Topic: Do you believe in cosmic karma, or do you subscribe to causality? (Read 1345 times)

You may be right about the "thanking god" thing, perhaps I was a bit harsh with my basic reasoning there. It does make more sense the way you describe it - I suppose they may even just be thanking god that they got the chance to exist at all (and therefore become successful), and aren't claiming that they were "chosen" for some reason or another, in a karmic sense.

You also make a good point about self-aware animals, I think I agree with you that the free will of such an animal could be diminished by a master. When I said it was an all or nothing scenario, I was talking about the base idea of free-will vs a predetermined path. I think I understand what you're saying now - perhaps the higher the gap of intelligence, life experience and knowledge between the "slave" and the "master", the easier it is that the "slave" will simply obey the "master" without thinking of other less obvious options?

For instance, although some animals have been proven to be self-aware, maybe their behaviour still mostly operates on an instinctual level, and their lack of experience means they will overlook the other options (stupid example, but maybe if a gorilla is beaten by his master, he has the free will to act a certain way but eg. couldn't steal the keys to his cage, escape and then poison his master's coffee because the gorilla doesn't possess the knowledge of these systems. I suppose the gorilla's free will has been diminished to an extent, but I don't think it will ever be fully suppressed as long as the creature remains self-aware.)

Saw an interesting documentary series all about animal intelligence and self-awareness: Inside the Animal Mind - I think there should still be a torrent of them floating about, well worth a watch (I couldn't stop laughing at one point, where two dolphins are having sex while watching themselves in a mirror  )

You've made some interesting points.

I'm inclined to believe, the same as you, that perhaps there really is no such thing as a selfless act.

I don't believe the oscar winner is thanking god for actually choosing them to win. Instead, they are thanking god for; their talents; support from friends, family, and gatekeepers; and life experience in general leading up to the award. The monk in this case is simply an unfortunate victim of circumstance.

It's been studied and proven that many animals are in fact self-aware. If a self-aware being's only choice is to obey or suffer a beating until it does what you command, even though it can choose to suffer a beating instead of obeying, wouldn't you say it's free will has been diminished? Being given a choice of only two available options, A or B, overlooks any possibility of there being an option C,D or E. This is a flase dilemma, one that is indeed being presented to us every day by politicians and corporations, to make us believe we have no choices other than the ones offered by them.

Observing and understanding predictable behaviour is very different from actually programming behaviour. MKULTRA experiments were designed and studied for the express purpose of controlling human behavior, often without the participants consent or even knowledge of said experiments taking place.

Obviously it's just paranoid to be afraid of taking any step because it was somehow predetermined you would take one, but what if a path was laid before you that led to a cliff? The path being, tragedies and circumstances designed to break your spirit and the cliff being suggested as the answer.

Wrong - Newton's third law exists - you just don't know how to apply it.

Show me the formula (no egotistical BS please) that proves something bad will happen to me if I call your mom a bitch.

Newton's third law is based on math.  You got an "A" in math, so this should be easy for you.

I don't believe in karma, it's pretty obvious that the universe does not reward good behaviour/punish bad behaviour through some supernatural force. If this was the case then why do corrupt billionaires get to live out a long life of luxury, while the devout buddhist monk who never harmed anyone in his life gets killed in a freak Tibetan snowstorm...

I believe in causality in a similar way to you - If you are nice, people will be nice back and you'll generally have a better time. Also, I believe that if you you do good things, you will generally feel better about yourself which will in turn enrich your life. (Is there such a thing as a selfless act? lol I don't know, another thread for that I think...)

Similarly, I find the idea of a god that has influence on reality in realtime very hard to understand. I am an atheist, but even so I understand the concept of a god that created everything and now sits back and watches the outcome  

What I don't get is when people who, for example, win an Oscar and then thank god in their speech. Who the fuck are they to be so arrogant as to think that god "chose" them over, say, a devout priest who gave his life to the church, gave all his money to charity and then got falsely accused of raping a choirboy, and subsequently was hung, drawn and quartered (no source for this but I'm pretty sure it's happened a few times). I just don't get it.

Aaaanyway, to your question about free will. I've thought about this a lot, and firstly I don't believe that beings of higher intelligence can neccessarily influence the will of beings of lower intelligence - I think it's an all or nothing situation - either every self-aware being has free will, or they don't.

I tend to think of the human brain as a computer (albeit a ridiculously complicated one). After all, it does just consist of electrical impulses travelling through specific paths. I've contemplated the idea that theoretically, you could artificially map every single neural pathway in a human brain and predict all behaviour and actions that said human would do, in effect meaning that there is no such thing as free will.

I found this concept quite troubling (what is the point of making any decision if it's already been decided in advance by your physiology?), but recently I've been thinking that maybe it would be impossible to predict such things, mainly due to chaos theory and unpredictable quantum phenomena. Regarding chaos theory - perhaps there are so many variables that there is not enough energy in the universe to predict a humans behaviour past a certain point. Regarding quantum phenomena - perhaps there is an innate quantum randomness that again, would make a humans behaviour impossible to predict. Although I don't believe in any of this fully, It's a reasonable assumption as far as I'm concerned. And it makes life more fun than just thinking "It doesn't matter what I do, I was going to do it anyway so I may as well just jump off a cliff..."

I guess Newton's third law doesn't exist either?

Every action causes a reaction.

I did indeed feel the need to express a difference. Direct, as in a fat lip being the direct result of getting punched in the face. Indirect, as in 'the butterfly effect', wherby a butterfly fapping it's wings causes a tsunami.

That's simply calories in minus calories burned.  No mystical karma needed.   

You mentioned like direct and indirect effects are different things. I think they are the pieces of the same puzzle, only we pick which we want to believe.
Sometimes life responses too fast and you see direct effects, sometimes life responses so slowly and you forget what you did good or bad, and you don't understand which effect this is.

cosmic karma... that's air supply for all the stupider folks.

LOL... that's sarcasm. 

eat too many donuts lately? fat are ya? that's karma.

What do you think about the bonus question? Do the weak minded really have a choice or free will, if they are unable to think for themselves?

Luciferians believe it is the right and responsibility of higher intelligent beings to manage lesser ones. If they do their job so well, that you can't even perceive the manipulation, then do you in fact have any choice or free will? I feel like we already support this Luciferian ideology in society, since all the REALLY important decisions governing our lives are done in secret, behind closed doors.

yes....

I believe in karma as it is a way of restraining myself from being a bad person just like religion.

I don't believe in karma.
But, I believe in spiritual world and that spirits of people passed away, can visit their family members (if they have any unresolved issues from their earthly life) and work through them.
To outside people it looks that this person is come back (reincarnation) but in fact this is new person influenced with the spirit of other person.

Karma obviously does not exist.  There is no device or person running around keeping a tally over every good or bad things people do.

Like religion, only the weak minded person will believe in karma.

I use it as a reference sometimes when dealing with slower people.  Helps them to understand what I am saying.  

If you do "bad" things. Then there will be more "bad" things in the universe you exist in.
If you do "good" Thing. Then there will be more "good" thing in the universe you exist in.

The universe is a closed system. More positive energy in the system means less negative energy.
This is to balance out. Only so much energy an exist in closed system.

However there is no direct cause and effect. Bad people can have good days.
But bad people are more likely to have a bad life in general.
Probability is always a factor. Variety is the spicy of life.
There always will be a bad person who had a good life.
And a good person who had a bad life.

This is why we made up heaven. To confront the fact that good people can have horrible lives.
And this is why we made up hell. To confront the fact that bad people can have excellent lives.

Do you subscribe to (direct) causality or do you believe the cosmos will (indirectly) punish you for attaining bad karma and reward you for good karma?

I believe in causality. If you are a nice person, you likely give off good vibes. This doesn't mean bad things won't happen to you. It just means other people are more likely to be nice to you. If you are a nasty individual, you probably give off bad vibes. This doesn't mean good things won't happen to you. It just means other people are more likely not going to be inclined to help you and instead avoid you altogether. For example, if you are a nice person and your neighbor is a dick, a falling meteor isn't going to magically hit his house instead of yours because you have good karma. Subsequently, if you enjoy putting kittens in the microwave to watch them pop, this doesn't mean you won't get a full scholarship because you have bad karma.

People generally like to reciprocate. It is simply cause and effect, action/reaction, otherwise it is simply in their nature (including all life and even inanimate objects) to be a certain way. Two unrelated things aren't going to react to one another due to some imaginary cosmic force. People and things react towards one another mostly in direct correlation to actions or lack there of taken by either party. If you're nice to people they will be nice to you in turn. If you're nasty they won't be nice and may even feel you deserve some form of punishment. Furthermore, if you act like a victim a bully will appear. It doesn't matter to the bully whether you are nice or not. You are simply a victim that needs to be taken advantage of, much in the same way a lion attacks a deer when it sees its hind quarters. The deer acts like prey and the lion reacts and attacks instinctively. In the movie, The Matrix, the Merovingian takes this concept to the extreme and suggests that there is even no such thing as choice or free will. I'm inclined to agree.

What do you believe?
Does karma exist in the sense of some cosmic scale weighing the good and bad deeds you do, consequently rewarding good deeds and punishing bad ones?
Or...
Is it simply causality, cause and effect, action/reaction?

Bonus question. What do you think of the Merovingian's philosophy of choice and free will being an illusion between those with power and those without?