user-1: Is belief in karma due to eternalism completely useless?
I do not know why those without self view believe in karma, but belief in karma is said to be useful, so does it matter if your metaphysics turns out to be mistaken? In which case, is eternalism a skilful means?
More generally, I don't understand why lack of self view on paper, as an abstract belief you assent to, is very interesting or helpful. After-all, few people today believe in a soul, even a spirit.

user23339: 
"In his effort to master kamma in such a way as to bring kamma to an end, the Buddha discovered that he had to abandon the contexts of personal narrative and cosmology in which the issue of kamma first presented itself. Both these forms of understanding deal in categories of being and non-being, self and others, but the Buddha found that it was impossible to bring kamma to an end if one thought in such terms. For example, narrative and cosmological modes of thinking would lead one to ask whether the agent who performed an act of kamma was the same as the person experiencing the result, someone else, both, or neither. If one answered that it was the same person, then the person experiencing the result would have to identify not only with the actor, but also with the mode of action, and thus would not be able to gain release from it. If one answered that it was another person, both oneself and another, or neither, then the person experiencing the result would see no need to heighten the skill or understanding of his/her own kamma in the present, for the experience of pleasure and pain was not his or her own full responsibility. In either case, the development of the fourth type of kamma would be aborted [SN12:67, Udana6.6]."


~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Kamma & the Ending of Kamma" https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/Wings/Section0009.html


user-1: 
Is belief in eternalism completely useless?

Yes, it's completely useless. It will only keep the mind in delusion and away from clarity, wakefulness and the realization of wisdom.

-1: <p>Is belief in karma due to eternalism completely useless?</p>
<p>I do not know why those without self view believe in karma, but belief in karma is said to be useful, so does it matter if your metaphysics turns out to be mistaken? In which case, is eternalism a skilful means?</p>
<p>More generally, I don't understand why lack of self view on paper, as an abstract belief you assent to, is very interesting or helpful. After-all, few people today believe in a soul, even a spirit.</p>
 23339: <blockquote>
<p>&quot;In his effort to master kamma in such a way as to bring kamma to an end, the Buddha discovered that he had to abandon the contexts of personal narrative and cosmology in which the issue of kamma first presented itself. Both these forms of understanding deal in categories of being and non-being, self and others, but the Buddha found that it was impossible to bring kamma to an end if one thought in such terms. For example, narrative and cosmological modes of thinking would lead one to ask whether the agent who performed an act of kamma was the same as the person experiencing the result, someone else, both, or neither. If one answered that it was the same person, then the person experiencing the result would have to identify not only with the actor, but also with the mode of action, and thus would not be able to gain release from it. If one answered that it was another person, both oneself and another, or neither, then the person experiencing the result would see no need to heighten the skill or understanding of his/her own kamma in the present, for the experience of pleasure and pain was not his or her own full responsibility. In either case, the development of the fourth type of kamma would be aborted [SN12:67, Udana6.6].&quot;</p>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu &quot;Kamma &amp; the Ending of Kamma&quot; <a href="https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/Wings/Section0009.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/Wings/Section0009.html</a></p>
</blockquote>
 -1: <blockquote>
<p>Is belief in eternalism completely useless?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Yes, it's completely useless. It will only keep the mind in delusion and away from clarity, wakefulness and the realization of wisdom.</p>
