sin will send a person to a fiery hellish damnation for eternity. However for Judaism, sin will simply cause you to die.

The connected ideas of karma and reincarnation piqued my interest and made more sense to me than the idea of a devil, hell, and original sin.

Karma, the concept that positive and negative actions have consequences with regards to how close you are to reaching enlightenment, made me feel more accountable for my deeds. Accumulating good karma gets a person closer to enlightenment, eliminating the need for further reincarnation. A person will continue to reincarnate until they reach enlightenment. They can reach enlightenment by destroying all desire. I pondered the idea of an ultimate reality, but I like having desire.

As I read and thought more about karma, I realized that the idea of karma was a way for the ancients to make people behave properly because it spoke of existential consequences for temporal actions. In other words, what you do now will affect your internal spirit. Karma, which initially seemed quite different, upon further review sounded very familiar to ideas that I already knew. The consequences, although not the same, dealt with how your actions today can affect your eternity.

Karma, and other concepts like it speak to notions of justice and how "good" things happen to "bad" people, and how "bad" things happen to "good" people. Humanity has a hard time accepting inequity and inequality, ergo they created "spiritual" ways to deal with the harsh reality of living. Ultimately these thought lead to theodicy, or the problem of evil in the world.

The ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus deals with the difficultly of evil with this saying:

"Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?

Then he is not omnipotent.

Is he able, but not willing?

Then he is malevolent.

Is he both able and willing?

Then whence cometh evil?

Is he neither able nor willing?

Then why call him God?"

Note: When Epicurus spoke about God, he was referring to Zeus, the God of Greeks in the ancient Greek religion.

This quote, along with a better understanding of nature, took me further away from the beliefs of my youth into previously forbidden, new exciting intellectual territory.

Atheism 101 Pt.1 Definitions

I would like to inform you of what atheism is and what it is not along with other useful definitions. Please pay attention the bolded words.

Let's start with some basic definitions:(All definitions from the New American Oxford Dictionary unless otherwise noted)

Belief: an acceptance(emphasis added) that a statement is true or that something exists; something one accepts as true or real; a firmly held opinion(emphasis added) or conviction

Faith: complete trust(emphasis added) or confidence in someone or something; strong belief(emphasis added) in God or in the doctrines of a religion(emphasis added), based on spiritual apprehension rather than proof

Trust: firm belief(emphasis added) in the reliability, truth, ability, or strength of someone or something; acceptance(emphasis added) of the truth of a statement without evidence or investigation(emphasis added)

Religion: belief in and worship(emphasis added) of a superhuman controlling power, esp. a personal God or gods: ideas about the relationship between science and religion

Theism: belief(emphasis added) in the existence of a God or gods, esp. belief in one god as creator of the universe, intervening in it(emphasis added) and sustaining a personal relation to his creatures

Monotheism: the doctrine or belief(emphasis added) that there is only one God

Polytheism: the belief(emphasis added) in or worship of more than one god

Deism: belief(emphasis added) in the existence of a supreme being, specifically of a creator who does not intervene(emphasis added) in the universe

Pantheism: a doctrine that identifies God with the universe, or regards the universe as a manifestation of God

Agnostic: a person who holds that the existence of the ultimate cause, as God, and the essential nature of things are unknown and unknowable(emphasis added), or that human knowledge is limited to experience(Dictionary.com)

Skeptic: a person who questions(emphasis added) the validity or authenticity of something purporting to be factual(Dictionary.com)

Unbelief: the state or quality of not believing(emphasis added); incredulity or skepticism, especially in matters of doctrine or religious faith(Dictionary.com)

Atheism: disbelief or lack of belief(emphasis added) in the existence of God or gods

Humanism: an outlook or system of thought(emphasis added) attaching prime importance to human rather than divine or supernatural matters

Theists make a claim of ultimate supernatural authority based on belief without evidence or investigation, atheists deny the claim of supernatural authority based on belief. Atheists require investigation and evidence of supernatural claims because belief is not enough.

Thanks for bearing with me through all of these definitions! I will refer to them in future Atheism 101 posts.