Do you believe in Karma?

cabacc2 said:
Karma is disgusting in many ways.

Even if you ignore that its complete irrational wishful-thinking and has no relation to reality, it still is disgusting.
Because it teaches you that every bad thing that happens to you is your fault, and your fault alone.

Teaching it to children is horrible. Very horrible.

Forever-a-mole said:
A man drived a truck when he was drunk and he killed my mom's friend, who was crossing the road . Few weeks later he was killed by another man who drived drunk. When crossing a road.

A steroid-muscle-no-brain-closet man beat my dad and his friend up, and that man had killed someone before. Didn't go that much time and he was beaten up and killed by other men just like him, when they were camping.

http://d3j5vwomefv46c.cloudfront.net/photos/large/497319835.gif?1326737536

Haha well, these are just mere drops in the ocean.. But I've started to believe in it.

cabacc2 said:

I dont think its a logical fallacy. Karma is just a random premise without evidence backing it up. I agree with the strong-weak-thing you wrote.

sargos7 said:


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post_hoc_ergo_propter_hoc

It is a logical fallacy in the sense that it claims that bad things happen to you because of bad things you have done, and that good things will happen to you if you do good things. In the real world, there is no causal relation to many events, especially in regards to morality. In fact, the correlation tends to suggest the opposite of karma is true. But don't make the mistake of assuming correlation=causality. That's another logical fallacy.

RandomChampion said:
Well, I realize that you guys might be referring to the 2 definitons that were given in the OP. In that case , then there’s really no discussion. But, if going by the original concept of karma, it is a logical necessity as far as I can tell

Karma means action. It has nothing to do with good or bad because there is no such thing (yes, there is no such thing as inherent good and bad in Hinduism and Buddhism).

However, I'm not going to pretend to know the workings of this system of karma. This is why there are different ideas about this– schools of Hinduism, schools of Buddhism, etc and many other eastern philosophies all have some slightly different views on karma. However , they all come to the conclusion that karma is a logical necessity regarding the explanation of this perceived existence. Freedom from karma (“zero” karma) is said to be entering nirvana and achieving moksha.

Karma isnt something that applies with regard to an entity (such as a individual) experiencing time (since it is said that there is neither of these). It applies to an "experience". In Reality, there is no such thing as an entity, as existence must be infinite by definition. It is said that whatever this experience is just actually a state of constant flux within the one reality. Therefore, there (as the dharmic principle maintains), there is no individual, entity, soul, whatever you want to call it. There is only consciousness.

I suppose that it's easy for most people living in Western countries to consider anything that has to do with "religion" as something that requires faith. I also understand that karma has a different meaning in colloquial use in these parts. However, it should be noted that Hinduism and Buddhism (which are both mentioned in the OP) are nothing more than attempts of applying formal logic to the analysis of existence.

sargos7 said:
To slightly change the topic a bit, from what I'm aware, karma and reincarnation both tend to go hand in hand. Though my thoughts on karma should be clear from my previous posts, I actually find myself incapable of disproving reincarnation. And I kinda like that.

MiniSiets said:
Hawking's analogy with computers was mainly to draw a similarity between the mind/body relationship to the software/hardware relationship. In computers, we generally understand that software cannot function without the hardware to process it, and likewise the mind cannot live without the body. The point is to show the double standard that we assume the mind can just magically continue to persist after the body has ceased to function when all evidence points to the contrary, yet we don't make this same baseless assumption with computers when the hardware fails. I don't think it's an analogy meant to reduce the totality of human existence to a computer, but rather to address a specific similarity that reveals some cognitive dissonance that often occurs with our way of thinking.

cabacc2 said:
what could be more disgusting than teaching innocent children the belief, that everything bad that happens to them is their fault, a revenge from an earlier life. That they "deserve" that bad things happen to them?

Karma makes you guilty. Even if your actions have nothing to do with what happened, its your fault.

I dont care if karma itself is neutral or positive or transgender. This simple logic alone makes it disgusting.

I dont see how this is a twisted way of looking at karma.

Tachii said:
Because you only bring up one scenario and interpretation relating to karma, then generalizing the entire system as "disgusting". It's "twisted" because one can just as teach the concept of karma so that it doesn't seem "disgusting". I myself am not familiar enough with the concept to teach to said children, but I believe it can be done.

traed said:
Karma is cause and effect + the butterfly effect basically from my understanding so yes. Although I am unsure or not whether karma is fair or not in how events play out.

I think karma is too complicated for me to fully comprehend as it would require me being able to observe outcomes and know the causes. Too much things in life have unknown causes.

sargos7 said:


That sounds like solipsism to me.

sargos7 said:


If you define it that way, it sounds a lot better, but the way I've always heard it described is a lot more similar to the gambler's fallacy...

Where you "store up" "good karma" and "bad karma."

FlameWingman21 said:
Karma doesn't get you as soon as possible. You might kill someone today but still live happily ever after in this lifetime. But, you will surely get it in your next life (you'll either born with incurable disease, handicap, or be killed). Many people here don't even understand about it and talk so much like they've known so much. What affect your future are both present and PAST. That's why you see could someone who kept doing bad deeds but still happy in the future because he was probably a very good person in his past life.

ReprideKazuga said:

Well, if you get in the next life, does it really matter?
Let's say we die and "next lives" actually exist... You don't remember your past life, right (considering the fact I can't remember my past lives)?

If Karma were to affect my next life, it wouldn't matter to me because I never would of remembered my past life in order to realize I was effected by Karma. :3

RandomChampion said:

it is not solipsism

it's actually more the opposite of solipsism.

the principle is that the perception of the ego is not the ultimate reality

traed said:
Everyone who I thought seemed to understand karma said that similar to how I described it. Which is how I learned it. I think people mistakenly think karma is the same as divine punishment/reward in that someone deserves good or bad things to happen to them. Karma seems to be non judgmental even though the hindu caste system makes it like a judgment.

Karma can include things like thoughts not just actions.

How does the gamblers fallacy relate in this case? I mean I can see it as related for cause of belief but not the equivalent of the concept.

FlameWingman21 said:
Yes, it matters. From what I saw, no one here like how someone could still die happily after doing so much bad things and then they blamed karma for not doing its job. Even if we didn't remember what we did, we must still accept what happened to us because we were the ones who caused it by ourselves.

People who claim life is not fair but don't want to accept what they did in the past is not actually looking for fairness but ways to only pleasure themselves.

ReprideKazuga said:
But how would we even know what we did? We can't remember what we did so how do we know we even did it? Also, aren't you basically saying that everyone who was born with a problem is/was effected by karma? xD

Anyways, I just think (If there is a next life) our next life people shouldn't be effected by our past lives. We can't remember our past lives nor our actions. Humans are strange creatures and sometimes we act differently. Maybe our past lives acted differently due to scenarios at their time. Why must we suffer because of karma because of them? D:

FlameWingman21 said:

Humans have control over their actions. We couldn't ever avoid doing mistakes. But at least the impact was not as great as when we purposely doing bad things.

A is born in a poor family but he worked hard and saved his money for only what he needed and even sometimes helped others when he had more. When he got in a problem, he solved it and move on with life.
B is born in a poor family but he instead of working hard, he became a thief. When he got a problem, he blamed others or his background as a poor or whatever.

You see, both start from a poor family, one worked hard and the other became a thief. It's all they're own choice.
From others' point of views, they would surely say A, "Oh, poor guy. He worked hard everyday but still end up poor in the end." Little did they know that guy would definitely got what he deserved (wealth) in his next life.

We don't have to know what we did to deserve what happen to us now. We can't know. But instead of blaming others, we can try to change the future by doing better things. Karma is fair, just because it didn't go the way we want doesn't mean it's not fair. Good for the good, bad for the bad.

LadyRenly said:
No. I am not affected by karma at all, nor do I think it exists. Believing someone will be struck with bad karma for what they've done now in the "next life" is unfair to who that person will be next, because they are not the same person. If such a system existed, it's a cruel one and is not worthy to exist and should be abolished.

Nor do I believe karma has any affect on this life, either. Things happen because they do.

waalex11 said:
I believe karma exists, because all those killers or whatever, even if it takes 20 years, they get caught eventually.