Buddhist Philosophy Rejects Dualism and Eternal Damnation!
Strictly speaking, the philosophical Buddhist view is that human awareness (and consequential habit of thought and behaviour) is a product of a certain orientation of the onging stream of consciousness. This is to say that the Judeo-Chrstian habit of affixing a permanent identity to speech-patterns and bodily-actions does not apply - and herein lies the chasm which divides the Buddhist and Christian view of the world. The same can be said to be true even within a modern (secular) society that has evolved out of the Judeo-Christian tradition - which is dependent upon the false dichotomy of good and evil.
All thought, speech, and action is a result of a temporary congealing of conditions within the mind and body of the individual which generate certain modes of expression. If a particular cycle of expression keeps repeating within the life of a particular individual - then regardless of the nature, import, or complexity of these expressions - the individual should NOT be permanently associated with these behaviours - on the grounds that their expressions only seem permanent from a deluded viewpoint that is misunderstanding what is happening.
As the Judeo-Christian tradition does not understand the Buddhist assessment of the ever-changing Five Aggregates (a process occuring from moment to moment - according to the Abhidhamma) - such a theistic tradition cannot grasp the fact that an individual only temporarily exists - and that there is no underlying "soul" (psyche) or "atma" which serves to link materially living beings to an immaterial divine entity. There is no permanent spiritual foundation that can be punished by an unseen sky-spirit. Given that this is true, the entire edifice of Judeo-Christian dualistic notions of "justice", "law", and "punishment" simply does not make sense. How can an ever-changing being be punished - when there is nothing permanent to be punished?
Contemporary Western society insists that its citizens should be punished or "corrected" if their speech and action violates the current definition of what such a society thinks is acceptable. The consequence of Buddhist philosophy completely disagrees. Compassion and loving kindness recognises the continuously changing nature of an individual (which is a combination of ever-changing processes) and therefore never holds such a person as being negatively anchored to any (or specific) sets arising out of his or her own thought-stream, speech-pattern, or behavioural habit. Just as the Buddhist is free of all (dualistic) judgementalism - the non-Buddhist individual should be made free of all attachment to their own patterns of repetitive expressions that define their existence.
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