False Views
The suttas regularly give the formula of the view of denial (natthika-diṭṭhi) - ten points that the Buddha calls false views (MN41, 60, 76, 110, 117). Which views, monks?
📿 “There is nothing given, nothing offered, nothing sacrificed”
This denies the fruit of generosity (1): a gift is simply a transfer of property; it does not purify the mind and does not create wholesome kamma. “Offered” (2) refers to gifts to the worthy: the Saṅgha, a teacher, a person of high virtue. Supposedly neither the giver’s intention nor the recipient’s qualities count for anything. “Sacrificed” (3) refers to ritual offerings: nothing done out of faith or reverence has any moral result.
⚖️ “There is no fruit or result of good and bad actions” (4)
This point denies the law of kamma. Killing and lying bring no bad consequences by virtue of being immoral; generosity and honesty bring no good ones by virtue of being moral. Such a person may still accept social consequences: the thief will be jailed, the generous person will be loved. What is denied is the inner moral causality that works regardless of human laws and other people’s opinions.
🌍 “There is no this world (5), no other world (6)”
There is no continuation after death, no rebirth. The view denies that beings come here from a previous existence and go on to the next one. There is only one chance life between birth and death.
👣 “There is no mother (7), no father” (8)
Nobody is denying biological parents. What is denied is the moral weight of this relationship: caring for one’s parents is not wholesome kamma, and cruelty to them is not an especially grave act. In the Buddhist tradition it is the other way round: parents give us life and bring us into the world, so helping them is one of the most fruitful actions and harming them one of the gravest. The debt to parents cannot be repaid; only helping them meet the Dhamma can clear it.
👁 “There are no beings born spontaneously” (9)
Sattā opapātikā are beings that, in the Buddhist view, arise at once in a new form, without conception or gradual development: devas, hell beings, some spirits. Denying them means denying planes of existence that ordinary perception cannot reach: there is only visible biological life.
🧘 “There are no righteous ascetics and brahmins who have themselves known this world and the other through direct knowledge” (10)
This denies the very possibility of direct spiritual knowledge (abhiññā): no one can see past lives, the rebirth of beings according to their deeds, or other worlds in their own experience. Anyone who claims such knowledge is either mistaken or lying. In other words, there are no other worlds, and no reliable witnesses either.
Putting it all together: From the Buddhist point of view, false views are the views that a human being is a temporary physical creature, death is the complete end, actions have no consequences beyond their obvious social effects, and past choices have no bearing on life in the present. Accordingly, if moral actions lead nowhere, the reasons disappear to refrain from evil when no one is watching, to be generous with nothing to gain, to care for one’s parents, to purify the mind and so on. This inevitably closes off any progress along the Noble Eightfold Path. As such views are cultivated, unwholesome states grow and wholesome ones decline.