Does Karma exist?

pinkpigs

I've had a rough week and feel that I'll never get a break. Some pals have been trying to cheer me and up and they tell me that Karma is a b*itch and will always come back to bite poeple in the ass.

I don't really believe in it.. just wondering what the consensus is?

P.P.

Raze_them_all

No. It's something people say to cheer themselves up.

RedXIV

I believe in Karma because it makes sense. If you're nice to people, you'll be remembered and people will speak well of you, that in itself will make nice things come your way. Similarily if your a thunderin' biatch, people won't go out of their way for you and you'll lose out on different things

short version: yup, wait and see

deelite

I'm a strong believer in Karma (my other half thinks it's a crock). I think you have to change how you feel about everything (I'm no expert btw). Also sometimes Karma takes a while to "come through" but when it does you will have a smile on your face and a sneaky giggle (even though I think that's against the rules of Karma!!!)

barbarians

Yes. I'm a stout believer in what comes around goes around.
If you do something nasty, you should have something nasty happen to you and the opposite way with if you do something good.I find this happens a lot.

However, there are always exceptions like bad people who never get punished and good people who never get a break.


In short, I believe karma exists and long may it continue.

Xiney

I believe in making the world a better place.

That means doing good deeds, and it means helping my community (even if it's only on a small scale)

I don't believe in any cosmic force affecting things coming back to me, I can only hope that by doing my bit, it will snowball.



However, I am sarcastic, snarky, and have a penchant for schadenfreude. So at least I'm not so "good" so as to be impossible to tolerate. (ie, holier than thou people = the suck)

krudler

Raze_them_all wrote: »

No. It's something people say to cheer themselves up.

This, its the same reasoning that people thank god for being cured of an illness, but dont blame him for giving them the illness in the first place which by that logic he did.

deelite

krudler wrote: »

This, its the same reasoning that people thank god for being cured of an illness, but dont blame him for giving them the illness in the first place which by that logic he did.

Who was it who recently said "well you weren't cured by an angel but by medical science..."

Raze_them_all

krudler wrote: »

This, its the same reasoning that people thank god for being cured of an illness, but dont blame him for giving them the illness in the first place which by that logic he did.

+1 By the reasoning of karma, Pakistan deserved the floods, kids deserve to be hungry, die in thousands every day etc, the evil so and so's

barbarians

Raze_them_all wrote: »

+1 By the reasoning of karma, Pakistan deserved the floods, kids deserve to be hungry, die in thousands every day etc, the evil so and so's

No because there are exceptions to every rule or in this case different situations.

Pakistan didn't deserve the floods or children don't deserve starve, these are just facts of nature for the flooding and a problem with humanity for starvation.

Raze_them_all

barbarians wrote: »

No because there are exceptions to every rule or in this case different situations.

Pakistan didn't deserve the floods or children don't deserve starve, these are just facts of nature for the flooding and a problem with humanity for starvation.

Unfortunately you can't choose to believe in karma as you pick and choose.

Dudess

Karma (the western notion of it - Buddhists will tell you that's not karma in its truest form at all though) does not exist just because you want it to exist, or simply because you believe in it. Where's the proof? The guarantee?
Of course if you do someone a good turn they'll likely repay you, but for the more abstract stuff? It's all very well to believe in this mystical payback and to say "You'll see"... but will you?

Celtise

I believe in it more than anything else out there. Though it can be a b!tch sometimes when you're waiting to see it's rewards.

Dudess

Yeah I'm still waiting to find out what payback Hitler got. I don't mean to seem smartarse but it baffles me why people would subscribe to it. If you do because it gives you a sense of comfort, absolutely more power to you, but to believe it's a definite just seems like self delusion.

*headdesk*
the third thread on karma recently, I'm going to start twitching!

I believe in karma&dharma, I don't believe in "what goes around comes around"

paky

pinkpigs wrote: »

I've had a rough week and feel that I'll never get a break. Some pals have been trying to cheer me and up and they tell me that Karma is a b*itch and will always come back to bite poeple in the ass.

I don't really believe in it.. just wondering what the consensus is?

P.P.

love, karma doesnt exist. good people get f**ked over all the time and there is no explanation for it.

Logical Fallacy

Dudess wrote: »

Karma (the western notion of it - Buddhists will tell you that's not karma in its truest form at all though) does not exist just because you want it to exist, or simply because you believe in it. Where's the proof? The guarantee?
Of course if you do someone a good turn they'll likely repay you, but for the more abstract stuff? It's all very well to believe in this mystical payback and to say "You'll see"... but will you?

Karma can exist if you embrace the concept. Most people simply are not willing to do so though, the want the good stuff to roll around, but they don't want to think that past actions of their own might result in bad stuff.

Also, not a single person i have met is willing to engage in the idea that sometimes you might have to be an an agent of Karma, which can mean being nice for no reward or heaven forbid being the person behind some wanker catching their comeuppance.

Be an agent of karma and slap a moron today!

barbarians

Raze_them_all wrote: »

Unfortunately you can't choose to believe in karma as you pick and choose.

But see you can't really choose NATURAL disasters to disprove karma.
Nobody can stop floods, just like nobody can stop earthquakes or volcanoes or hurricanes.
They are just nature taking its course and unfortunately humans get caught up in it.


I just believe that you get punished (most of the time) for doing bad things/get rewarded for doing good things.

paky

barbarians wrote: »

But see you can't really choose NATURAL disasters to disprove karma.
Nobody can stop floods, just like nobody can stop earthquakes or volcanoes or hurricanes.
They are just nature taking its course and unfortunately humans get caught up in it.


I just believe that you get punished (most of the time) for doing bad things/get rewarded for doing good things.

i dont believe anyone gets 'punished'. its religious dilliusion. its a way of coping with the harshness of life.

Dudess

Look at this woman's story. It makes me kinda angry tbh that there is a belief that she deserved what happened to her, and that she has been sufficiently compensated, and that those who did wrong to her are being punished. Ok, she's very forgiving and philosophical and positive - how do we know much of that isn't down to medication though?

krudler wrote: »

This, its the same reasoning that people thank god for being cured of an illness, but dont blame him for giving them the illness in the first place which by that logic he did.

Yeah I remember seeing a woman on the news who survived cancer twice, thanking god for getting her through it each time - why not be angry at him for giving it to her not once but twice?

DublinWriter

paky wrote: »

love, karma doesnt exist. good people get f**ked over all the time and there is no explanation for it.

Putting my Buddhist hat on, I'll say that's because you're inheriting your Karma from previous lives as well as the current one.

Raze_them_all

barbarians wrote: »

But see you can't really choose NATURAL disasters to disprove karma.
Nobody can stop floods, just like nobody can stop earthquakes or volcanoes or hurricanes.
They are just nature taking its course and unfortunately humans get caught up in it.


I just believe that you get punished (most of the time) for doing bad things/get rewarded for doing good things.

It can be applied in many ways,

If you believe in karma you generally have to believe in a higher power. All religions have their god as creater of the world/universe etc, therefore the cause of natural disasdters(acts of god) thus any devestation can be seen as regional or national karma. The karma of an entire area/nation taken into consideration and punished as such

Logical Fallacy

Dudess wrote: »

Yeah I remember seeing a woman on the news who survived cancer twice, thanking god for getting her through it each time - why not be angry at him for giving it to her not once but twice?

I can only assume that she doesn't see it as a case of God deciding to give her cancer, but i can only assume in her dark times, when her fear was all encompassing and she closed her eyes and prayed that she found strength from the action.

Nothing wrong with a bit of faith for those who need it i think.

paky

DublinWriter wrote: »

Putting my Buddhist hat on, I'll say that's because you're inheriting your Karma from previous lives as well as the current one.

putting my thinking hat on i would say your in denial. previous life? give me a break

Dudess

Logical Fallacy wrote: »

Nothing wrong with a bit of faith for those who need it i think.

Fully agreed. I just take issue though with "I believe in it/want it to be the case, therefore it's true".

krudler

Dudess wrote: »

Yeah I remember seeing a woman on the news who survived cancer twice, thanking god for getting her through it each time - why not be angry at him for giving it to her not once but twice?

Precisely, I started a thread on this very subject in regards to the Chilean miners on the Athiesm forum, its the same thing, thanking god for getting them out of the mine, but not blaming him for getting them in there or taking over 2 months to rescue them, it was effort by people, not god, that got them out.

Karma isn't about punishment, it's about action. It literally means "action". Actions have consequences. One way of looking at it is that they're not necessarily bad or good, but rather are they in adherence with our dharma. Anything else is a label explaining how it affects us.

epic copypaste coming up.

http://appliedbuddhism.com/2010/06/20/189/

We are like helmsmen on a small ship at sea. Our mindfulness and skillfulness set our direction and make the decisions of how we run our ship, but there is entire ocean that is also working independently of us. We neither understand what happens below the surface nor the invisible forces of the winds around us. We may navigate to safer waters, we may make wise decisions to create better sailing conditions– but we heirs of our decisions in how and where we sail, but we are not the creators of all “events” that happen around us– just the tendencies that those events will occur.
We have only to ask the questions, “If Khamma is the result of volitional action– then if there was total extinction of Buddhist accepted conscious/aware life, would there still be action? Do the stars in other galaxies burn out? Would tornados no longer exist? If the mechanisms of the universe are dependent on consciousness to turn the gears– what happens if the consciousness leaves?” The erroneous answer is that believing that karma is the ultimate creator of all effect, then karma is the ultimate cause of everything.

http://fds.oup.com/www.oup.com/pdf/13/9780192804570.pdf

The doctrine of karma is concerned with the ethical implications of
Dharma, in particular those relating to the consequences of moral
behaviour. Karma is not a system of rewards and punishments
meted out by God but a kind of natural law akin to the law of
gravity. In popular usage in the West, karma is thought of simply
as the good and bad things that happen to a person, a little like
good and bad luck. However, this oversimplifies what for Buddhists
is a complex of interrelated ideas which embraces both ethics
and belief in reincarnation. The literal meaning of the Sanskrit
word karma is ‘action’, but karma as a religious concept is
concerned not with just any actions but with actions of a particular
kind. Karmic actions are moral actions, and the Buddha defined
karma by reference to moral choices and the acts consequent
upon them.

Logical Fallacy

Dudess wrote: »

Fully agreed. I just take issue though with "I believe in it/want it to be the case, therefore it's true".

But, this is pretty much the definition of faith within the religious context. Accepting something as truth without proof.

Raze_them_all

Logical Fallacy wrote: »

I can only assume that she doesn't see it as a case of God deciding to give her cancer, but i can only assume in her dark times, when her fear was all encompassing and she closed her eyes and prayed that she found strength from the action.

Nothing wrong with a bit of faith for those who need it i think.

The problem is people believe god has a plan and built man, therefore designed cancer too.

I begrudge nobody for their faith, just there acceptance that their Diety is the cause of all good.

paky wrote: »

putting my thinking hat on i would say your in denial. previous life? give me a break

Karma generally comes from religions with beliefs in reincarnation, so yes previous lives.

Raze_them_all

krudler wrote: »

Precisely, I started a thread on this very subject in regards to the Chilean miners on the Athiesm forum, its the same thing, thanking god for getting them out of the mine, but not blaming him for getting them in there or taking over 2 months to rescue them, it was effort by people, not god, that got them out.

To add to this, saving them would be going against gods plan, thus proving man was more powerful than god.

But in saying that on the other hand, people will quickly point out at look at how it pulled a nation together and how none of the men died, surely this was gods plan.

paky

Raze_them_all wrote: »

Karma generally comes from religions with beliefs in reincarnation, so yes previous lives.

im sorry but that belief is insane to me.

Raze_them_all

paky wrote: »

im sorry but that belief is insane to me.

Do you believe in god?

lil'bug

this thread makes me want to watch My Name Is Earl

DublinWriter

Raze_them_all wrote: »

If you believe in karma you generally have to believe in a higher power. All religions have their god as creater of the world/universe etc, therefore the cause of natural disasdters(acts of god) thus any devestation can be seen as regional or national karma. The karma of an entire area/nation taken into consideration and punished as such

Nope.

We Buddhists aren't monotheists - we are atheists and don't believe in any over-arching God figure. Karma to a Buddhist is basically a fundamental law of the universe.

Your argument is a bit like saying to a physicist that he must believe in a God if he believes in Newton's Three Laws of Motion.

Raze_them_all

lil'bug wrote: »

this thread makes me want to watch My Name Is Earl

Such a good programme, Nadine Valasquez...nyom

DublinWriter wrote: »

Nope.

We Buddhists aren't monotheists - we are atheists and don't believe in any over-arching God figure. Karma to a Buddhist is basically a fundamental law of the universe.

Your argument is a bit like saying to a physicist that he must believe in a God if he believes in Newtons Three Laws of Motion.

AFAIK there is more than the bhuddist belief in karma. Hindu for example?

barbarians

Raze_them_all wrote: »

It can be applied in many ways,

If you believe in karma you generally have to believe in a higher power. All religions have their god as creater of the world/universe etc, therefore the cause of natural disasdters(acts of god) thus any devestation can be seen as regional or national karma. The karma of an entire area/nation taken into consideration and punished as such

But if "it can be applied in many ways", can't you have your way that God and karma are defunct whereas I ave my way of believing in God and Karma?

Logical Fallacy

Raze_them_all wrote: »

I begrudge nobody for their faith, just there acceptance that their Diety is the cause of all good.

Hmmm, with regard to the cancer thing, is scientists created a form of life in a lab, and that form of life were to get sick and die....did the scientists create the disease or did it just manifest itself within the life form due to occurring biological events AFTER the creation itself.

Also, i believe most people who believe in God follow the "he gave man free will" line.

Not trying to be a cock here, it's just that it's not often a thread like this runs smoothly and i do enjoy discussions like this, and i also enjoy playing (pardon the pun) Devils Advocate.

Raze_them_all

barbarians wrote: »

But if "it can be applied in many ways", can't you have your way that God and karma are defunct whereas I ave my way of believing in God and Karma?

Indeed that is your perogitive.

Logical Fallacy wrote: »

Hmmm, with regard to the cancer thing, is scientists created a form of life in a lab, and that form of life were to get sick and die....did the scientists create the disease or did it just manifest itself within the life form due to occurring biological events AFTER the creation itself.

Also, i believe most people who believe in God follow the "he gave man free will" line.

Not trying to be a cock here, it's just that it's not often a thread like this runs smoothly and i do enjoy discussions like this, and i also enjoy playing (pardon the pun) Devils Advocate.

It depends. Did they create the life forms entire genetic code from scratch?

I agree they very rarely do as extremeists from both sides generally tend to ruin it

paky

Raze_them_all wrote: »

Do you believe in god?

when it suits me

Raze_them_all

paky wrote: »

when it suits me

Well I find that belief insane.

WindSock

I don't think it's just a case of being a nice person and good things will happen. I think to be a genuinely nice person, you have to be a happy person with a positive outlook. When you have a positive outlook, you can take things on the chin a bit easier so it seems bad things don't affect you all as much.

Raze_them_all

WindSock wrote: »

I don't think it's just a case of being a nice person and good things will happen. I think to be a genuinely nice person, you have to be a happy person with a positive outlook. When you have a positive outlook, you can take things on the chin a bit easier so it seems bad things don't affect you all as much.

Also people will be more willing to do nice things for you.


If yer a right **** someone will always try to bring you down a peg or two

paky

Raze_them_all wrote: »

Also people will be more willing to do nice things for you.


If yer a right **** someone will always try to bring you down a peg or two

people will always find something wrong with you weather your good or bad. its called jealousy

elleburp

pinkpigs wrote: »

I've had a rough week and feel that I'll never get a break. Some pals have been trying to cheer me and up and they tell me that Karma is a b*itch and will always come back to bite poeple in the ass.

I don't really believe in it.. just wondering what the consensus is?

I do.

I've seen it, it can take a few years for people to get the full blown whack of it but it defnitely comes back around and if you've behaved as a decent person you'll get your comupance and if you've behaved like a pig you'll get that comupance too..... There's times I'd have loved to have gotten revenge but by rising above it I've held my tongue and I've seen Karma kick these people when they least expect it. I've also gotten kicked myself and eventually I've figured out why I deserved what happened. Things happen for a reason AND there's a reason why things happen.

I'm talking about things like people being bullies in school finding themselves in nasty relationships - not world wide natural disasters. Although I suppose there is a certain degree of natural balance that must be kept by the odd natural disaster, or mother nature's way of culling the human species but that's probably an entirely different thread?

Will

I sort of agree with the idea of karma as in, you do good things then good things will happen. You do bad things, bad things will happen. It's a nice ideal to go by, however I also know life isn't like that. I do however believe that life is like a radio wave, somewhat like the image below - it has highs and it has lows, some short lived, others longer lasting but always going up and down.



Karma reminds me to try be a nice person, however the radio wave idea keeps me rooted and makes me realise (in my mind) that there are things beyond my control that will influence my life positively and negatively.

Last few months I was going through a rough patch with college, work and extended family health issues. Was trying to re-assure myself that I was just on the low part of the wave and that it would go on the upswing once again. Family member passed away, screwed up an exam, applied for a job only to be told there were no positions to begin with. Things were looking bleak to say the least. Then around 3 weeks ago things were looking up, passed my exam, got called on monday for interview for today which went well etc etc. So that's my idea of the ups and downs however next story lends itself well to the idea of karma

Earlier today in work asked a colleague if he'd like some coke, he said yeah and offered me the euro for the can, said it was cool that I'd get it for him. Only a euro after all and it's nice to be nice. Got him a can and it gave me change even though id put in the exact coinage, so got 2 cans of coke for a euro. Karma? Maybe. Faulty machine? Most likely.

Why do murderers live a full life, all be it in prison when there are kids in 3rd world countries who've done nothing wrong in their whole lives and starve to death? That's where karma sorta gets me

Dudess

WindSock wrote: »

I don't think it's just a case of being a nice person and good things will happen. I think to be a genuinely nice person, you have to be a happy person with a positive outlook. When you have a positive outlook, you can take things on the chin a bit easier so it seems bad things don't affect you all as much.

Yeah, I agree with that. I agree with all the common-sense interpretations of it - but this abstract, mystical force?
Like, a school bully ending up in a bad relationship - that to me is just everyday life stuff that's gonna happen to people, former school bully or not. It could happen to someone who was never a bad person - and what did they do to deserve it?
"Good things happen to good people" is quite naive. Sure, that is often the case, but not because of karma. Horrific things happen to good people too.

krudler

Sh1t happens, you can attribute it to karma, god, luck, whatever. our tiny brains arent quite capable of realising we're not really that special in the grand scheme of things so invent these mystical overseers who look out for us.

Raedwald

Bad stuff happens to you, you just have to deal with it but over the course of a lifetime i think the good stuff is balanced out with the bad stuff in life.

Linguo

Always believe in karma, it helps us treat other people better and gives us peace of mind and patience when you can't change some of the horrible people that are out there in the world!

krudler

Linguo wrote: »

Always believe in karma, it helps us treat other people better and gives us peace of mind and patience when you can't change some of the horrible people that are out there in the world!

What about people that dont believe in karma? do you have to believe in it for it to affect you? or do non believers get a free pass?

Linguo

krudler wrote: »

What about people that dont believe in karma? do you have to believe in it for it to affect you? or do non believers get a free pass?

I think it's more a way to try and live your life, whether you believe in karma or not as a mystical thing it's a framework for how to treat people in your life and that being bad to people will eventually bring badness or hurt upon yourself. Of course, some people get away with blue murder and live happily ever after but in general bad deeds bring about unhappiness in the end.