Is Karma a force of nature or...

[Engyo]

To say Japan was bombed as it was, is an example of Karma, forgive me for saying, but it makes Karma seem so passive an irresponsible. Just an observation.

Karma is not judgement - it is effect generated by cause. The active component(s) of karma is/are the choices and actions that every living thing makes every day; but there is nothing intervening in the process after that point.

 

[Eliot Wild]

I'd say it's more of a statistical concept.

Ha!!!!

This made me laugh outloud. Or, it could be the prescription medication I'm taking.

But either way, even if I have completely misunderstood ATS's point, I think it about it like this . . .

If you run around hitting people in the head all the time, statistically speaking, eventually someone is going to hit you back.

Now, perhaps I am being too flippant or perhaps I don't have a clear understanding of Karma, but to me that is the theory in a nutshell. If we do bad stuff, we can expect bad stuff to happen to us in return. Well, duh. Statistically speaking, bad stuff is eventually going to happen to us all, regardless of how right we are with the universe.

What about the infant born premature who lives a few days only before dying a painful death? Was that karma? Was the baby paying for sins in a past life? If so, that sounds kind of like a cop-out sort of answer to me. A little-bitty baby that never did nothing to nobody endures a torturous existence for just a brief span of time before dying . . . had to be that baby was a dipwad extrodinaire before he was born this time around, huh?

 

[Just_me_Mike]

Karma is not judgement - it is effect generated by cause. The active component(s) of karma is/are the choices and actions that every living thing makes every day; but there is nothing intervening in the process after that point.

OK, so scientist understand cause and effect quite well and can document and demonstrate hwo it works most of the time.

How can we do that with Karma? I just don't get it. Who in their right mind will pen down the formula that took place from Pearl Harbor to the bomb dropping.

We can formulate when and predict that when we heat water to a certain temperature it will boil then evaporate. To place Karma on this level makes no sense cause it can't be predicted in such ways.

Please share your thoughts...

 

[Rainbow Mage]

Mike I assume you've heard of String Theory. String Theory was developed off of the idea of karma. I swear, look up origins of String Theory

 

[Engyo]

A little-bitty baby that never did nothing to nobody endures a torturous existence for just a brief span of time before dying . . . had to be that baby was a dipwad extrodinaire before he was born this time around, huh?

Remember, though, that projecting the same concept forward helps explain how someone who seems to get away with acting like a dipwad extraordinaire for this entire lifetime will get his comeuppance in the next lifetime.

 

[Just_me_Mike]

Mike I assume you've heard of String Theory. String Theory was developed off of the idea of karma. I swear, look up origins of String Theory

Yes I have heard of it, and as of right now, it is the but end of many jokes in the physics world. Very few legitimate scientists take it seriously...

 

[McBell]

"Karma" is a man made concept created to help people feel better about the wrongs of the world.

 

[Engyo]

OK, so scientist understand cause and effect quite well and can document and demonstrate hwo it works most of the time.

How can we do that with Karma? I just don't get it. Who in their right mind will pen down the formula that took place from Pearl Harbor to the bomb dropping.

We can formulate when and predict that when we heat water to a certain temperature it will boil then evaporate. To place Karma on this level makes no sense cause it can't be predicted in such ways.

Please share your thoughts...

I sometimes like to think of it (especially in the aggregate) as similar to a large statistical computer program modeling socio-political interactions; the program itself would be simulating the karmic effects in the society of the political decisions being tested.

 

[Rainbow Mage]

I'd disagree with that Mestemia. Karma is a man made construct to describe an actual reality that the gods put into the universe. Even they are bound by karma. The human construct of karma teaches that your actions always have consequences, even the smallest little consequences, so it teaches you responsibility. To be careful how you act. It's what we Kemetics call Ma'at, two words, same concept.

 

[Kilgore Trout]

Ha!!!!

This made me laugh outloud. Or, it could be the prescription medication I'm taking.

But either way, even if I have completely misunderstood ATS's point, I think it about it like this . . .

If you run around hitting people in the head all the time, statistically speaking, eventually someone is going to hit you back.

Now, perhaps I am being too flippant or perhaps I don't have a clear understanding of Karma, but to me that is the theory in a nutshell. If we do bad stuff, we can expect bad stuff to happen to us in return. Well, duh. Statistically speaking, bad stuff is eventually going to happen to us all, regardless of how right we are with the universe.

Yeah, that's pretty much what I meant. I think, like a lot of common-sense ideas, people end up applying fancy labels, and more fancy extra-baggage, to it to give it some kind of mystical or magical propery.

Essentially, the idea that if you do bad things to people, somebody doing something bad to you is more likely - or if you do good things to people, somebody doing something good to you is more likely - is a very straight-forward, common-sense concept which gets supported through experience.

Of course, people have a need to make the concept take on a larger work load than it can handle, so they take this concept that works, and attempt to use it to explain all interactions, in order to give a larger meaning and structure to random events.

What about the infant born premature who lives a few days only before dying a painful death? Was that karma? Was the baby paying for sins in a past life? If so, that sounds kind of like a cop-out sort of answer to me. A little-bitty baby that never did nothing to nobody endures a torturous existence for just a brief span of time before dying . . . had to be that baby was a dipwad extrodinaire before he was born this time around, huh?

Yep, some crap just happens. Not everything has any larger purpose, meaning, or explanation. This seems a hard concept for many people to accept, though.

 

[Eliot Wild]

Remember, though, that projecting the same concept forward helps explain how someone who seems to get away with acting like a dipwad extraordinaire for this entire lifetime will get his comeuppance in the next lifetime.

No offense to those who look for Karma to ultimately even things up . . . I personally prefer to see justice meted out swiftly.

 

[Engyo]

No offense to those who look for Karma to ultimately even things up . . . I personally prefer to see justice meted out swiftly.

Remember that karma is strictly effect from cause - justice often differs from strict effect. Expecting karma to mete out justice may require revising your notions of what constitutes justice.

 

[McBell]

I'd disagree with that Mestemia.

Feel free.

Karma is a man made construct to describe an actual reality that the gods put into the universe. Even they are bound by karma.

Really?
Even after killing off thousands of innocent people for the sins of guilty governments?
Wonder what they get in return....

The human construct of karma teaches that your actions always have consequences, even the smallest little consequences, so it teaches you responsibility. To be careful how you act. It's what we Kemetics call Ma'at, two words, same concept.

Perhaps, but 99% of the time when I hear everyday folks in everyday real world scenarios, I.E. over hearing someone at the store or bank, they are using the concept to help themselves or some one else feel better about some perceived wrong that has been done.

 

[Eliot Wild]

Remember that karma is strictly effect from cause - justice often differs from strict effect. Expecting karma to mete out justice may require revising your notions of what constitutes justice.

But there is a moral aspect to it, isn't there? Or am I wrong about that?

Doesn't Karma suggest that the universe has been pre-hardwired to mete out effects for causes, and some of that causality is based on moral offenses?

Or does Karma not recognize moral offenses? Is it more like cause and effect with man applying his own concept of morality to it?

In other words, if you take something that doesn't belong to you, there will be an applicable and appropriate effect for that particular action/cause. Karma doesn't see this as necessarily good or bad, but just natural. While we humans fit our own man-made concepts of morality and perhaps "justice" to this natural process?

Ohhh, if that is it, then now I get it. I still don't agree with it, but I get it.

 

[Willamena]

OK, so scientist understand cause and effect quite well and can document and demonstrate hwo it works most of the time.

How can we do that with Karma? I just don't get it. Who in their right mind will pen down the formula that took place from Pearl Harbor to the bomb dropping.

We can formulate when and predict that when we heat water to a certain temperature it will boil then evaporate. To place Karma on this level makes no sense cause it can't be predicted in such ways.

Please share your thoughts...

Karma occurs here and now. Not in the past, and not in the future.

 

[Alien]

a philosophical concept.

It can be both, but I am more interested to hear from those that think it is a force of nature, and what evidence there is to supports such a claim.

Karma is pretty simple. It's just a way of thinking to rationalize events. It doesn't mean if you do something bad something bad will happen to you or vice versa. Look at all the crooked people that have built empires on exploiting other people and lived happily ever after. No karma there, only life. If you do something good and sit and wait with the expectation of something good to happen to you, obviously it will happen eventually. Everybody has ups and downs in their life, its very easy to find a correlation between the two and attribute it to some magical force of nature. Karma is not a force of nature, just a link we make in our minds to explain why something good or bad has happened.

 

[McBell]

Karma is pretty simple. It's just a way of thinking to rationalize events. It doesn't mean if you do something bad something bad will happen to you or vice versa. Look at all the crooked people that have built empires on exploiting other people and lived happily ever after. No karma there, only life. If you do something good and sit and wait with the expectation of something good to happen to you, obviously it will happen eventually. Everybody has ups and downs in their life, its very easy to find a correlation between the two and attribute it to some magical force of nature. Karma is not a force of nature, just a link we make in our minds to explain why something good or bad has happened.

this is the longer version of what I said.

Frubals.

 

[Riverwolf]

Mike I assume you've heard of String Theory. String Theory was developed off of the idea of karma. I swear, look up origins of String Theory

I've heard there's all kinds of problems with String Theory, and that it's not widely accepted among the scientific community.

 

[Riverwolf]

No offense to those who look for Karma to ultimately even things up . . . I personally prefer to see justice meted out swiftly.

Except that justice is deliberate. Karma, as far as I know, isn't any more deliberate than gravity.

 

[Riverwolf]

Karma is pretty simple. It's just a way of thinking to rationalize events. It doesn't mean if you do something bad something bad will happen to you or vice versa. Look at all the crooked people that have built empires on exploiting other people and lived happily ever after. No karma there, only life.

Plenty of karma. The actual word means "action."

Now, isn't there an old saying that oppression breeds freedom fighters? I'd imagine that those empires weren't very well-off.

If you do something good and sit and wait with the expectation of something good to happen to you, obviously it will happen eventually. Everybody has ups and downs in their life, its very easy to find a correlation between the two and attribute it to some magical force of nature. Karma is not a force of nature, just a link we make in our minds to explain why something good or bad has happened.

Only if you misunderstand the concept.

When you do something bad, if you have a good conscious, you will feel shame, and probably have a bad rest of the day. If others find out, they won't like it.