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Jaina Logic
that God is not the creator of the world. It is doubtless that either of the two views is false. But the important point which one should consider here is as to what is the purpose behind these two views. The upholders of the former view state that if you do evil acts, God will punish and send you to hell and if you do good acts He will be pleased with you, make you happy and send you to heaven. The Jainas who subscribe to the latter. view say that if you indulge in evil acts, you will bind inauspicious karmas which will give you unpleasant or painful fruits like the unwholesome food eaten by you and will cause you to go to hell; and if you perform good acts, you will earn auspicious karmas which will give you auspicious or pleasant fruits like the wholesome food eaten by you. By instilling into men the faith in the world-creator God, one sect causes them to perform the same type of activity which another sect causes them to perform by making them opposed to the view of the world-creator God. But here we should ask ourselves: Do these two views differ on the point of religious, righteous or good conduct? No, they agree on the point that the results which one has to experience of one's bad acts are bad and the results which one has to experience of one's good acts are good. They differ only on the point as to how the bad or good results come upon the doers of the bad or good acts. But this difference is trifling. Why should it be the cause of conflict? The conflict is understandable, if the aims or purposes of the two sects are contradictory. But here their purpose is one and the same. Even if we regard the view of the creator God as scientifically untrue, we cannot say that it urges men to indulge in evil activities. Those who are temperamentally emotional rather than intellectual are attracted to this view; they consider it to be more beneficial. They think that if we leave everything to the will of God and surrender ourselves completely to His will, we become free from worries. The belief in the world-creator God subdues and destroys our egoism as to the agentship of acts and makes us discreet about what is good and what is evil. Those who are temperamentally more rational do not believe in the creator God, because to them such God does not stand to reason and logic. They think that instead of believing in the creator God and depending on Him, we should be self-reliant and ever vigilant, and should make sincere efforts for the cultivation of spiritual powers; again, instead of irrationally devoting ourselves to God and making absurd efforts to please Him it is better to get engrossed in the performance of our duties. They think that there is no one who can forgive us for our sins. So we should be afraid of doing
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