32 replies to this topic

[Ranteur]

What is your opinion on Karma? "Karma is going to bite you in the butt." Etc. Do you believe it exists?

I personally believe in it, but it's basically just that you should do good things for others without asking for something in return, and some time in the feature there's a possibility of being rewarded.

[Elindoril]

I don't believe in it, I've seen nice people do great things for people, but end up with tragedies happen on their lives, if Karma was going to help them, it wouldn't continuously make their life miserable.

[Bryan]

I don't believe in the true version of Karma. But since it's become acceptable in the English language to use that word to describe awkward situations then I'm forced to use the word.

[Tailwind]

I stopped believing in it year ago.

Watched a friend of my family do nothing but good for everyone around her, including strangers, asking nothing in return, etc etc have her house burn down, lose her son and then fall very ill herself. All within a matter of months.

Now, unless "Karma" works backwards, then it just doesn't exist whatsoever.

[Will]

I don't believe in Karma per se but I think if you do good stuff and feel good about it, then you have a higher chance of having good stuff happen to you. I guess that's kinda of Karma.

[Mr. Hobo]

Karma is retarded. There is no magical force that makes the world a fair place. The evil people who do get punished, get punished because good people take action. The good people who get rewarded are rewarded by their own actions or the actions of other good people. Karma is just an excuse to sit on your hands.

[Noitidart]

I don't believe in Karma per se but I think if you do good stuff and feel good about it, then you have a higher chance of having good stuff happen to you. I guess that's kinda of Karma.

Agreed. If you do good then you feel good. When you feel good everything around you seems good. << This is real true I think!!

But I guess you can feel good without doing good lol

[Ranteur]

I didn't mean that you would magically have something good happen to you.
Haha, being emo does that for you. One time when I was feeling really depressed, I was looking down as I was walking, as is normal for someone trying to avoid social contact due to depression, and I found a 20 dollar bill on the ground. Haha. I wouldn't have seen that if I was really happy.

[Cyo]

Everybody has a different idea of what is good and what not.

For example: if you were a knight in the crusades then clearing the land of pagans was a good thing because you spread the word of god and all that shit.

But like, I don't know where I wanted to go on from that example so yeah.

[Jakerz]

I don't believe in Karma per se but I think if you do good stuff and feel good about it, then you have a higher chance of having good stuff happen to you. I guess that's kinda of Karma.

[outsidedream86]

I believe humans have an innate need to search for patterns in their environment, whether they are actually patterns or just random noise. If we didn't, our species would have died out long ago. So it's better for our brain to err on the side of finding patterns where none actually exists than to miss a pattern that is actually there. I think belief in karma is just our way of trying to explain the "noise" in our lives by searching for a pattern.

[Frizzle]

It's all based on a pyschological basis of an inner or outer locus of control.

[Metigue]

I don't believe in it, I've seen nice people do great things for people, but end up with tragedies happen on their lives, if Karma was going to help them, it wouldn't continuously make their life miserable.

The Hindu's believe that when this happens it's punishment for something bad you have done in your past life.

I guess they thought of it because when people are born into slums and have no chance at life, it kind of justifies it.

It's really an idealistic world, but not really.

Imagine going up to a woman with a miscarriage and going "Oh, he died at birth he must've been a bastard"

[Aurora]

LOL sharon Stone talked about Karma, but I dont believe in it. I'm not supersttitious

[Cyo]

"Oh, he died at birth he must've been a bastard"

Rofl, read that with an indian accent.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNxb8kN6da0

[Metigue]

Rofl, read that with an indian accent.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNxb8kN6da0

LOL I love how he is like "Tell me more xD"

It's a prank call not pedofile hotline

If Karma were real a bus would fall on that guy.

Edited by D3ath t0 nubs, 07 September 2009 - 09:02 AM.

[redlion]

I stopped believing in it year ago.

Watched a friend of my family do nothing but good for everyone around her, including strangers, asking nothing in return, etc etc have her house burn down, lose her son and then fall very ill herself. All within a matter of months.

Now, unless "Karma" works backwards, then it just doesn't exist whatsoever.

Karma doesn't explain individual events per se. Karma is a way of saying that your deeds bring deeds in kind. Essentially, good acts are bound to bring further good acts, whether by inspiring people or shaming them into acting accordingly. Take, for instance, the act of charity. Charity is likely to inspire others around you to charity, or shame them to it. The people accepting charity will be shamed by their acceptance, and will be likely to remember that shame when they are flush and can contribute to charity themselves. All this influence increases charitable contributions overall, and in turn creates more good deeds. Conversely bad or evil acts like murder are like to generate acts of retribution, whether just or not. Justice is betimes an act of sanctioned retribution. But this is besides the point, for Karma does not describe accidents.

Accidents like houses burning down are not acts of karma, but merely coincidences inflicted on people that were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Trying to explain freak occurrences like pilot light malfunctions or christmas tree fires as Karma is stupid. Similarly, acts of nature like immuno-genetic deficiencies that allow cancer are not the acts of man. The acts of nature are not Karma, but rather the acts of man are returned, or in other words, are followed, by like acts.

Take a look at This for other causes of things, besides karma.

Karma is retarded. There is no magical force that makes the world a fair place. The evil people who do get punished, get punished because good people take action. The good people who get rewarded are rewarded by their own actions or the actions of other good people. Karma is just an excuse to sit on your hands.

Karma isn't a magical force. Haven't you seen the Matrix? Karma is a word that describes a connection between the acts you execute and the acts that are executed around you. Karma isn't a reason for inaction, but rather a spur to action. Your karma is a living thing, influenced by everything you do and think. You influence your karma every time you make a right (morally) decision. Its a way of saying you influence the people around you, and yourself. When you give in and have a drink when you know you shouldn't, you compromise yourself, and you make the decision acceptable to the people around you.

Imagine a hypothetical instance. You are the son of an affluent businessman, you go to university at a state school, and you room with three guys of varying backgrounds of lower class standing (i.e lower income) than you. Since you have a larger family income, and you can afford to be generous with petty expenses like groceries and utilities, you pick up the tab nine times out of ten when you grocery shop. Your roommates are likely to be sympathetic when one day you cannot afford to pick up the tab, and will be inspired or shamed into picking up the tab by influence. This relationship is all that karma seeks to define. Acts and thoughts generate like acts and thoughts.

I believe humans have an innate need to search for patterns in their environment, whether they are actually patterns or just random noise. If we didn't, our species would have died out long ago. So it's better for our brain to err on the side of finding patterns where none actually exists than to miss a pattern that is actually there. I think belief in karma is just our way of trying to explain the "noise" in our lives by searching for a pattern.

You raise an interesting point. I recently experienced psilocibin mushrooms for the first time, and one of the main themes from the night was all the patterns I recognized. I came to realize through the night that the mushrooms' effect might be to put humans into a degenerate state, whereby the earliest Cromagnon impulses were realized. My first class of Ancient Art History, my professor mentioned that the earliest art was simply patterns scratched into rock, and that it seemed modern humans were hard-wired to see patterns, something Neanderthals couldn't readily do. The synthesis of these two points makes for an interesting support for your assertion that humans have a need to seek patterns. There is, I think, such a need. In this need we find the beginnings of art and culture. An interesting avenue of thought, to be sure...

On humans erring in caution when it comes to patterns, I think this is why we see paranoid-schizophrenia so rampant in modern society. With the introduction of global communications and mass media, and to a lesser degree media in general, the patterns of 'high society' (nation states, rulers etc) became common knowledge, and equally subject to pattern analysis. This leads many people who delve 'too deep', so to speak, to become lost in the noise, endless patterns that don't really exist.

Karma isn't really concerned with groups of people; only the individual and his actions. The pattern is simple: like for like; ~like for ~like; Like balanced by ~like. The simplest of logical structures. Its the reason it was so popular on the Indian subcontinent, and the reason I believe in it.

It's all based on a pyschological basis of an inner or outer locus of control.

Explain yourself more fully. I think you're on to something, but you're speaking half in jargon, half in unfounded premises.

In the words of the Buddha-

The Buddha explains what having conviction in karma means:

• First, karma really is happening—it is not merely an illusion.
• Second, you really are responsible for your actions. There is no outside force, like the stars or some good or evil being, acting through you. When you are conscious, you are the one who decides what happens.
• Third, your actions have results—you are not just writing on the water—and those results can be good or bad depending on the quality of the intention behind the act.

The locus of control is solitary Lee. Hence the second point.

[Frizzle]

A locus of control is how you see the world and how things react and how you adapt to it psychologically.

"Locus of control is a term in psychology which refers to a person's belief about what causes the good or bad results in his or her life, either in general or in a specific area such as health or academics. Understanding of the concept was developed by Julian B. Rotter in 1954, and has since become an important aspect of personality studies."

Most rational, sane and less "spirtual people" have an inner locus of control. This means we believe that our good "karma" comes from science, rational thoughts and anything that we put upon ourselves. We got hit by a bus because we didn't look across the road.

People with an outer or external locus of control believe they control very little and belief in God, Karma, Astrology, star signs and so forth. Religious people also fall under this category. We got hit by a bus because of magic/God/Karma.

[gaelle]

Well I don't think it exists but nobody knows as we say ^^

[Mr. Hobo]

Imagine a hypothetical instance. You are the son of an affluent businessman, you go to university at a state school, and you room with three guys of varying backgrounds of lower class standing (i.e lower income) than you. Since you have a larger family income, and you can afford to be generous with petty expenses like groceries and utilities, you pick up the tab nine times out of ten when you grocery shop. Your roommates are likely to be sympathetic when one day you cannot afford to pick up the tab, and will be inspired or shamed into picking up the tab by influence. This relationship is all that karma seeks to define. Acts and thoughts generate like acts and thoughts.

Well I we have different definitions of karma. If you define karma as your actions influencing future actions of others then that can't really be disputed but I was referring to what I read, Bardo Thodol, and I was mainly talking about reincarnation and some external force seeking justice being absurd

[Metigue]

Well I we have different definitions of karma. If you define karma as your actions influencing future actions of others then that can't really be disputed but I was referring to what I read, which has been grounded in ancient Buddhism (Bardo Thodol) and I was many talking about reincarnation or some external force seeking justice

Yes in Karmedic belief systems, karma only effects what your next life will be like anyway, so enjoy this one while you can xD your coming back as an ant

your actions influencing future actions of others, is just basic physics, every action has an equal and opposite reaction xD it also makes people very predictable.

[Mr. Hobo]

Lol, just reread my post. Gotta love what results in just waking up from 3 hours of sleep. Edited and I still stand by my point

And Metigue, thanks for condemning me to a shitty next-life for not sharing the same believe system as you.

[redlion]

Well I we have different definitions of karma. If you define karma as your actions influencing future actions of others then that can't really be disputed but I was referring to what I read, Bardo Thodol, and I was mainly talking about reincarnation and some external force seeking justice being absurd

Well, reincarnation and karma are beliefs that exist in more than one belief system: like the concept of one god. Comparing a hindu's belief in one god separated into many avatars with a muslim's belief that there is no god but Allah will result in different definitions for a single concept. Such is the nature of language that we try to group things, such as religions and 'gods', into comparable experiences. Whether religions have similar beliefs in specific or general is irrelevant; they have different names because they are different. The concepts associated with them should similarly reflect that.

I believe in karma the way it was taught by buddha. Karma is not justice, nor divine will. Would you say it is just to influence someone to charity? There is no right or wrong to the act, no truth value. Similarly, there are no colossal charts depicting numerical values for your karma somewhere. It is more about the mindset one has to be in. Karma is a way of reminding yourself that being nice to people makes those immediately around you more likely to be nice to you and each other, and vice versa.

This may not seem like ground breaking news in the modern day, but philosophers (and to be sure the buddha was a philosopher of sorts) like to define things from the ground up, and saying that, hey don't beat your neighbors or they might steal your cattle was still a novel idea to the leaders of nation states in India at the time. The cacophony of religious sects promising undying retribution for their enemies, as well as the more traditional brahimic sects and the jains were in varying stages of war and peace, and the wars of nation states followed where cultural wars led. Buddha was the first to say that you don't need to be an ascetic (Jain) to reach enlightenment, and you don't need to be born to a certain caste (brahmin) to understand the way things are. Knowledge of your own happiness is something that needs only a will and concentration to obtain, not blood or starvation.

Bleh, that was long-winded.

Yes in Karmedic belief systems, karma only effects what your next life will be like anyway, so enjoy this one while you can xD your coming back as an ant

your actions influencing future actions of others, is just basic physics, every action has an equal and opposite reaction xD it also makes people very predictable.

It is physics. Isn't it interesting though, that this theory, ideal, what-have-you came about hundreds of years before physics or geometry or Newton were even thought of? Hell, even Algebra wasn't around. Some cultures were still using counting systems without zeros. Remarkable.

[MaidenOfMercy]

I do not believe in karma. What befalls you is either random, or if not that at least determined by something completely unrelated to what you've done or what you deserve.

Even if we're not thinking of karma as something mystical or magical and is just events following other events, life has proven to me time and time again that there is no such thing. A person you help is just as likely to continue on their path as though you were never there. Same for a person you hurt.

That may not be the case if everyone were to get together and have a big let's make the world better and help everyone party, but as an individual you are just a drop in the ocean. Unless you're willing to dedicate your life to changing someone else's specifically, they're on their own to forge their circumstances and grace or sin don't play into it. And even then good or bad draws of the cards don't play favorites.

Edited by MaidenOfMercy, 21 September 2009 - 07:44 PM.

[Ives]

i dig it as an idea, but people in the long run are self interested. they will only respond when it bites em back in the ass. its easy to assume thats kharma, but i doubt its divine intervention or anything like that...i think it has to do with the fact usually immoral behaviors are by their very nature self destructive.