Do you believe in Karma?

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Walker's picture
Do you believe in Karma?

You know how they say everything you do comes back to you. Is karma truly something you believe possible or is it unrealistic due to how many evil people actually get away with their crimes?

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DarkLight's picture
I do not believe in Karma. I

I do not believe in Karma. I think there are too many misses to go against the hits to make it believable.

mysticrose's picture
Karma is real and it's one of

Karma is real and it's one of the universe's rule. Unfortunately, not all people are not afraid of doing bad things and they don't believe that karma will soon make them pay.

Matty Arnold's picture
I believe in karma, but not

I believe in karma, but not in the spiritual sense. Speaking in social terms, doing good things for people tends to make it more likely for good things to happen to you and vice versa.

Ekedo's picture
I have to agree with Matty,

I have to agree with Matty, Karma in a social sense is imperfect, but possibly more reliable than roulette.
Far to often, do we see criminals get away with crimes, and innocent charged with crimes.

Karma is fun to think about, but dangerous to apply. Because then if say karma isn't applied to the negative actor, then we think, either we deserved it, or karma is waiting to cast it's judgement. Which leads us then into an logic circle which leaves karma not accountable to "it's" judgement.

It reminds me of things such as a "3 Fold Law" Do good, and good will return in triplicate, and do evil, and evil will return in triplicate.

Although I will admit, that it then enters level of argument, what is a karmatic punishment for a certain action. I stole from a candy machine, I have received negative karma, I stubbed my toe... is karma balanced or is this unmeasured act unrelated to karma. Or better yet, I have lived my life to the on the extremely good side in eyes of a karma believing viewer, yet I am diagnosed with cancer? Have I angered entity of karma or is this a punishment of a past life or is this merely a random act of the universe?

These reason above are why karma in a spiritual sense I can not give any merit. While in a sociological sense I can only give it some merit, but it is ultimately unreliable.

Matty Arnold's picture
Ekedo, I think you pretty

Ekedo, I think you pretty much hit the nail on the head. There are far too many factors influencing everything that happens in life to realistically boil it down to an idyllic karma system.

Walker's picture
Yes I agree with what you

Yes I agree with what you guys are saying. There is just too much 50/50 going on as far as probabilities of karma striking.

Matty Arnold's picture
It's the law of averages that

It's the law of averages that something good will happen to you if you do good, and bad when you do bad, but bad things also happen to good people and vice versa. When you believe anything, your brain tries to ignore any instances that contradict the belief and accept instances that adhere to it, and I think people who believe in karma have a propensity to ignore bad things happening to good people, and good things happening to bad people.

SammyShazaam's picture
Brilliantly stated. I've

Brilliantly stated. I've struggles with a similar definition in the past, but never thought to just put it as the law of averages and leave it like that.

Much more succinct :)

Zaphod's picture
Yeah nice analogy, I agree

Yeah nice analogy, I agree people tend to be more receptive to their beliefs and ignorant of their disbeliefs. Because of this, people who believe in karma and live a lifestyle they believe supports good karma tend to have what they believe to be better lives as they tend to ignore what contradicts their belief. I believe this also falls under the category of self manifestation. I also believe happier people tend to have positive effect on their environment and also attract more happy people into it, this tend to lead to a compounding effect creating even more happiness. To me there is no point in discrediting or supporting karma but I believe this is how it works, like the law of averages. The same is true whether your attitude and actions project outwardly in negative or positive form, it effects your environment and your environment is likely to reflect what you put out back onto you. What goes around comes around. but yes bad can happen to good people and good can happen to bad people however, there is no harm in being an intelligent, positive, happy person who helps people whenever the opportunity arrives never to expect anything in return while being an over all good person and trying to strike a proper balance not to overextend yourself.

AnimalLeader's picture
The logic of karma to me is

The logic of karma to me is that if you do good things, usually people will also try to be good to you. The problems is that some people are always going to do bad things to good people. If karma actually existed, there would be no millionaires who made their money stealing and died of old age after living it up and having a wife, kids etc. Not much punishment there if you ask me.

There would have to be no good endings for any bad people if karma always worked as some kind of justice enforcing phenomenon.

efpierce's picture
I do believe in karma, but

I do believe in karma, but more times than not, I have forgotten about it until it comes back up and bites me.

will95206's picture
People blame 'Karma' on

People blame 'Karma' on random coincidences that happen every day to everyone. Think about it, things always go wrong e.g. stubbing your toe. You did not stub your toe due to a bad action or your destiny. Therefore using Karma as a tool to blame your misfortune is just another religion: Buddhism as a religion is shifting every day wrongs and suffering away from it blame and pretend that it has meaning when it does not. Karma is widely used as an excuse or misfortune. If Karma dose exist then why do we still have evil people in the world or why did not Hitler/Stalin not die a more painful dead or die quicker due to their actions? Karma= not logical.

firebolt's picture
Karma is all part of nature

Karma is all part of nature and the natural energy forces within the Earth. Our bodies react to this energy and it will change your mood or how you look at your circumstances. Karma doesn't decide whether you will stub your toe or how you will die.

Zaphod's picture
Some people have a weird bent

Some people have a weird bent on Karma and it goes like this. What if we were just simply energy each and every thing down to levels far beyond what is known to man and the universe was simply stuck in a pattern that just played itself over and over again leaving for the possibility of every chain of events and every possible scenario making everything you I or anyone ever did to anything really something we were ultimately doing to ourselves in another time line and reincarnation ultimately making us both the grantor and grantee of every action. That in a way would be Karma.

Some people believe that through our actions we can make the world a better or worse place and thus the world around us can reflect on us the results of our actions. This in a way would be Karma.

Some believe in Karma like it is a magical force that just makes it so that if you do good, good begets good and if you do bad, bad begets bad.

I think the healthiest way to look at Karma is in a sense of dignity meaning that if you live a life you feel good about living, you will have reaped the reward in real time of having led a satisfactory life, due to this feeling of reward you can be happier and thus less stressed and healthier and more clear of mind. Think of it as a state of being rather than a mystical force.

While it may be possible to influence the world around you with good or bad behavior resulting in more of the same, I think good and bad are things that can be left up to interpretation and to act good in the opinions of others would be to act out of pride and not dignity. I feel the greatest rewards Karma can offer are through acting good on behalf of your dignity. All this being said I do not think everything you do automatically comes back to you however this does not mean none of it will. So I guess my answer is to some degree I believe in all these forms of Karma as possibilities.

I think of Karma more as a philosophy, than some force or law and feel Good Karma in relation to ones personal dignity combined with a positive outlook can make for some pretty incredible people! Now if only this was easily achieved my life would be great!

SammyShazaam's picture
Of there is no distinction

Of there is no distinction between good and bad karma, as good and bad are both relative. If something works, than it works. In either direction.

I do agree with you that a person living their life in the way that they would like be more likely to draw in additional elements into their lives much like what they had already achieved. In that way, like begets like, and good things would happen to good people. Or bad things, whatever.

I'm just a little more straightforward on the subject, but I can see where it would be carried out on a larger (even cosmic!) level. Basically, the less people I wrong, the less people will be out looking for revenge against me later. And who knows, if I'm nice to people I may even find that some of those people are looking to be nice to me later.

Spewer's picture
In theory, it probably is

In theory, it probably is good to live your life as if karma existed, but in practice karma strikes me as a lofty euphemism for "blame the victim."

SammyShazaam's picture
I never thought of it that

I never thought of it that way, but thinking about it, you're absolutely right. It could definitely be used as an excuse by many - thinking that they should interfere with the karmic law, or steeling against compassion because the person probably deserves whatever they get.

Unknowntyper's picture
I believe that being good

I believe that being good lends to people being good in return. This is a social construct. If you are kind, you will be treated kindly more often. However there is not such thing as Karma. Karma is bullshit.

mysticrose's picture
It only means that we must be

It only means that we must be good and remain good for the rest of our lives in everything we do, say or think. In that way, even if karma is real or not, we will not be guilty of feeling that we had done terrible things to experience terrible fate. Although bad fate still happens to good people; that we cannot control, but the more good things that we do, the lesser chances we find ourselves in a mess.

SammyShazaam's picture
I can agree on that much.

I can agree on that much. Other than the exceptional sociopath, humans to not like to lie, cheat, or steal. These actions cause stress in ourselves, which will eventually catch up to us - stress is simply bad for you!

A good person, who can feel happy about their actions, will have a more positive emotional life, and that would probably carry over into other areas of their life.

Zaphod's picture
Yeah, It can be a lot of work

Yeah, It can be a lot of work to maintain a lie. Also living with regret or simply knowing you stole ,cheated, killed ect. can suck and be stressful in many ways so I guess these are two ways bad karma can directly effect people. I never really thought of it that way.

mysticrose's picture
No bad people died happily

No bad people died happily because they know that there are lots of people who hate them. Only good people can die happily even if they know that they don't really deserve to die in cancer or whatsoever because of all the good things they have done. They have peace of mind at least. So I believe the idea of karma is quite logical.

SammyShazaam's picture
I agree, it is quite logical.

I agree, it is quite logical. Even times when I've acted in ways I'm less than proud of and received no outside repercussions from it, it still bothers me when I think back on it. I can just imagine how people who've done much worse things would feel - that can't lead to a good night's sleep at all.

But by this theory of karma, would sociopaths, who typically feel no remorse for many actions that others would be fundamentally loathe to commit under any circumstance, be effected by the laws of karma?

ginamoon's picture
I would say that I believe in

I would say that I believe in the idea of Karma.
Just like one idea in Science, in every action there will be an equal reaction.
Maybe some bad guys will think they can get away with the bad things they have done, but sooner or later they will be wanted or chased by the law of people, God or nature.

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