Karma
Posted on: July 3, 2008 - 12:48pm
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Karma
Why do people believe in karma? There are some atheists and agnostics that believe in karma but surely its completely false. Some times I wonder do people believe in it as it has became slightly fashionable?
In life humans experience both negative and positive things, this is logic. Why must someone have to put these happenings down to a mystical force? Just because someone commits a crime and gets punished for it doesn't mean there has to be some invisible agent dictating human law.
"Faith means not wanting to know what is true"
(Friedrich Nietzsche)
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Is what they believe what is traditionally defined as karma though? I mean if you're an asshole to everyone eventually someone is going to be an ass back - in that way we make our own 'karma.'
I actually had a thread on this saying basically the same thing in the "Irrational precepts" forum. It's several pages back by now I'd say.
Matt Shizzle has been banned from the Rational Response Squad website. This event shall provide an atmosphere more conducive to social growth. - Majority of the mod team
But surely thats just common sense and calling it Karma, with its mystical connotations isn't necessary.
Would you say believing in Karma has became a fashionable thing? I think so. I think people just say it to make themselves seem slightly more 'new age' so to speak.
"Faith means not wanting to know what is true"
(Friedrich Nietzsche)
It really depends on how you define Karma, for some it's a mystical force, for others, the way I was taught, it's more of a cause and effect type of deal, that in a way, how you treat yourself and how you treat others around you affects how people perceive you and the outcome of situations are all affected by your karma (basically how you treat the situation) if you treat it well, it turns out well, if you treat it like crap it turns out like crap, same with people. But again that's how I was told and taught, I know many others that feel it's a mystical type of effect
idk if i'd give that question a resounding 'yes' answer but the concept does seem to have become popular lately in general culture, if that's what you mean. after all look at all the hype and contests that surround that show 'my name is earl.'
It seems to me that a lot of the "woo-woo" bullshit has become more popular in the last decade or so.
Matt Shizzle has been banned from the Rational Response Squad website. This event shall provide an atmosphere more conducive to social growth. - Majority of the mod team
From my observations I would say belief in karma is more of a social conditioning type effect.
Kinda like how if someone were to say "I haven't gotten in a car crash yet... knock on wood." 95% of poeple don't actually think knocking on wood will make them last longer without getting in a car crash, but we say it anyway without even thinking of it. (I personally try to stay away from phrases like this as I don't want anyone to mistakenly get the wrong impression of me).
I'm sure most people will mention that karma is comming around on someone the same way they say "Knock on wood" above. They see karma as "you did something bad, then something bad happened to you." No mystical force involved, just an observation.
I'm sure there are pleny of crazies out there who think that karma is a mystical life force thing getting back at people, but I think this is a fairly small percentage of the public.
"It is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring." - Carl Sagan
I've only ever understood "karma" to mean something like "that's the way the cookie crumbles" or "what goes around comes around", so I'm not sure I'd ascribe mystical powers to it anyway.
Saint Will: no gyration without funkstification.
fabulae! nil satis firmi video quam ob rem accipere hunc mi expediat metum. - Terence
I thing Gamage90's point is that if "karma" is the same as "what goes around comes around" then why not just say "what goes around comes around" if you're searching for a handy euphemism? If it is his point, I agree.
The big exception is if you're speaking ironically and in the company of people who understand irony (not as often as I would like, unfortunately). But then you can go to town on all the "woo woo" expressions (as Matt puts it). After all, they were invented solely to keep intelligent people amused.
Weren't they?
WHAT?????? They weren't??????
I would rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy
Unfortunately, people arguing for the metaphysical karma have a handy instrument called the goal post, which they feel they can shift willy nilly. Leave those goal posts where they are, you bastards!!
Wish in one hand, shit in the other, see which one fills up first.
Karma? Dirt simple. Folklore gets silly, like dirt simple "reincarnation" simply meaning "recycling" of all energy/matter .... as science came later to agree.
Insert Occam's Razor.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karma
Atheism Books.
Sadly, I backed over my Dogma with my Karma... now I have to get my chakra's realigned...
Does Midas do that???
LC >;-}>
Christianity: A disgusting middle eastern blood cult, based in human sacrifice, with sacraments of cannibalism and vampirism, whose highest icon is of a near naked man hanging in torment from a device of torture.
I put the concept of karma in the class of 'wishful thinking'...
It's a way of seeking a sense of 'justice'.
Unfortunately, by my own observation, no good deed ever goes unpunished, and the bad guys don't always see their uppance come...
LC >;-}>
Christianity: A disgusting middle eastern blood cult, based in human sacrifice, with sacraments of cannibalism and vampirism, whose highest icon is of a near naked man hanging in torment from a device of torture.
Signature ? How ?
Let's mess with a little karma Experiment. Say this to everyone for 3 months ;
Fuck you , die , suffer , I despise you ..... ((( Keep Repeating , see what happens
Then then try the opposite ......
.... Am I missing something about this Karma thing ???
Run dogma over with karma !
Atheism Books.
Thanks, yes thats what I was saying. Its similar to how we still use God in sentences when we curse even though we don't believe.
"Faith means not wanting to know what is true"
(Friedrich Nietzsche)
Nordmann wrote:
I thing Gamage90's point is that if "karma" is the same as "what goes around comes around" then why not just say "what goes around comes around" ...... /////////////
"Karma" is shorter and came before , "what goes around comes around"
...... details details details, of confusion !
When Occam's Razor doesn't work , try using a brick !
Atheism Books.
Ah, so "god" is popular because it only has three letters in it?
You could have something there, IAGAY! If all the fundies were forced by convention to say "a conjectured being perfect in power, wisdom, and goodness who is worshipped as creator and ruler of the universe" every time they wanted to refer to their invisible pal the atheist ranks would be swelling in no time!
We'd be getting all the world's stutterers for a start!
I would rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy
Nordmann , Indeed.
I know it seems maybe a bold crazy statement to say I AM Atheist, I AM GOD, but I really think the time has come !
.... slaying the dragon of religion , go science , mind power ! ALL IS ONE , all is GOD , ATHEIST !
Labels can be such messy things .....
Atheism Books.
do any of us (that grew up being brainwashed) actually *not* say god, christ, etc...? gamage, do you actually think there is a problem with someone using a word they don't believe in? or is it just that by everyone using the word 'karma' you think it validates the concept?
Hmmm looking back on what i've said, I think its difficult to go through life without saying God, Christ etc. I suppose i've just been digging a hole for myself. Its just when I hear people talk about karma it seems like its in the context of some mystical force. But I suppose if people keep referring to karma they end up believing in it out of the sensible context.
"Faith means not wanting to know what is true"
(Friedrich Nietzsche)
I have inverse karma.
I saw an old lady with a broken down car in the middle of the road, right before an intersection. Cars tooting, people walking past, not doing anything. I went out, talked to her, my friend and I pushed her car off the road and into a carpark, a police officer came to help us, directed the traffic until it was all good. My friend and I continued walking to where we had locked up our bikes, only to find someone had sawn through the lock and stolen them. Go figure.
I swear they have it all wrong. Maths has the answer! Take positive as something bad happening/being done. Negative as something good.
K=2
Do Good: 1^K (karma constant=2)= 1 : Bad result
Do Bad: -1^K=1 :Bad reslut
The way the world works. Whenever you square a negative, you get a positive. When you square a positive, you get a positive. It's not even. Its not fair.
I swear if we put that equation into runes and called it "The Secret" (Damn, already taken), someone would buy it.
We are merely flowers , are you pretty ? .....
Ask them - casually, humorously, etc... I went to Catholic school with a girl that believed in reincarnation (yeah, not part of Catholicism, i know). She thought we came back in a particular position based on the choices we made in a past life. I was like, "um, excuse me. why do you talk to me?"
"with the wheelchair and all my medical problems i must have been a royal bitch. so why are you trying to help me?" it was just a casual comment... really if she had just laughed i wouldn't have brought it up again but that specific comment began her instant avalanche of deconversion.
Not when so many useful expressions can be created with those words. Just think:
Jesus Tittyfucking Christ!
Holy Protection of the Mother of God!
or for the Quebeckers:
Tabarnac!
Saint Will: no gyration without funkstification.
fabulae! nil satis firmi video quam ob rem accipere hunc mi expediat metum. - Terence
It is pretty unlucky not to believe in Karma...
You guys crack me up...
I may not be the smartest guy here…but I sure as hell know who Alfred Einstein is! – Monkey Nutz
Hey, I sense a wise Monkey has arrived !
Atheism Books.
In my former life I was an atheist….so I was punished this time and sent back as a Catholic…I’m hoping to come back next time as a Padouin apprentice…
I may not be the smartest guy here…but I sure as hell know who Alfred Einstein is! – Monkey Nutz
Good luck Monkey. That is quite an admirable wish .....
http://www.eduqna.com/Words-Wordplay/1311-1-words-wordplay.html
Atheism Books.
Karma is a sanscrit (or hindi) word for a physical law of action and equal, opposite reaction. It means, that whatever action you do, through the world chaos will be delivered to you an appropriate reaction, no matter if there were any witnesses. One was there always - you.
But this concept gets more complicated when it interacts with another natural laws. For example, the law of resonance, which basically means, that who is rich, will be given more, and who is poor, will be taken even the little he has. Resonating circumstances strengthtens each other.
Understanding of these fundamental laws of reality is vital for not doing a stupid things in our lives, like repeating our mistakes. For example, I can't steal anything, because I know that the action would be done and it would be just a matter of time before the sub-atomary dynamic chaos will deliver an appropriate reaction on a macroscopic level. This is why I'm also inclined to contribute on some charity purposes, because I expect that the world dynamics to it react appropriately, when I will be in need. It's not a work of any sky daddy, It's a fundamental law among others within the reality itself.
This physical world behaves according to it with certain delay and inertia, but on higher, non-material levels of existence these laws are even more obvious and reacts much more quickly. An ability of prediction, the overview, is there much greater and much less independent on time. In fact, many events actually happened long ago before it eventually happened in physical reality. This is, how some people can predict future, they just read events which happened or are expected in non-material planes of existence and tries to guess when and how they will soak down into a physical existence. Channeling this informations all the way down creates a great distortion of facts and time orientation, this is why it's sometimes unprecise, and very often misinterpreted, as for meaning (for us) or for a location of the event in time. This is why most of prophets sucks.
And, as I mentioned, the physical world has a delay, so many bad guys are allowed to live peacefully till the end of their days (remember Dr. Mengele) while the real punishment falls on them as consequences when they will reincarnate. From where do you think comes all these women withdisseminated sclerosis? A lot of them were men, who were real badasses in past lives.
This doesn't mean we should blame them, not at all, for us it's an opportunity to do good deeds. It teaches us not to judge - they have been already judged and our charity will not make that justice lesser. Besides that we don't really know who or what we had been in past lives (well, most of them), in some of them we certainly weren't much better, we just did our mistakes earlier.
Beings who deserve worship don't demand it. Beings who demand worship don't deserve it.
I liked that rant Luminon, but I wouldn't say "non-material" , as all is connected, equal, ONE.
Amazing "consciousness" is not some higher "other" .... How could it be ?
Every particle, every atom talks to me ! 
Atheism Books.
I think the trick however, IAGAY, is not to keep talking back to them. It frightens the other people in the supermarket queue.
I would rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy
BUT , "I have not come to bring peace" ( no appeasement with dividers ) but division from them hypocrites spewing dogma separatism patriotism ....
Your words, Nordmann, echo Thomas Jefferson, who also suggested ignoring them dogmists .... and the reasoning for the separation of "church and state" .... as you know .....
Atheism Books.
Material world is a structure among more different, autonomic structures, which are similarly important and big. There is not a material world and everything else is just "non-material" world. On the spectrum of Everything, on which material world is like in range of 0-6, astral world is 7-13, mental 14-20, intuitive 21-27, spiritual 28-34, and so on. I've just seen again the graphs and they're not simple at all! And it portrays just a structure of one human being, stretched across the spectrum of universe.
Jnani approach may seem cold and heartless, but remember, they are who will build the spaceships. A perfect man is a master of both qualities. Most of other people are clearly inclined to paths of bhakti or jnani, but only that may make a personal development a bit longer.
I don't know to which path I'm more inclined, with Jnani people I emphasize Bhakti, and oppositely. I'm trying to add everywhere, what is lacking. I always seek a balance between these qualities, their mutual synthesis. If I would be a Buridan's donkey, I would first push the two hay stacks together and then eat them as one. I don't know if pursuing two goals at the same time is a faster way to personal development or slower, really, don't know. But this is what I feel like it's the right thing to do and I guess it will adapt to circumstances.
Beings who deserve worship don't demand it. Beings who demand worship don't deserve it.
I think the definition of karma has, over the past several decades, become muddied a tiny bit in relation to its original intended meaning which is indeed taken from Sanskrit. Generally speaking, karma, when defined as that mystical force in charge of effects and their causes, has more of a religious type appeal while other more recent understandings within day to day conversations have a more connected feeling....i.e. the Universe is one. That difference may seem small but I have observed it.
While many people would like to believe in "what goes around, comes around", my experience leads me to conclude that atheists, by and large, do not believe in karma at all. I've also observed that agnostics have,perhaps, only a slightly larger amount of karmic thought (than atheists) and fewer still actually believe those thoughts rather than dismiss them.
There is little doubt that we are pattern-seekers. IMO, it is easier to recall an event that brought us great fortune or joy when, on our part, a sacrificial notion preceding is entertained.
This may not be true of everyone but the greater the number of people who 'remember' this way, the greater the number of people who will see a pattern and the greater likelihood that society as a whole accept pattern seeking tendencies.
I could write MUCH further but am out of time...Gotsta go to work.
Oh yes, it does seem to be marginally more fashionable than ever before.
Interesting words you write. I wrote "Every particle talks", only as meaning equally essential to the "Oneness". Bhakti and the Jnani .... Umm , principals of opposites, Yin Yang and the "Middle" shades of gray all come to mind, the connected "relationships" of all things, as you say.
Our intuition and awe are indeed amazing. I like writers who say things like, "You are the center of the Oneness" ! Yeah , how far does it go in all directions from my vantage point ?!! I think even these intuitive ideas will evolve as long as we exist.
Go "mind power", meaning science, and thanks to the philosophers who translate our limited, but always expanding, knowledge. ~~~
"KARMA" ... when I put Occam's Razor to it, there wasn't much left to question. Our attitudes, smiles and frowns, make a difference. Am I missing something ???
"Good Vibrations" - Beach Boys
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rf5uGPdFnpk&feature=related
Atheism Books.
Actually, there is no black, white or gray... There are 7 basic qualities which humankind responds to, (so-called "rays" ) and each person has them combined on soul level, personality level, and maybe one level more (I don't remember exactly now) so there's at least 49 kinds of people. Multiply that by effect of these rays of two national levels of the same rays, and you get a lot of various people. For example, the ray combination of my nation is repeated only once, in a case of some tribe on Borneo or Guinea.
Note, that not only individual people has karma, there is also karma of whole nations and of the humanity as such. This level of group karma was lately seen in WW1+2, when it needed to be more evened, so the old "bad karma" of whole humanity was for a large part burned in the fire of war. Here Occam's razor doesn't really help. We need this extensive theory of karma, rays and universal laws, to understand all what is happening in the world, to understand who we are. There are no needless or unobservable parts of this theory, which Occam's razor should cut off.
Also, note that animals doesn't have their individual karma. If a hungry bear gets outraged, breaks a fence and eats a half of nursery school, he will be of course hunted down furiously by parents, but won't suffer in next incarnation like humans would.
Honesty of mind (both saying and doing what I think), sincerity of spirit (being myself, not copying celebrities) and detachment (not being depressed by people like Nordmann) are qualities, which transforms a life. It's good when they're followed intuitively, I just think it's also good to ensure the educative effect by expressing them as text.
Beings who deserve worship don't demand it. Beings who demand worship don't deserve it.