Paradox about Karma and Reincarnation

Quoting jasonm

Assume that karma and reincarnation are valid:

Quoting jasonm

The "karmic" solution is that this person has to live their next life being persecuted.

If I am not wrong about karma and reincarnation, I guess in your "new body" and "new mind" after you born again, you are not able to remind of or having memories of your past life and the cause of your death for being a Jew in Nazi Germany.
On the other hand, reincarnation doesn't necessarily ends up in a human form. You can reincarnate in a plant or animal, for example.

So, I don't see a paradox at all.

Quoting jasonm

The "karmic" solution is that this person has to live their next life being persecuted.

No, that's the simplistic retributive 'solution' - though it's unclear here, what problem needs solving.
A human has made very bad choices in one lifetime; choices that besmirch his soul, spirit, essence, eternal being or whatever, so that he cannot progress toward Nirvana. What need to happen, then, is that he takes a couple of steps back, is reborn in a simpler form - say a lizard - that has fewer and simpler choices, so that he can learn to make them correctly, before he gets another shot at the difficult ones.
The people being persecuted in this life don't become evil in the next as a consequence; they simply move on to a better incarnation.
(This is only a point of view - not dogma.)

Quoting jasonm

The problem: given the original scenario, such a person is now equivalent to the Jews in Nazi Germany - they are being persecuted. However, why aren't the people who sent this person into such a life now equivalent to the Nazis - as they are now doing the persecuting? Discuss...

This is just another case of what I call "the Paradox Paradox." That's where people call uncertain or ironic circumstances or simple inconsistencies paradoxes.

Also, calling a religious belief paradoxical sort of misses the point.

Quoting Vera Mont

What need to happen, then, is that he takes a couple of steps back, is reborn in a simpler form - say a lizard - that has fewer and simpler choices, so that he can learn to make them correctly, before he gets another shot at the difficult ones.

If there's one thing I can't abide, it's lizards who make bad choices.

Quoting Tom Storm

If there's one thing I can't abide, it's lizards who make bad choices.

In that case, we can all be relieved you're not in charge. Karma doesn't harbour prejudices, play favourites or take sides. So I've heard.....

Reply to jasonm The real problem is the implication that the Jews deserved their punishment. They must have done something such that the universe needed to teach them this lesson of the Holocaust.

Quoting Tom Storm

If there's one thing I can't abide, it's lizards who make bad choices.

:lol:

Quoting Vera Mont

No, that's the simplistic retributive 'solution' -

It is one version of Karma though not necessarily thought of as retributive, but rather as teaching the person what they failed to understand in the previous life. Yes, one also may be 'demoted' to simpler forms of life in some versions of reincarnation/Karma. Other versions have this now you'll get to experience the other side of the dynamic format. Some have both.

Quoting javi2541997

If I am not wrong about karma and reincarnation, I guess in your "new body" and "new mind" after you born again, you are not able to remind of or having memories of your past life and the cause of your death for being a Jew in Nazi Germany.

You don't remember, but you can still learn and become more compassionate or whatever. Later, in some conceptions of Karma, you do remember past lives - after a lot of meditation - and can slough off the whole thing.

But there are some real problems with these ideas, morally and otherwise.

Quoting Bylaw

you do remember past lives - after a lot of meditation - and can slough off the whole thing.

Really? if it would be possible, the world would work so different from as it does nowadays...

Reply to javi2541997 I'm talking about the model, which I don't agree with, and how it is conceived.

Though I do think some believers think that eventually we'll all figure it out and rejoin the mass of Vishnu or whatever. Then others have a more cyclic system and people hurting each other and being dumb or bad is just built in. Kind of like how we always have new laundry to clean.

It's all a question of identity; what is reincarnated. what Karmic baggage is carried from one life to another. So try the flavour of this, and add a pinch of salt to taste.

Consciousness, gathers accretions in the form of memories, habits, and associations. But in itself, and apart from its contents from time to time, consciousness is featureless, and therefore everywhere the same. "It ain't no use a-talking to me. It's just the same as talking to you.", as Bob Dylan sang. Or as Jesus put it, "Inasmuch as ye do it unto the least of these my brethren, ye do it unto me" When I am more awake, I tell myself these things; that the persecutor is always persecuting himself in another incarnation, and there is only an illusion of separation between us. I/you can look forward to/back on 10,000,000 deaths in the concentration camps and however many lives saluting the Fuhrer and goose-stepping across Europe, etc etc. We don't have to carry the Karmic baggage, it is always right there waiting for us.

Reply to jasonm I think the definitions of karma and reïncarnation need to be explained here. These are not scientific terms. They are widely open for interpretation. Thank you!