Happy Atheist Forum

I did a quick search and didn't pore over any topic relating to karma as its main source of discussion, so I decided to make this thread.

Do you believe in karma, or the old adage, "What goes around comes around"?

Everything you do in life obviously has a consequence, and morally speaking, your conscious is usually subliminally affected even if you don't realize it at first with every decision.

Could those two factors tie into something?

I don't even know where to begin. Do you believe in karma? Why or why not? What's your perception of its contemporary usage when people speak of it?

I have an idea, just mere speculation, however optimistic it is:

If I do something nice for several people, I think that it's likely that one of those people will in turn do something nice for someone else. If I do something nice for a lot of people, I think the likely hood that the nice actions will reach a third tier increases. So if I do it enough, I think the likely hood that someone will do something nice for me goes up. Like the chaos theory. I'm not likely to research this due to time and interest, so I'll just leave it as baseless speculation and continue to do it unless I find that it does harm... however I don't see any way this could hurt anyone. While I have no evidence to support this idea, I do think it's likely to work, and it's my effort and time to waste as I choose.

I know this doesn't follow exactly in line with Karma, but I do feel it's along the same lines.

I don't personally credit the concept of "Karma" in any mystical sense, but I definitely believe that the world is a sufficiently rich and complex arrangement, such that any action one takes effects, however slightly, the overall balance and present state of the system, which certainly may return to effect the actor, however obliquely.  So that if I contribute violence to the world, and grief, and if I lie, or thieve, or in any way build upon the current misery, I have increased the supply of those things in the general currency, and am likely to receive my payment in kind, both because each of our actions, by a common law, inspires equivalent direct and immediate reactions in others, and because, in the longer view, I have, as I have said, increased the expectation of misery by others by the amount of my own addition, and both made it a more congenial environment for the same actions by others, and inspired cynicism in those who might, otherwise, have lived by higher ideals, and encouraged them to seek a path more base.  In such ways, misery seeks out its own, and keeps them company.

*  I seem to have hit on the same idea as Davin, and he seems to have posted just slightly before me.

Quote from: "The Black Jester"*  I seem to have hit on the same idea as Davin, and he seems to have posted just slightly before me.

Looks very much like you did, however I gave my explanation in the form of an example and you explained the underlying concept. Yours, I think, may prove to be the better option.

Quote from: "Davin"

Quote from: "The Black Jester"*  I seem to have hit on the same idea as Davin, and he seems to have posted just slightly before me.

Looks very much like you did, however I gave my explanation in the form of an example and you explained the underlying concept. Yours, I think, may prove to be the better option.

Perhaps we turned out to be a good team on this one?  

You could no more convince me that Karma isn't real than you could that 2+2=5. It's a force just as apparent and obvious to me as gravity.  From my own experience, I see Karma in action every second of every day.  It may be an illusion from an atheist perspective, but it is so obviously real to me.  Just as Gravity is a real force (even though it's only been proven mathematically, and there's no sight of the graviton anywhere) I think of Karma as just another natural force of the universe.

You can say I'm violating Occam's Razor, and I'll agree with you, but I honestly don't care.  I am convinced by my own experiences (which I will never try to force onto anyone else) That life is made up of it's own energy.  You could put every atom of a human into the correct place, and you'd get a dead body.  It needs energy, a life force if you will.  Like I said, I don't need an experiment to prove this to myself any more than I need someone to produce a graviton for me to believe in gravity.

Your actions put energy out into the world, and the natural equilibrium of the universe sends and equal and opposite energy back at you.  What you send out is what you bring back to yourself.  That's it.  Karma is simply the cosmic flow of cause and effect.  It's how I personally perceive the world around me to behave, scientific merit or not.

I'm a Karma agnostic. Part of me says Pfft superstitious bunkum a smaller part isn't quite so sure.

I don't have much to add to this, as I agree with everything in The Black Jester's excellent post. I think that 'karma' is fine so long as we conceive of it as a moral environment that we create in our social space. If we start to think of it as some sort of force of nature, then we part company with metaphysical naturalism, and also with rationality.

Quote from: "KebertX"You could no more convince me that Karma isn't real than you could that 2+2=5. It's a force just as apparent and obvious to me as gravity.  From my own experience, I see Karma in action every second of every day.  It may be an illusion from an atheist perspective, but it is so obviously real to me.  Just as Gravity is a real force (even though it's only been proven mathematically, and there's no sight of the graviton anywhere) I think of Karma as just another natural force of the universe.

You can say I'm violating Occam's Razor, and I'll agree with you, but I honestly don't care.  I am convinced by my own experiences (which I will never try to force onto anyone else) That life is made up of it's own energy.  You could put every atom of a human into the correct place, and you'd get a dead body.  It needs energy, a life force if you will.  Like I said, I don't need an experiment to prove this to myself any more than I need someone to produce a graviton for me to believe in gravity.

Your actions put energy out into the world, and the natural equilibrium of the universe sends and equal and opposite energy back at you.  What you send out is what you bring back to yourself.  That's it.  Karma is simply the cosmic flow of cause and effect.  It's how I personally perceive the world around me to behave, scientific merit or not.

Then aren't you in essence simply saying that you hold these beliefs, therefore you have a belief system, or a religion of sorts.  You are disputing science to put forth your own interpretation of the world, isn't that just another form of religion?  I can understand your point, and I am in no way saying you are wrong in your belief system, as I have studied heavily the Philosophy of the TAO, and even agree with some of it's texts.  But, if science can not prove it, yet, then it is simply either a religion or a theory.  Perhaps science will one day explain this so called Karma, and perhaps it will not.  I am more inclined to say that what goes around comes around is the minority, therefore we are inclined to recognize it or experience it beyond the other activities that are common around us.  Just a thought.

Quote from: "Martin TK"Then aren't you in essence simply saying that you hold these beliefs, therefore you have a belief system, or a religion of sorts.  You are disputing science to put forth your own interpretation of the world, isn't that just another form of religion?  I can understand your point, and I am in no way saying you are wrong in your belief system, as I have studied heavily the Philosophy of the TAO, and even agree with some of it's texts.  But, if science can not prove it, yet, then it is simply either a religion or a theory.  Perhaps science will one day explain this so called Karma, and perhaps it will not.  I am more inclined to say that what goes around comes around is the minority, therefore we are inclined to recognize it or experience it beyond the other activities that are common around us.  Just a thought.

No. I don't believe anything that contradicts science. I'm simply taking an extra leap.  I don't think of it as religion, religion is mythology. This is a simple world view.  As of right now, there's no hard evidence that supports the idea of Karma (It's not a theory: theories are supported by experimentation. It's not a hypothesis, no one's suggested an experiment for it. Karma is nothing more than an idea.) But I don't care because I can perceive it.  I see Karma in every individual action of everything around me.

I'd be outraged if they tried to teach Karma in schools, but I still think that there's some merit to the idea of Karma, and most of the other Buddhist philosophies.  I'm not being anti scientific, if they came out with a new equation that proved there were only 4 forces in the universe, I'd be skeptical for a while, but eventually concede that Karma doesn't exist.  If they solved the theory of everything, and Karma was not involved, I'd concede that karma doesn't exist.  But, then again, I'd do the same thing if they proved that gravity wasn't real.  Even though gravity is an apparent and obvious force of the universe, I would still concede that gravity wasn't real if it was proven to me.

Does that make sense? I'd require some evidence before I would consider the idea that Karma's not real. I know burden of proof goes to the one who's making the claim, but I don't care. I don't care if other people don't believe it, or if they think I'm under a religious delusion. I remain convinced of Karma.  I hope I clarified my point.

I reject a supernatural conception of karma, but accept a materialistic expression of it.

In short, assholes make enemies.

I am inclined to agree with Davin and Jester on this one, though I do have something to add.

I think that the very act of performing a good deed makes you feel better.  We all also realize that when we do something we aren't proud of, it tends to eat at us for a while.
When I feel good, I feel incredibly optimistic and the universe is just fine and dandy and nothing could go wrong.  This doesn't necessarily make good things happen to me, but rather makes everything that does happen to me appear in a positive light, creating the illusion of everything being better.  
When I have a piece of guilt gnawing at my insides, the opposite is true.  I'm quite irritable, and no matter what happens, It's going to appear in a very negative light.

While I don't believe in Karma in a mystical sense, I believe it is very real in the forms of social workings and chemicals in your brain.

Quote from: "AsylumSeeker"Do you believe in karma, or the old adage, "What goes around comes around"?

No.

QuoteEverything you do in life obviously has a consequence, and morally speaking, your conscious is usually subliminally affected even if you don't realize it at first with every decision.
Could those two factors tie into something? I don't even know where to begin. Do you believe in karma? Why or why not? What's your perception of its contemporary usage when people speak of it?

Quote from: "wiki"'Karma' is an Indian religious concept in contradistinction to 'faith', which view all human dramas as the will of God as opposed to present - and past - life actions. Karma is the concept of "action" or "deed", understood as that which causes the entire cycle of cause and effect

Yes, I believe in some form of karma, but I don't give it a supernatural interpretation.

Black Jester put it nicely.

Thought it might be useful to see what Buddhist teachings say about Karma/kamma.

Quote"Intention, I tell you, is kamma. Intending, one does kamma by way of body, speech, & intellect."

â€" AN 6.63

Quote"'I am the owner of my actions (kamma), heir to my actions, born of my actions, related through my actions, and have my actions as my arbitrator. Whatever I do, for good or for evil, to that will I fall heir'

â€" AN 5.57

The way the above talks about karma it is not so much cause and effect as it is action (karma) and result(s) of action (vipaka).  Cause and effect is usually thought of as immediate and linear.  Action and result(s) can be linear but are more often a sort of feed back loop or pattern that ends up as habit.  It can take decades for all of the results of an action to play themselves out.  The key is intention.  The more one acts with skillful intention the easier it gets.  The more one acts with unskillful intention the easier that becomes.  One falls heir to one's intentions and actions over time.  I am one of the older members of this board and I can tell you karma is real in the sense that decisions do have results.

Quote from: "notself"Thought it might be useful to see what Buddhist teachings say about Karma/kamma.

Quote"Intention, I tell you, is kamma. Intending, one does kamma by way of body, speech, & intellect."

â€" AN 6.63

Quote"'I am the owner of my actions (kamma), heir to my actions, born of my actions, related through my actions, and have my actions as my arbitrator. Whatever I do, for good or for evil, to that will I fall heir'

â€" AN 5.57

The way the above talks about karma it is not so much cause and effect as it is action (karma) and result(s) of action (vipaka).  Cause and effect is usually thought of as immediate and linear.  Action and result(s) can be linear but are more often a sort of feed back loop or pattern that ends up as habit.  It can take decades for all of the results of an action to play themselves out.  The key is intention.  The more one acts with skillful intention the easier it gets.  The more one acts with unskillful intention the easier that becomes.  One falls heir to one's intentions and actions over time.  I am one of the older members of this board and I can tell you karma is real in the sense that decisions do have results.

There is a lot of truth in this post. AN 5.57 in particular resonates with me.

Quote from: "AsylumSeeker"Do you believe in karma, or the old adage, "What goes around comes around"?

No
I am an atheist.
The idea is crap.
Exotic crap is still crap.
I don't believe in a cosmic boomerang.

Quote from: "The Magic Pudding"

Quote from: "AsylumSeeker"Do you believe in karma, or the old adage, "What goes around comes around"?

No
I am an atheist.
The idea is crap.
Exotic crap is still crap.
I don't believe in a cosmic boomerang.

On a practical level though if a person is rude and unhelpful to you and you had a choice of behaviours to return to that person which one would you choose. In one example the lady doctor who was giving a first aid course related the following. She was on A&E one evening and something was going on but she couldn't find out what, everybody was being really odd to her and she didn't know why. Quite by chance she picked up the admissions list and saw a name on it. She went to see the person, she knew him. It was her ex-boyfriend who had dumped her not 3 weeks previously for her (ex)best mate. He had broken his wrist, it had not yet been set, the other nurses had been keeping her out of the loop. Apparently he screamed quite satisfyingly as she set his wrist for him!

I'm not sure why I was quoted in the last post (recently if I'm slow).
Did I dismiss it to quickly?
I would like karma to be real.
But there is no evidence, so I dismiss it.
I have a view of how I want things to be.
I like the treat others as you would have them treat you rule.
I don't think anyone or thing is keeping score.
But I follow a largely conventional moral code because it seems best,
not for reward in the here or the ever after.

The thing I dislike about Karma is that it seems to me to reinforce the idea that somehow you can control or effect reality with intention in more of a physical way than is actually possible.  Now, is that a Westernized strawman of Karma or is that an apt criticism, I'm not sure.  But I think there is danger in believing that you have the ability to create good things in your life simply by being a good person.  I think it doesn't hurt, but I see no reason to give the phenomenon a name and to say that I believe in it.

Quote from: "The Magic Pudding"I'm not sure why I was quoted in the last post (recently if I'm slow).
Did I dismiss it to quickly?

No. I don't think you said any thing I would not have said about the superstitious element of karma, but I think in a very real sense what goes around comes around.

Quote from: "The Magic Pudding"I would like karma to be real.

Note sure I would want it to be real, it would be like a permanent game of friends and point gathering on Facebook!

Quote from: "The Magic Pudding"But there is no evidence, so I dismiss it.
I have a view of how I want things to be.
I like the treat others as you would have them treat you rule.
I don't think anyone or thing is keeping score.
But I follow a largely conventional moral code because it seems best,
not for reward in the here or the ever after.

All sounds right too me.

I like to think of it more as something like cosmic retribution.

Retribution means only "bad" actions have results.  Of course skillful actions have results as well as unskillful ones.  Equating retribution with karma doesn't make sense.

I, personally, can't seem to believe in Karma, especially in the spiritual concept, which seems to be the general consensus.

However, (and I HATE when other people do this, but) I do have to play the personal experience card. There are, obviously, a lot of different perceptions of right and wrong. From what I have seen, it would seem that some form of judgement exists in some way, shape, or form. I don't believe in karma until I can readily prove it, but I can't deny my personal experiences with it.

This brings up my main question, to myself and others: If we had not been exposed to the term "karma", would we, through our personal experiences, think that something like that actually existed? If I knew nothing of karma, but caused someone pain and earned pain in return later, would I think "oh, well, something must have judged me."? This is tough to answer. I'm thinking, if it happened over and over again, then maybe I would start acting different to sort out the imbalance. I'm not so sure, however, that an idea of universal judgement would come to mind. Thoughts?

Quote from: "Obii"If we had not been exposed to the term "karma", would we, through our personal experiences, think that something like that actually existed?

I think that "something like that" does exist. The phrase mentioned a couple of times already, "what goes around, comes around," is an example of a sort of (very rough) approximation in popular culture of the idea of karma.  Obviously it is applicable more to social interaction than to some "psychic law of the universe," though.  I think that the idea of karma is just that, an attempt to formulate an all-embracing law which works in the metaphysical realm in a similar way to Newton's 3rd Law of Motion.  There is ample evidence of "what goes around, comes around" being a reasonable description of an aspect of social mechanics.  Just as any formulation to describe social interaction, though, it's only reasonable to think of it as a tendency, not as a hard and fast rule.  The more ethereal and universal conception embodied by the idea of karma could only really work, in my opinion, if there were some sort of spiritual existence after life, either reincarnation or another type of afterlife.  The simple reality we see around us, of people behaving in an undoubtedly evil manner, and just as undoubtedly going unpunished, and dying peacefully and perhaps even surrounded by luxury, seems to show that the only way for karma to have an effect on them would be if they were to suffer consequences after death.  As such, I find it unlikely that karma truly exists, outside of the minds of spiritually inclined individuals.

Quote from: "KebertX"Just as Gravity is a real force (even though it's only been proven mathematically, and there's no sight of the graviton anywhere) I think of Karma as just another natural force of the universe.

Interesting that you should use gravity as an analogy.  I'm not sure if you're familiar with the idea of "fictitious force," also known as d'Alembert force.  What is commonly known as "g-force" is an example of a fictitious force.  The added weight which seems to affect an object or person in an accelerating frame of reference (jet, car, etc.) seems to be the result of a force acting upon that object or person. It's actually only the result of inertia.  Now the interesting (to me, anyway) part: There is a school of thought which holds that gravity itself is a fictitious force. According to Einstein's conception of space-time, matter interacts with space-time by curving it.  The path of an object under the influence of gravity is in reality (according to this line of thought) only that object following the curvature of space-time, and so there is not actual force acting upon it, even though it seems as if there is.  I admit, I'm not entirely convinced by this idea.  For one thing, if matter creates curvature in space-time, that would seem to imply that there is a force involved, somewhere in the mix.  If you're interested in reading up on this sort of thing, Courtney Seligman has a fairly readable page on the subject (http://cseligman.com/text/physics/fictitious.htm).

I admit, the above paragraph is extremely tangential to the subject of the thread, but it's something that I had been investigating recently, and the quote, "Gravity is a real force" was irresistible to me.  Mea culpa

Karma is a word meaning voluntary action and results of action.   Action / results of action.    Actions can have results in the present or in the future.  Karma does not judge.  It is not punishment or reward.  Obviously someone did think of the relationship between action and result.
The way that the term is used today the Sanskrit word karma means both action and result but the actual translation of the word karma is volitional action.  The word for result is Vipaka.

The spiritual part of karma is the concept that some results do not "ripen" in this lifetime but continue into the next life.  Karma meets rebirth / reincarnation.  There is no credible evidence for rebirth / reincarnation but it is one explanation of why good things happen to bad people and why bad things happen to good people.  A wrong but common understanding of Rebirth takes Buddhism from a practical philosophy into the realm of religion. It's a religion without a controlling creator god, and without a belief in a soul, but most Buddhists still think that they will be reborn.  This is in spite of the fact they think that "self" is a construct of the brain. However, the oldest commentaries on the teachings clearly state that only the phenomena of action and result rolls on.  Here is a quote from the Commentaries on the karma and rebirth.

"Mere suffering is, not any sufferer is found
The deeds exist, but no performer of the deeds:
Nibbana is, but not the man that enters it,
The path is, but no wanderer is to be seen.

No doer of the deeds is found,
No one who ever reaps their fruits,
Empty phenomena roll on,
This view alone is right and true.

No god, no Brahma, may be called,
The maker of this wheel of life,
Empty phenomena roll on,
Dependent on conditions all."

- Visuddhimagga XVI 90

Quote from: "notself"Karma is a word meaning voluntary action and results of action.   Action / results of action.    Actions can have results in the present or in the future.  Karma does not judge.  It is not punishment or reward.  Obviously someone did think of the relationship between action and result.
The way that the term is used today the Sanskrit word karma means both action and result but the actual translation of the word karma is volitional action.  The word for result is Vipaka.

Thank you for clarifying the definition of "karma."  It sounds from this as though karma ~~> vipaka is merely describing causality, in the realm of animal interaction (people being the most relevant animal, in this instance). If that is the case, then it's hard to find anything to disagree with. However, the volitional actions of certain malevolent individuals might have positive results for them.  For instance, a person about to go on trial murders somebody who is going to testify against them, and gets away with it.  The trial results in acquittal. Since "karma doesn't judge," the vipaka is, the murderer not only gets away with murder, but also escapes punishment for the earlier crime.  Without the spiritual component, I don't see the relevance of using the word "karma."

Quote from: "Recusant"Thank you for clarifying the definition of "karma."  It sounds from this as though karma ~~> vipaka is merely describing causality, in the realm of animal interaction (people being the most relevant animal, in this instance). If that is the case, then it's hard to find anything to disagree with. However, the volitional actions of certain malevolent individuals might have positive results for them.  For instance, a person about to go on trial murders somebody who is going to testify against them, and gets away with it.  The trial results in acquittal. Since "karma doesn't judge," the vipaka is, the murderer not only gets away with murder, but also escapes punishment for the earlier crime.  Without the spiritual component, I don't see the relevance of using the word "karma."

It may appear that some malevolent individuals get away without bad results for bad acts but it is impossible to really be sure.  Perhaps they gain financially but lose psychologically by developing paranoia that takes away the pleasure of the gain.  People may appear to lose when acting altruistically but may gain by having inner contentment.  Karma can be obvious or subtle.

Quote from: "notself"

Quote from: "Recusant"Thank you for clarifying the definition of "karma."  It sounds from this as though karma ~~> vipaka is merely describing causality, in the realm of animal interaction (people being the most relevant animal, in this instance). If that is the case, then it's hard to find anything to disagree with. However, the volitional actions of certain malevolent individuals might have positive results for them.  For instance, a person about to go on trial murders somebody who is going to testify against them, and gets away with it.  The trial results in acquittal. Since "karma doesn't judge," the vipaka is, the murderer not only gets away with murder, but also escapes punishment for the earlier crime.  Without the spiritual component, I don't see the relevance of using the word "karma."

It may appear that some malevolent individuals get away without bad results for bad acts but it is impossible to really be sure.  Perhaps they gain financially but lose psychologically by developing paranoia that takes away the pleasure of the gain.  People may appear to lose when acting altruistically but may gain by having inner contentment.  Karma can be obvious or subtle.

Is there any difference between the concept of karma and the understanding that actions have consequences?  I guess I just don't see why you have to "believe" in karma if all it is is a word for cause and effect.  Things which exist can definitely be obvious or subtle, but applying this to what seems to be an abstract concept reminds me too much of Sagan's Dragon.   I'm totally on board with karma right up until the point where it starts being regarded as an active agent in finding some kind of balance to the universe.

Earlier I dismissed a karma as crap, I see this wasn't very tactful, particularly when Buddhists are posting, sorry notself & KebertX.

This is the WordWeb definition

Quote(Hinduism and Buddhism) the effects of a person's actions that determine their fate in this life and the next incarnation

If a belief is helping people do good (sorry, no definition for good) I don't have a problem.
I have seen video of people, Hindu I think, throwing themselves in the dirt and shit, crawling through it, putting their heads in it.
They seem to be wasting their lives, I don't know if they have families that need them.
I could be wrong, but I think they do this from a belief in karma, not a god as such.
All the crawling through crap is supposed to bring benefit in their next life.
If I've got this right, a belief in karma is doing harm, sometimes anyway.

Quote from: "The Magic Pudding"Earlier I dismissed a karma as crap, I see this wasn't very tactful, particularly when Buddhists are posting, sorry notself & KebertX.

This is the WordWeb definition

Quote(Hinduism and Buddhism) the effects of a person's actions that determine their fate in this life and the next incarnation

No problem. I follow the teachings of Gotama (the Buddha) as a philosophy not as a religion.  The teachings on morality, concentration and wisdom cannot be topped by any other philosophy.  Unfortunately, almost immediately after his death and against his direct instructions, superstition, amulets, ritual and hierarchy began to creep in.  As it moves West, some of this is removed for a brief time but as a group, Westerners are just a superstitious as Asians so back it comes again.

Hinduism is not a religion but a group of religious traditions that are grouped under one umbrella.  Some of these groups consider karma to be the equivalent of fate that must be lived through.  Other groups are closer to the Buddhist belief that karma is action that is in control of the doer.  There is a sutta in the cannon about a killer for hire who followed the teachings and in spite of decades of murder, overcame this bad karma and became awake (enlightened).  There is no equivalent story, as far as I know, in Hinduism.

Another story is from the Buddha himself who compares bad karma to salt and good karma to pure water.  If one puts salt in a cup of water the water is ruined.  If one puts the same amount of salt in a lake, the water stays drinkable.  The assassin diluted his bad karma with the purity of action that was so great as to eliminate the effects of the bad action (on future action and on the mind.)

I believe in a sort of cosmic balance. That good things happen to good people, and bad things happen to and... and that bad things happen to good peope, and the reverse.

Good things happen to good people so that people will do good things, however, if only bad things happen to bad people then there wouldn't be balance between good and evil because evil would be greatly outnumbered!

I think of it as good people get paid a steady, yet small pay. they have just enough pay to get things done, but no real wiggle room. Working class basically.

Bad people are like homeless people who spend all their money on scratch tickets, the majority of them will spend their lives in scqualler eating infrequently and whatnot... But a blessed few win the big bucks, because they have to so that bad folk can say "Aye dun nee a... ejumakayshun, huway I'll be a profeshnel footballer or somewhat."  

Me, I'll play it safe.

I also believe that the energy that people send out will come back to them.

There are causes and there are effects. Ripple effects sometimes. Thus, an event far away can pre-determine the direction a life takes or contribute to long chains of specific events in its wake that would otherwise never have happened.

The "balance" of such things does not depend on their goodness or badness. And me, I think the balance is caused by the events, not that the events are the result of some pre-determined balance.