santa100 wrote:Then please explicitly state your position on my question: Is it or is it not because of Kamma that one's born rich or poor, smart or dumb, beautiful or ugly, prestigious or low, etc. ?
Well, first of all:
"Students, beings are owners of kamma, heir to kamma, born of kamma, related through kamma, and have kamma as their arbitrator. Kamma is what creates distinctions among beings in terms of coarseness & refinement."
~MN 135
Of course, I can't verify this teaching on kamma, but it doesn't negate the aspects of the Noble Eightfold Path which I have verified, so I'm inclined to accept it given the common source. This is inference, and it is based on previous experience in the Dhamma, not
prima facie acceptance of claims about the herebefore and the hereafter. In fact, given the numerous wrong views described in DN 1 to do with questions of the past and future, I'm inclined to focus on what the Buddha focused on in that discourse:
"When those recluses and brahmins who are speculators about the past, speculators about the future, speculators about the past and the future together, who hold settled views about the past and the future, assert on sixty-two grounds various conceptual theorems referring to the past and the future — that too is only the feeling of those who do not know and do not see; that is only the agitation and vacillation of those who are immersed in craving."
I see that views of past and future are going to be flawed at least until stream-entry is attained (how inspiring!). So, I'm going to work for that, and not bother with discussing stuff I've never experienced. This is simply a possible approach to the Dhamma, which is really the only point I have been trying to make, starting back on page 113 of this thread.
Since Stream-Enterer wouldn't exist without Rebirth, where do you get the inspiration if HE never exists at the first place?
From where I've already said it's possible to derive said inspiration, both earlier and just now. That you cannot imagine it to be sufficient is
argumentum ad ignorantiam.