Hi guys,Alex123 wrote:Maybe today more Devas are being downgraded as humans. So more humans does not mean that overally beings morality improves.,alan... wrote:interesting. with the absurd surge in population perhaps the buddha was talking about the present time for him (500 BCE) and today there are a lot more people born in the human realm since morality is higher than it was in ancient times. couple this idea with the idea that the "human realm" may comprise many planets, not just earth, and we have a much higher number of beings being born in the human realm. perhaps more like 5% or even 10% which seems a lot better than 1%.
No offence intended - but I can't help thinking MN2 might be applicable to such speculation :
Kind regards,"This is how he attends inappropriately: 'Was I in the past? Was I not in the past? What was I in the past? How was I in the past? Having been what, what was I in the past? Shall I be in the future? Shall I not be in the future? What shall I be in the future? How shall I be in the future? Having been what, what shall I be in the future?'
Or else he is inwardly perplexed about the immediate present: 'Am I? Am I not? What am I? How am I? Where has this being come from? Where is it bound?'
"As he attends inappropriately in this way, one of six kinds of view arises in him:
The view I have a self arises in him as true & established, or the view I have no self... or the view It is precisely by means of self that I perceive self... or the view It is precisely by means of self that I perceive not-self... or the view It is precisely by means of not-self that I perceive self arises in him as true & established, or else he has a view like this: This very self of mine — the knower that is sensitive here & there to the ripening of good & bad actions — is the self of mine that is constant, everlasting, eternal, not subject to change, and will stay just as it is for eternity.
This is called a thicket of views, a wilderness of views, a contortion of views, a writhing of views, a fetter of views. Bound by a fetter of views, the uninstructed run-of-the-mill person is not freed from birth, aging, & death, from sorrow, lamentation, pain, distress, & despair. He is not freed, I tell you, from suffering & stress
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .than.html
Aloka