OT - A Word on Karma, Pardon the Pedantry

[Guest guest]

HI,

 

> I don't want to dump on anyone's spiritual beliefs

> (at the moment) but I don't understand why people

> feel the need to believe in things like karma.

 

I'm not sure it is a need to believe but rather, it is

just a belief, in and of itself. I don't know that I

definitely believe in karma. I do believe that things

that I do may result in other things which will come

back to me. This may be true over prior lives. I don't

know. I don't know that I believe in all of that but

I also won't swear that it isn't true.

 

> in essence karma doesn't seem all that different from

> believing in a heaven and a hell,

 

I disagree. I think of it more as a balance, a yin and a

yang type of thing (of course you could always say heaven

and hell are a yin and yang type of thing). However maybe

karma could also be seen, through a fair amount of extrapolation,

as physics in action. For every action there is an equal and

opposite reaction, karmic conservation of matter & energy, or ?

 

> because the only reason a christian is obligated to behave

> ethically is to avoid damnation / be rewarded in the

> afterlife.

 

I don't really think this is true of all Christians. I'm

sure it is true of some but I believe there are many ethical

Christians as well as many ethical people in general.

 

> Why can't moral people just avoiding harming

> others because they generally care about people (and animals)?

 

That would certainly be a wonderful thing. There is one

problem with that in that in some instances what one person

believes to be ethically or morally correct may not be the

same as another person. As an example, some people believe

that it is correct to kill deer when their population becomes

so great that some of them will starve to death. Thus it would

seem a less painful death if it were done quickly with a

bullet to the brain than slowly due to starvation. Whereas

others would rather not be personally involved in killing

anything. Now I'm one of the people who could not and would

not kill a deer but I certainly understand that starving to

death might not be the better alternative.

 

> In my opinion this is one reason the world is so chaotic

> right now- most of us are raised to not do something because

> we'll get in trouble not because it could hurt someone. The

> result is a world where people will behave unethically

> whenever it benefits them and they think they can get away

> with it (e.g. Dubbya and his cronies war plans). obviously

> there's lots of people who don't care about others and

> probably need some sort of consequences for malignant

> actions but what about the rest of us?

 

I'm not sure whether your statement is correct. I think

a lot of people will do things if they think they can get

away with it. However I think there are also a lot of people

who don't do things because they just think it isn't right.

I will admit to having been instilled with the ability of

having huge amounts of guilt created if I did anything wrong

by my father and mother. However I know they did very little

to instill being nice to animals. I saw my father throw a

cat against the wall or some distance because it had done

something wrong. I saw him hit a family dog for a while

( no broken bones) because he thought it had done something

wrong, or leave it outside in the freezing weather, or any

number of things which, even then, I considered monstrously

inhumane. And yes, I tried to say and do things to stop

this but I received similar results as did the pets, no

broken bones, no extensive bruising, but definite pain

many times. I am not one to do things if I can I can get

away with it. I return incorrect (extra) change to a cashier.

I don't steal. I donate to charities. I don't think I'm

alone. I think there are lots of people like me in these

respects. Unfortunately there are people who will try to

get away with anything they can. I wish it were not so

but it is. Finally I don't know that you can say that

" most " people will do things if they can get away with it.

 

Gary