39 replies to this topic

[Rehd]

I have heard from alot of people about karma this and that. I understand that it's basically, things come back to get you, if you're basically good, basically good things happen to you. If you're bad, bad things happen to you. Honestly, I don't believe in karma, but I believe that the effect behind the name is true. Instead of saying karma, I would rather say common sense. If you commit a murder, of course that will come back to get you. If you're a good person and you help people, of course good things are bound to happen to you. People who are nice generally have nice things happen to them. (Not 100% of the time of course and not nearly as often, but the odds of good things happening are incredibly greater if you're an asshole robber)

I guess my main thoughts about karma is it's not super natural or anything like that, it's just cause and effect. What are your thoughts and opinions on karma?

[Matas]

Exactly what I would have said, cause and effect (most of the time). There's always exceptions of course, but I don't believe it's anything supernatural.

[Master C]

Karma is purely religious. Your basically asking a question akin to "is there a god?".

[Dohregard]

Karma is part of the Buddhist religion.

Contrary to popular belief, the objective is not to be in good or bad karma, but to remove yourself from Karma. A perfect balance of good and bad karma is the key to unlocking Nirvana, in there eyes.


Karma only exists to people who believe in it.

[It's ME!]

i don't think cause and effect is the best wording, but that's what I think as well. When I do nice things to p30ple3, i r da pwnage. lol seriously, if i do good things, people recognize that and i get free stuff ... like food, and money, and other stuff that they don't need, like hardware.

[Lipid]

I only correlate with cause and effect, not by some silly superstition.

[Dohregard]

Unless you're suggesting that karma is actually self-evident in only those who truly believe in it, then that sentence is pretty redundant.

This gets into a subject that has already been opened; religion.


do YOU believe in it? no, you've said it yourself.

do OTHERS believe in it? yes.


therefore:

to you Karma doesn't exist; to them Karma does exist.


just like UFO's and Bigfoot, Religion can not be solved.

And I'm not sure how that sentence is "redundant" as I would have to have reiterated myself in order it to have redundancy.

[Rehd]

This gets into a subject that has already been opened; religion.


do YOU believe in it? no, you've said it yourself.

do OTHERS believe in it? yes.


therefore:

to you Karma doesn't exist; to them Karma does exist.

I am a religous person. I am christian who also celebrates Jewish traditions. I don't believe in karma, but I do believe in a purpose for everything. Cause and effect is a given, you push a car down a hill of course it's going to roll.

I also believe we have free will to an extent and we can do as we please, of course I also believe the higher up already knows what I'm going to do. Your question would probably be, how can you have free will if what you're going to do is already predetermined? My answer would be is that you don't know what's going to happen, you make that decision based off you, you had no higher up influence who is the only person who would know what would happen (unless you asked). Therefore, if you don't know and no one else knows what's going to happen, then how is it possible to not make choice? I'm doing it right now by typing this.

That's why I'm always curious in why people believe in karma. Karma essentially is cause and effect, and it baffles me how they believe that is religion rather than science. But as it seems posted earlier, I'm quite ignorant in Buddhism, hence this thread and hence the info listed above. I was not aware of karma having the purpose of reaching neutral which would be Nirvana. So I guess my 2nd question is, who out there believes in karma... but not Buddhism?

[Lipid]

This gets into a subject that has already been opened; religion.


do YOU believe in it? no, you've said it yourself.

do OTHERS believe in it? yes.


therefore:

to you Karma doesn't exist; to them Karma does exist.


just like UFO's and Bigfoot, Religion can not be solved.

And I'm not sure how that sentence is "redundant" as I would have to have reiterated myself in order it to have redundancy.

Yeah I took back that statement after thinking about it some more. I apologise. I only thought it was redundant because the topic asked whether or not people believed in karma, so to say that people who believe it actually believe it exists seems like an obvious conclusion. Then I realised the same thing you replied with as examples, so I see the validity in it now.

[тαg]

No, there is no karma.

[Starblaiz]

No, there are no karma.

/smacks тαg round the head with a chalkboard earser

see? cause, and effect. Karma *DOES* exist!

Lol seriously though, the *ORIGINAL* concept of karma comes from religion, as previously stated. In this context, no it doesnt exist. The more modern adoption of the word however (the "cause and effect" idea, as the op put it) very much does, because nature and the universe in general tends to balance things out. To put it another way, everything has a cost. Global warming is probably the best example that springs to mind. You take stuff out of the earth, and burn it to turn it into something else (electricity, motor/aviation fuel etc). The cost that is paid is the waste that this produces, which is building up in terms of landfill sites and atmospheric pollutants. In other words, our actions are disturbing the natural equalibrium of earth, and earth is reacting to try and regain that equilibrium. cause, and effect.

[some dude]

is it actually karma? or just coincidence?

it pisses me off when something bad happens to you, e.g. you getting a cut after you do something "bad", and somebody says "god punished you."

like GTFO, god doesnt give a fuck about what i say or do.

[Dohregard]

Lol seriously though, the *ORIGINAL* concept of karma comes from religion, as previously stated. In this context, no it doesnt exist. The more modern adoption of the word however (the "cause and effect" idea, as the op put it) very much does, because nature and the universe in general tends to balance things out. To put it another way, everything has a cost. Global warming is probably the best example that springs to mind. You take stuff out of the earth, and burn it to turn it into something else (electricity, motor/aviation fuel etc). The cost that is paid is the waste that this produces, which is building up in terms of landfill sites and atmospheric pollutants. In other words, our actions are disturbing the natural equalibrium of earth, and earth is reacting to try and regain that equilibrium. cause, and effect.

though people call it karma, it isn't


And please give me undeniable proof that there aren't spiritual forces working as fate.


Religion (and its practices) cannot be proved or disproved a this current time, so just let it be.

[Lipid]

Karma is not the same as cause and effect.

Example #1: I help an old lady cross the street and she slaps me.

- Karma doesn't work in this situation because I've been punished for doing something "good".

- Cause and effect dictates that I received the slap (effect) because the lady gave me a slap (cause). The lady gave me a slap (effect) because she wanted to give me a slap (cause). She wanted to give me a slap (effect) because she assumed I wanted a reward for helping her (cause).

Example #2: I rob an old lady with a knife and steal fifty dollars from her.

- Karma doesn't work in this situation because I've been rewarded for doing something "bad".

- Cause and effect dictates that I received fifty dollars (effect) because the lady gave me fifty dollars (cause). The lady gave me fifty dollars (effect) because she wanted to give me fifty dollars (cause). She wanted to give me fifty dollars (effect) because I threatened her with a knife (cause).

Cause and effect can be applied to ANY situation, though we might not know the cause or the effect (or either) in some cases. Karma is flawed and does not exist as it cannot account for the situations in which bad things are rewarded and good things are punished.

[тαg]

I gave a beggar like, 10$
And karma made my bus leave earlier.
I can blame God and Karma right?

[Dohregard]

Karma is similar to Cause and effect, but has nothing to do with variable chance.

[Sir_Slik]

People expect karma to happen instantly. Doesn't work that way. Karma is another way of saying cause and effect (I am not talking in a religious sense, I mean the general western adoption of the word). Overtime if your deeds are generally bad IT WILL COME BACK TO BITE YOU IN THE ASS. If your generally a good hearted person you will get positive effects for creating positive causes. Its logic, which is why 99% of people ignore it. Its real, dont ignore it.

Example: Current economic crisis- Banks gave out bad loans, in general made a lot of stupid/bad decisions, and look whats happening.

[Myth]

just like UFO's and Bigfoot, Religion can not be solved.

UFOs, bigfoot and religion can be solved if we collect empirical evidence. Though imo the chance of collecting such evidence for UFOs or other extraterrestrial life is significantly higher than some god (abrahamic god or otherwise) revealing him/her/itself to us.

[Lipid]

People expect karma to happen instantly. Doesn't work that way. Karma is another way of saying cause and effect. Overtime if your deeds are generally bad IT WILL COME BACK TO BITE YOU IN THE ASS. If your generally a good hearted person you will get positive effects for creating positive causes. Its logic, which is why 99% of people ignore it. Its real, dont ignore it.

Example: Current economic crisis- Banks gave out bad loans, in general made a lot of stupid/bad decisions, and look whats happening.

I'm sorry but I cannot believe the convenient excuse of something happening in the future as being attributed to something completely unrelated that happened in the past.

How do account for the people who have gotten away with murder and spent the rest of their lives in peace without any form of reprimand? How do you account for the children who bully other kids and are still getting the presents they ask for on christmas and on their birthdays?

Karma (like luck) is just a convenient excuse people use to explain why something happened when they don't know (or choose not to say) the real reason and logic behind it.

Your example isn't karma, by the way. It's simple logic.

[Sir_Slik]

Look at it like a game of chance. Every time you do something you shouldn't the chance of you getting royally screwed goes up more, eventually its going to get you. Its not a "you do this so this will happen to you" sorta of thing, you have to look at the big picture.