Or, as Job demonstrates, you can be a perfectly fine, moral, and upstanding person and God might still allow you to suffer the loss of health, wealth, and family.
I see no evidence that karma exists as a cosmic force. Bad things happen to good people, and sometimes the wicked go unpunished. I am, however, a big fan of the quote “You reap what you sow.” If you go around treating people like shit all the time, don’t be surprised if it comes back to bite you in the ass.
Right. So, if you are good, good things can happen to you. If you are bad, bad things can happen to you.
But if you are good, bad things can happen to you, either randomly like Job or because your uncle was a schmuck. And if you’re bad, good things can happen to you, because God never gets around to doing anything about them.
Aren’t the moral teachings of religion so helpful?
Of course, the ultimate in bad Karma, after which no good things can ever happen to you again, is posting a confusing OP, being asked for definitions and clarifications, and never returning.
I’ll just point out that this question and the title of the thread (Is Karma a really a myth, …or is it real?) are not the same question at all.
As to the myth vs real question, it’s a myth. There’s no great abacus in the sky that tallies up all your good and bad deeds and applies good or bad luck accordingly. This may be a misperceived notion of karma, but that’s what i’m settling for as my final answer!
Fundamentally the universe and world reward power, not good and evil. Stalin was extremely evil, but he was powerful enough to avoid repercussions for it. Tons of good people have been badly abused by those more powerful than them too.
However within human societies when you mistreat people, you give them incentive to mistreat you. So in that regards there is some Karma. But I don’t know if that is karma per se as much as a natural human desire to punish cheats and abusers while rewarding helpers.
Either way, power is more important than reciprocation.
Its not even a myth. The greek gods are myths, Jevhova, Yaweh, Allah, and Odin are myths. They have a mythos, or story attached to them. Karma is more a superstition. like people who believe that spilling the salt is bad luck or breaking a mirror, or crossing paths with a black cat.
As I understand the concept of karma, which is the pop-Western version of it…at best it’s a comforting myth, and at worst it’s victim-blaming just-world bullshit. Bad stuff happening to good people? Oh, well, they must have done something really awful in a past life!
The original concept might be a mystical shorthand for the fact that actions can have far-rearching consequences beyond their expected ones, but I’ve never heard it used that way.
When I went for orientation at a Zen Buddhist priory I asked for more explanation of the religious (albeit American Zen) sense of the term and was told that this particular order doesn’t believe in a giant abacus in the sky; rather that actions have consequences even when nobody’s watching.
Assuming the OP is running on the Western concept of Karma, even without evoking spirituality, I think it does exist to some extent. Yes, a given action may ultimately have consequences completely opposite to the nature of the act, but acts do not occur in a vacuum. Instead, continuing to do bad things will, in most cases, eventually result in bad things happening to you or if you continue to do good things, in most cases, eventually good will work it’s way back to you.
In it’s simplest form, this could be someone witnessing or experiencing the acts, being affected by them, and either directly returning it, or indirectly through a chain. In it’s more complex form, by doing good, I generally raise the quality of life of those around me, and so it affects me as well. Similarly, if I continue to do bad, it will generally drag down the quality of life of those around me. By positively or negatively affecting my family, friends, and community, I’m ultimately affecting my own life.
I also think that the concept of karma is a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy. Whether it is ultimately true or not, the belief in it acts as a social rule that encourages people who might otherwise act negatively to act positively, either out of fear of the consequences of the negative act or for hope of the reward of the positive act.
Whether or not it exists as a spiritual concept, that entirely depends upon your religious persuasion, but I still think it exists in some fashion, even if it is only because enough people believe that it does.
That damn TV show has a lot to answer for.
Ch 79 of Tao Te Ching says:
More prescriptive (because of the nature of the universe) than cosmic, but kinda suggestive of karma.
Sorta.
According to my unique faith, Karma is the most powerful force in the Universe; beyond science, beyond even God. In nearly all cases, Karma is the ultimate decider of fate.
Sometimes you must fight like hell to achieve it, though. Many people simply don’t possess the time or energy to bother with that.
I think you’re missing the point. The point, or a point at least, of Job is that good people do suffer. More importantly, can’t just assume that someone who is suffering deserves it or has offended God in some way. I think that’s a pretty good lesson that’s still applicable today.