I'm an atheist, so I don't believe in any supernatural beings and invisible forces of good and evil... But I'm real curious to know if you believe in Karma and how it works in your life...

Jeez...such a deep topic for the morning..makes me wonder what inspired this train of thought of yours....

For me, karma is how you want to direct your life...your actions have cause and effect that will eventually come full circle. Actions that shaped your past, is your present and shapes the future. It isn't so much that "karma" will give me paradise in the hereafter...it is having paradise in my life now! And paradise? Well, someone's paradise could be someone's elses hell.

That was profound, Mari... And although I would rather not say what triggered this topic in my head so early in the morning, I would like to know if there's any truth to the fact that karma has the potetial to be a "*****." After all, she HAS been accused of that many many times.

Call it what you want, but what comes around does seem to go around. It might take a while but eventually, your actions get paid off for good or bad.

Yes, karma can be a "*****" and sometimes it can be worth being bit by it ...and other times...well, we just hope the bleeding will stop before it stops us!

This Karma lady sounds mean and scary. I sure would like to stay on her good side.

If you give positive energy you'll get it back.

OK, but how does that work? Is it a magnetic field of energy? Is there a Karma being out there somewhere in a different dimention keeping score on who's been good and who's been bad?

I'm not making fun, I really just want to know!

I don't believe in it at all. People have a tendency to want to ascribe a cause-and-effect scenario to things whether it makes any sense or not. I think it's just a part of the human condition to want to understand the non-understandable, to try to create an "order" where none exists. I think it's the same basic need for a sort of "structure" that led to man's perceived "need" to have gods, religion, etc.

My biggest problem with the "karma" idea, though, is this suggestion that there is some sort of cosmic "balance" -- but a "balance" requires someone or something to define, describe, and enforce this "balance" -- and now you're getting into the realm of the supernatural. I'm an atheist myself, and I'm not willing to accept supernatural explanations on sheer faith alone.

Karma is simply, in my view, the consequences of your actions. If you are a good, kind, decent human being who tries (but being human fails sometimes), you tend to be rewarded with a good life. If you are a total ****, that tends to come around and bite you in the ass at some point. It may not be in the way you expect, but living your life badly, treating others poorly tends to have a negative effect on your life and vice versa.

Whether this translates into the afterlife (however you define that for yourself), well, that's a mystery that will be solved when you are dead.

Lex,

That's exactly how I see it too. If anything, testing out the cause and effect theory, I find that it works backwards for me. On numerous occasions something really aweful has happened to me, right after I'd gotten done doing a favor for someone or giving to charity, or just doing a good deed. And I'm talkin' about bad stuff like getting into a hit and run accident where I'm not at fault, and the drunk person who crashes into my car and totals it, is an illegal with no insurance... and this happened right after I gave an elderly lady whom I had just met, a ride 130 miles each way so that she could get to spend the holidays with her grandchild...

So yeah, I can't really believe in karma... Like I said, even if it does exist, for me it's instant reverse-karma, and I'd rather just do without... So karma shall now join Mohammad and Allah in my brain's deleted files recycle bin!

I don't know alot about Karma except if you do bad (with bad in your heart) it comes back on you.


from what I have learned about it (and it's beena while) my wiccan friend told me Karma is more than just the above. like I said....i don't remember alot about it

(trying to remember) i think when you do something good expecting something in return....it cancels it out. it's more of what's in the heart and mind. there isn't a time deadline for reqards or punishments...or whatever

Have to agree with you here -- if anything, what I've seen is that the more you do FOR people, the more bad stuff you have done TO you -- I haven't established ratios or time-frames or anything as elaborate as that, and I'm quite convinced that there's no cause-and-effect at work other than my own bad decisions re: people to deal with. But bad judgment is not karma.

I dont really belive in karma.

things happen for a reason...i belive...

we have control over our decisions...no body elses.

my problem with karma is nobody deserves to be murdered, rape, and beat. nothing they ever did could result in deserving such serve things to happen to someone.

(although I believe in some weird way..even these things happen for a reason..)

Oh yeah, I believe in karma. Pretty much what has been said before that if you live your life in a good way you will get that returned to you. If you live a bad life, you will get that returned to you as well.

Just ask my ex husband about karma!

Mahan, think about it this way... yes those bad things happened, but it could have been worse. Maybe if you hadn't lived a decent life and done things like taking the lady to see her family, you might have died in that accident instead.

I've lived a pretty good life, done unto other...etc. Yet, I've had crappy things happen. But the way I see it, the things that have (to me) gone horribly wrong have turned out to be something I learned from. So all in all, they weren't that bad in hind sight.

I guess it is just a matter of perspective.

But once you get into the idea of things happening for a "reason," you're forced to postulate someone or something that does the "reasoning" -- I mean, who or what determines just what the "reason" IS?

So to say "things happen for a reason" is essentially the same thing as saying that karma is real -- the only difference is that the term "reason" doesn't necessarily imply a prerequisite "balance" to the whole scenario. It does imply that there's some sort of metaphysical intelligence/entity that is somehow running the show, and that's the part I simply can't accept.

I totally agree

There is not necessarily "balance" to karma, at least in the short run. Karma (if you believe in the religious definition) is something that accumulates over lifetimes. So, if bad things happen NOW, it could be because of past actions in a previous lifetime. If you don't subscribe to that theory (as many don't), karma can be looked at, also, as an accumulation of your actions over your lifetime.

And to echo someone else, bad things do happen, especially to good people it seems. But, for me anyway, almost every bad thing that has ever happened to me has been a learning experience, what in retrospect turned out to be pivotal growth periods in my life. Looking back, I'm not sure I would trade any of them as they have all helped me become the woman I am, which is a woman I am most happy with. If those things hadn't happened, I might be someone different, someone I wouldn't even like. So, we may not always understand and I think it's pointless to ask "why me" but sometimes bad or good things are just a way of balancing your life out.