Skeptics and Karma and Flow

[Trent Wray]

Okay, some of the conversation in this thread (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=174079&page=4) got me to thinking about the idea of "karma".

Does anyone who would care to share their thoughts think there is any legitimacy to certain aspects of it? Woo or non-woo, whatever.

Along psychological aspects ... Tatyana made some posts in that thread linking to Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's theories on flow (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mihály_Cs%C3%ADkszentmihályi#Flow). I haven't totally delved into yet ... I like to hear consumer reports first usually :) And I was also considering the ideas behind some of Frankl's assertions in Man's Search for Meaning (which I haven't read in twenty years now). The idea that changing your POV, and focussing on hope, etc .... can actually lead to a person's living or dying and "spreading" those ideas to others to provide inspiration .... reminds me of karma to some extent I suppose. And of course there is the "what goes around comes around," and "paying it forward," and "Murphy's Law", etc and so forth. They are all kinds of karma-ish if you look at them a certain way. Perhaps.

This thread might go nowhere, but thoughts anyone?

ETA: I think the psychology behind it and related concepts are interesting, so anyone who can speak to those ideas and explanations I'd be specifically interested in, not to sound too personally biased :(

[cienaños]

Flow:
In the theatre actors call it 'being in the moment.' It is a trance, a ritual. You're 'present' as the 'actor,' but the 'actor' takes on a, a sort of 'observer' role. The 'character' must shed the 'actor', specifically, the head of the actor. This is what Csíkszentmihályi might call 'flow.'

A considerable amount of skill and training is required to do this well.

Karma:
The trajectory of the play as a whole is an organism, breathing, alive, and again, if done well, connected. The oft-heard phrase "acting is reacting" is, I posit, as close as I've experienced the notion of Karma. It is immediately measurable and experienced. You give what you get and vice versa.

The Skeptic:
The skeptic mind is undeniably required during the rehearsal process. Countless intentions, tactics, ideas coupled with a general sense of reckless play exist in this phase of the creative process. Everything should be questioned so that when opening night comes, the bulk of fear has been challenged and addressed with confidence. This allows the mind to shed itself of fear, doubt, and anything else that might not serve the ritual, the play.

----- ------ ------

As for how "Karma" extends into 'everyday life' - my guess would be that it becomes diluted the further it expands out into society at large. For instance, I live with my girl. If I don't do my chores - a negative choice, there will be negative consequences. If I do, I might just get some of the good stuff. Obviously, this invites notions of selfish behavior, but that's a derail - so I'll leave it there. :)

[kellyb]

"Cause and effect" is definitely real, but mixing up ideas about non-supernatural basic effects with woo ideas about "Karma" is counterproductive, IMO.

[the_bunkologist]

Okay, some of the conversation got me to thinking about the idea of "karma".

Does anyone who would care to share their thoughts think there is any legitimacy to certain aspects of it? Woo or non-woo, whatever.

ETA: I think the psychology behind it and related concepts are interesting, so anyone who can speak to those ideas and explanations I'd be specifically interested in, not to sound too personally biased :(

I'm studying buddhist mindfulness meditation right now with someone who tries to take what is psychologically useful from the buddhist tradition and secularize it. His take on karma is that it is a way of thinking and speaking about the way we transmit patterns of behavior and ways of seeing to each other. One of the main reasons for meditating is to become aware of your own unconscious reactions to the world, such that you don't become a vehicle for other people's mindless, hateful patterns.

The traditional buddhist idea that we receive our karma from 'past lives' is cached out in psychological terms - we are part of an intergenerational flow of patterns of behavior and reactivity. And our own patterns of behavior and reactivity are transmitted to others, and so live on past our death as an individual. If my father was an angry man, his anger can be 'reincarnated' in me - that is, unless I work hard to become aware of myself, and change that pattern. Otherwise, that pattern will be 'reincarnated' in others.

Put this way, I find it to be a simple, powerful idea. Realizing the power of karma is just realizing how our own subjectivity is in a deep and important sense intersubjectivity. Who I am is constituted by and through others, and so there is an ethical imperative to take charge of what I send out into the world.

[Gord_in_Toronto]

As the late great John_W._Campbell said in one of his editorials in ASF, "The first thing to recognize is that the Universe does not care."

[cienaños]

As the late great John_W._Campbell said in one of his editorials in ASF, "The first thing to recognize is that the Universe does not care."

If I may, what are you referring to here, brother?

[kellyb]

I'm studying buddhist mindfulness meditation right now with someone who tries to take what is psychologically useful from the buddhist tradition and secularize it. His take on karma is that it is a way of thinking and speaking about the way we transmit patterns of behavior and ways of seeing to each other. One of the main reasons for meditating is to become aware of your own unconscious reactions to the world, such that you don't become a vehicle for other people's mindless, hateful patterns.

The traditional buddhist idea that we receive our karma from 'past lives' is cached out in psychological terms - we are part of an intergenerational flow of patterns of behavior and reactivity. And our own patterns of behavior and reactivity are transmitted to others, and so live on past our death as an individual. If my father was an angry man, his anger can be 'reincarnated' in me - that is, unless I work hard to become aware of myself, and change that pattern. Otherwise, that pattern will be 'reincarnated' in others.

Put this way, I find it to be a simple, powerful idea. Realizing the power of karma is just realizing how our own subjectivity is in a deep and important sense intersubjectivity. Who I am is constituted by and through others, and so there is an ethical imperative to take charge of what I send out into the world.

Ok, but you just came up with a whole new definition of "Karma".

I can say I believe in God if I re-define "God" as "Everything in the universe", too.

[Robo Sapien]

In the east they call it Karma, over here we call it guilt.

My assertion is that there is no such thing as good karma. Good people generally aren't selfish to the extent that they wait for their good karma to be returned, they just do good things. Karma only exists in the mind when one is knowingly doing wrong, and fears the repercussions will come back around to them.

[kellyb]

I thought the "Eastern" definition of Karma generally involves past lives and souls and stuff?

[kellyb]

Ok...unless the wiki is way off, "Karma" is a supernatural thing and it involves past and future lives, souls, sometimes gods, etc.

[Pup]

Okay, some of the conversation in this thread (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=174079&page=4) got me to thinking about the idea of "karma".

Does anyone who would care to share their thoughts think there is any legitimacy to certain aspects of it? Woo or non-woo, whatever.

Along psychological aspects ... Tatyana made some posts in that thread linking to Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's theories on flow (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mihály_Cs%C3%ADkszentmihályi#Flow)...

I'm lost on how "flow" or Frankl would require any sort of supernatural explanation. Typical relaxation techniques or medication are useless for me, but I find that flow achieves the same results far better. It's widespread enough that I think that something close to it has slipped into popular language as "lost in the moment" or "enchanted by" or "entranced by."

But I don't see it as having anything to do with anything supernatural. It's something we seem to be programmed to enjoy, like sex. The reason for sex is obvious--the people who enjoy reproducing most, reproduce. I'd propose that flow might be related to successful hunting. The people who enjoyed focussing all their attention on an activity tended to be better at it and had the most well-fed tribe, and therefore also the tribe with the better survival rate, reproduction rate and so forth.

Same way, I think karma is related to our pattern-seeking skills, a sort of moral form of pareidolia where we seek recognizable order where it isn't. We're social animals and again, the society that has an innate sense of right, wrong, justice, reward and punishment will probably get along and cooperate better and therefore be more successful in cooperative activities like getting food, safety, defense, raising young and so forth.

So we're bothered by wrongs that don't get righted, and therefore make up a fantasy to comfort us if we don't see immediate justice. We can reassure ourselves that they'll be righted in the future when karma causes good or bad things to happen, or a person gets punished in hell or rewarded in heaven.

That said, I totally believe in the "power of positive thinking" and that sort of claptrap, LOL. It works.

But I think it works (or appears to work) because of the usual "remember the hits, forget the misses," and also because it puts one in a frame of mind to constantly look for opportunities and take action when they arrive.

I don't believe in any god or supernatural force, so I don't do anything the right way according to rituals or prayer or the specific rules and I don't have any god supposedly looking out for me. And yet some kind of "power of positive thinking" works as well or better for me than believers, which shows to me that it's got nothing to do with the supernatural things layered on it.

Good example: at the end of last year, I decided that I would be making $1,000 a month online, working at home in my spare time, by the end of this year. At the time, I was making around $200 and it sounded impossible, but I knew I'd succeed.

So I tried another website, a few more affiliate programs, etc. etc. and only added about $25 a month. No big deal, I had nine more months to meet my goal.

Then, suddenly, about three weeks ago, one of the online places I'd been working for revamped their whole way of doing things. Everyone was blindsided. We all got switched around, some people got shut out entirely, some had trouble with the changes, some liked it. I liked it. I loved it. For the same amount of work, my income shot up five times as high, even if I dropped some of the less profitable stuff.

Five times what I was making before equals... $1,000 a month.

The power of positive thinking worked again, eight months early.

If I'd been praying for that, I would have sworn it was a miracle. In fact, I think that kind of thing is exactly what prompted people to "invent" prayer and all the complexities that go with it, when in fact the basic idea is simply if you focus on something, you'll ignore the misses and keep trying until you get a hit. It seems miraculous, but it's really just retrofitting, bias... there's any number of common fallacies that could be applied to the belief that it's anything other than just trying until you finally get lucky.

[Complexity]

There is no karma. Belief in karma is woo.

As much as I'd like to believe that people can't escape justice, I know that they do much of the time.

[Robo Sapien]

I'm with Complexity on this one, inescapable justice married with righteous vindication is an illusion. Optimism definitely has its place though, just the appropriate circumstances are rare.

[the_bunkologist]

Ok, but you just came up with a whole new definition of "Karma".

I can say I believe in God if I re-define "God" as "Everything in the universe", too.

You're right, of course. I'm presenting a psychosocial reinterpretation of a metaphysical concept (though I can't claim to have come up with it myself). And there are definitely cases where that kind of activity is pointless. I can reinterpret 'Krishna' to mean cheddar cheese, but it would be a waste of everyone's time.

However, I don't think this reinterpretation is similarly empty. That is because the reinterpretation of karma I presented makes sense of the practical and ethical framework of Buddhism. The same concrete practices (meditation, for instance) make the same kind of sense with the secular version of 'karma' as with the metaphysical version.

Furthermore, the Buddhist sutras say explicitly, over and over again, that the psychological meaning of the teaching is the important one, not the metaphysical dimension. Metaphysics is portrayed as a kind of pointless distraction from the important work of actually cultivating virtue. This is particularly true in the Mahayana tradition (though less so for Theravada Buddhists).

So I think this reinterpretation (and you're right, it is one) saves what was good and useful about the metaphysical notion of karma and its place in Buddhist practice, but jettisons the woo.

[Pure Argent]

Okay, some of the conversation in this thread (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=174079&page=4) got me to thinking about the idea of "karma".

Does anyone who would care to share their thoughts think there is any legitimacy to certain aspects of it? Woo or non-woo, whatever.

Karma, as a mystic force which measures your moral worth and determines your fate after (and, in some beliefs, before) death, is bunk.

"Flow", on the other hand, is quite real. I've experienced a couple times myself: it's complete and total immersion in the task at hand, and is one of the single coolest things that can ever happen to you. It's happened to me once during a chess match against my dad - I could see five moves ahead, something I've never been able to do since - once during a game of Super Smash Bros.: Melee and once while skiing. No doubt if I practiced I could do it again, but for now, those three times are pretty awesome memories.

[kellyb]

You're right, of course. I'm presenting a psychosocial reinterpretation of a metaphysical concept (though I can't claim to have come up with it myself). And there are definitely cases where that kind of activity is pointless. I can reinterpret 'Krishna' to mean cheddar cheese, but it would be a waste of everyone's time.

However, I don't think this reinterpretation is similarly empty. That is because the reinterpretation of karma I presented makes sense of the practical and ethical framework of Buddhism. The same concrete practices (meditation, for instance) make the same kind of sense with the secular version of 'karma' as with the metaphysical version.

Furthermore, the Buddhist sutras say explicitly, over and over again, that the psychological meaning of the teaching is the important one, not the metaphysical dimension. Metaphysics is portrayed as a kind of pointless distraction from the important work of actually cultivating virtue. This is particularly true in the Mahayana tradition (though less so for Theravada Buddhists).

So I think this reinterpretation (and you're right, it is one) saves what was good and useful about the metaphysical notion of karma and its place in Buddhist practice, but jettisons the woo.

I'll take your word for it that it's meaningful for secular Buddhists. :)

Not being a interested in Buddhism, it does seem like redefining it into cheddar cheese, but that's just a matter of perspective.

[Saraffina]

My history teacher went into some depth about karma. He said that karma is "the weight of wise and unwise actions in this life that preconditions the next life and the near future." Basically if your nice and stuff you will have good luck and be reincarnated as something desirable. If you slaughter people and are a very hateful person then you will be reincarnated as a worm, ant, etc. Highly doubtful any of this is true.

[Fnord]

There is no karma.
I'll bet Karma Johnston would disagree.

(Maybe Karma Chameleon, too!)

[kellyb]

My history teacher went into some depth about karma. He said that karma is "the weight of wise and unwise actions in this life that preconditions the next life and the near future." Basically if your nice and stuff you will have good luck and be reincarnated as something desirable. If you slaughter people and are a very hateful person then you will be reincarnated as a worm, ant, etc. Highly doubtful any of this is true.

It also doesn't even seem mathematically possible in even the most utilitarian sense, considering the overabundance of ants and worms on Earth compared to murderous humans.
:confused:

[Marquis de Carabas]

Every time I meet someone who believes in karma, I punch them in the face. They had it coming, apparently.

[the_bunkologist]

I'll take your word for it that it's meaningful for secular Buddhists. :)

Not being a interested in Buddhism, it does seem like redefining it into cheddar cheese, but that's just a matter of perspective.

Without knowing something of the practices and psychological models that 'karma' fits into, I can see how it would seem pointless. But if you don't care, obviously, that's your prerogative.

[Gord_in_Toronto]

If I may, what are you referring to here, brother?

There is no mechanism built into reality that balances out "good" and "bad". The evidence of this is all around us. Evil bastards like "Mother" Teresa live to an old age. Innocent babies die in agony.

When we die, we stop "working" and it is all over.

YMMV & etc.

[ParrotPirate]

There is no karma. There is, however, cosmic retribution!

[Trent Wray]

Hmm .... okay, is desiring justice similar to desiring for a concept like karma to be real?

There are people I want to see "get theres" in bad ways and good. I want the oppressor to be oppressed or removed. I want the oppressed to be free. And sometimes I see a fine line between the two. Etc and so forth.

Sometimes, I just want the oppressor to stop oppressing. To me ..... that is freedom for both the oppressor and the oppressed. That is, I think, something different from "karma". But other times of course, I want to see those who cause suffering to suffer or be banished LOL.

So as others have hinted at ..... equating illusions of karma with justice, idealism, guilt, etc ....... it would seem there is something to human nature that has an affinity for these illusions. And the idea of the "flow" struck me hard in the face because it's something I personally can relate to ..... being in the zone, everything falling into place a certain way, etc and so forth. I don't know if it's from being in sports my whole life and being "trained" to respond without thinking to a variety of circumstances (like in the medical field) while still utilizing quick critical thinking, etc. I also play musical instruments (by ear) so I find patterns and reproduce them quickly and can "flow". And I also know when I'm "not in the flow" and generally how to find it to get back in "it".

And when I'm in the "flow" it's as though I'm at my peak, untouchable, etc. I'm cool with myself and with others. Like water off a duck's back. When I'm not in the flow .... it's the opposite. I choke and gurgle and drown and stumble around knocking crap over so to speak. So maybe I'm seeing a connection between "karma" as an idea ..... an idea we seek to recreate realistically either through woo or psychological methods .... and then I'm seeing the "flow" almost being the answer to the problem of karma. There is a part of me that instantly wants to say: "if we all were in the flow, we wouldn't care about karma. We'd all be optimum, like machines running smoothly." The flow, as I know it, is freeing. Trying to understand an anthropomorphized life executing justice through a karma concept, or even humans successfully executing justice and relieving guilt and rewarding pleasure, etc ..... seems "archaic". The flow seems more natural.

What is "the flow" still lacking within it's framework?

[Trent Wray]

Every time I meet someone who believes in karma, I punch them in the face. They had it coming, apparently. I don't believe in karma. Therefore, I would like to split the profits. ;)

There is no karma. Belief in karma is woo.

As much as I'd like to believe that people can't escape justice, I know that they do much of the time. For some reason this statement is slamming me hard.

I don't believe in karma ... but I haven't completely given up on justice quite yet. There is a small part of me that is clinging to an idea of it. Like a monkey with his hand in a jar, grabbing onto that ******* banana. I know I should let go of the banana. But at the same time .... I know someone whom I want to have that banana of justice badly.

Is it wrong to hold onto it for another .... to see "justice" come to someone whom I know could so desperately use it? Or is it an illusion that I'm thinking I can still give it to someone else? This could be one of the last area's I'm still a rube in. Maybe I'm rationalizing that if it's for another person, then it's worthy of believing in for their benefit, because if no one else can make it happen, at least I'll try to. But maybe that's b.s. It pisses me off the banana of justice is in a jar. It pisses me off that I know it's an illusion. And it pisses me off that I still care about that jar with the invisible banana in it because there is someone I want to have it, and I'm afraid I'm only trying to give them an illusion.

I'm probably answering my own question. I now hate this thread :)

I'm lost on how "flow" or Frankl would require any sort of supernatural explanation. Typical relaxation techniques or medication are useless for me, but I find that flow achieves the same results far better. It's widespread enough that I think that something close to it has slipped into popular language as "lost in the moment" or "enchanted by" or "entranced by."

But I don't see it as having anything to do with anything supernatural. It's something we seem to be programmed to enjoy, like sex. The reason for sex is obvious--the people who enjoy reproducing most, reproduce. I'd propose that flow might be related to successful hunting. The people who enjoyed focussing all their attention on an activity tended to be better at it and had the most well-fed tribe, and therefore also the tribe with the better survival rate, reproduction rate and so forth.

Same way, I think karma is related to our pattern-seeking skills, a sort of moral form of pareidolia where we seek recognizable order where it isn't. We're social animals and again, the society that has an innate sense of right, wrong, justice, reward and punishment will probably get along and cooperate better and therefore be more successful in cooperative activities like getting food, safety, defense, raising young and so forth.

So we're bothered by wrongs that don't get righted, and therefore make up a fantasy to comfort us if we don't see immediate justice. We can reassure ourselves that they'll be righted in the future when karma causes good or bad things to happen, or a person gets punished in hell or rewarded in heaven.

That said, I totally believe in the "power of positive thinking" and that sort of claptrap, LOL. It works.

But I think it works (or appears to work) because of the usual "remember the hits, forget the misses," and also because it puts one in a frame of mind to constantly look for opportunities and take action when they arrive.

I don't believe in any god or supernatural force, so I don't do anything the right way according to rituals or prayer or the specific rules and I don't have any god supposedly looking out for me. And yet some kind of "power of positive thinking" works as well or better for me than believers, which shows to me that it's got nothing to do with the supernatural things layered on it.

Good example: at the end of last year, I decided that I would be making $1,000 a month online, working at home in my spare time, by the end of this year. At the time, I was making around $200 and it sounded impossible, but I knew I'd succeed.

So I tried another website, a few more affiliate programs, etc. etc. and only added about $25 a month. No big deal, I had nine more months to meet my goal.

Then, suddenly, about three weeks ago, one of the online places I'd been working for revamped their whole way of doing things. Everyone was blindsided. We all got switched around, some people got shut out entirely, some had trouble with the changes, some liked it. I liked it. I loved it. For the same amount of work, my income shot up five times as high, even if I dropped some of the less profitable stuff.

Five times what I was making before equals... $1,000 a month.

The power of positive thinking worked again, eight months early.

If I'd been praying for that, I would have sworn it was a miracle. In fact, I think that kind of thing is exactly what prompted people to "invent" prayer and all the complexities that go with it, when in fact the basic idea is simply if you focus on something, you'll ignore the misses and keep trying until you get a hit. It seems miraculous, but it's really just retrofitting, bias... there's any number of common fallacies that could be applied to the belief that it's anything other than just trying until you finally get lucky. This is a great example. Hmm ....

[kellyb]

Well, we are an intelligent species, and we can do our best to minimize injustice, but it will never come close to perfect. But we can at least try our best in a multitude of ways to get as close as possible.

[Trent Wray]

Well, we are an intelligent species, and we can do our best to minimize injustice, but it will never come close to perfect. But we can at least try our best in a multitude of ways to get as close as possible. But why?

How is this different from the Xtian believer who is trying their best to stamp out sin in their lives and save others from hell, etc? What's the difference between justice and other religious conceptual drives?

[Meadmaker]

When I was practicing Buddhism, my take on Karma was very much like what the Bunkologist described.

I do think that if you are a generally good person, generally good things are more likely to happen to you, and certainly it is possible to make the world a better place, so that better things are likely to happen to future generations.

Also, in the books I read on the subject, and the sermons (we generally called them damma talks, but it's basically the same thing) I heard on the subject, the Buddhist view of karma was emphasized to be simply the law of cause and effect. Things happen because they are caused. This is in contrast to the Hindu view of Karma, which is the one involving past lives and such.

That being said, I found karma to be one of the least useful concepts to me in Buddhism. If you believe in cause and effect, it's too easy to lapse into a belief that if something happens to you that somehow your thoughts and your feelings and your history are necessarily part of that cause. So when someone dies in a plane crash, I say that there was a cause, such as a goose in the engine. However, that isn't really what a lot of people look for when trying to evaluate karma. They want to say that "everything happens for a reason", and an unfortunate goose just isn't a good enough reason for them.

[Meadmaker]

I can say I believe in God if I re-define "God" as "Everything in the universe", too.

Let's hear it for pantheism!

[cienaños]

But why?

How is this different from the Xtian believer who is trying their best to stamp out sin in their lives and save others from hell, etc? What's the difference between justice and other religious conceptual drives?

They're the same in that they can be seen as concepts/methods that might benefit the species as a whole.

They're different in that one appeals to fear and imagination while the other more so to logic and pragmatism.

Ultimately, they're both nothing more than human ideas, which, by definition, makes them flawed.


"Cause and effect" is definitely real, but mixing up ideas about non-supernatural basic effects with woo ideas about "Karma" is counterproductive, IMO.

I suppose I did misspeak back there a bit. To be clear, I do not subscribe to Merriam Webster's "karma," but I also do not regard its role as disposable. If woo was the best they could come up with, well, we're free to feel about it as we choose, but the fact remains that the species is still around - so it [I]did serve the species in that sense. This can be argued of course, but really all one has to do is look around and see how fear is still the dominant control agent. Flaws and all.

Woo can serve a purpose. A number of people on this forum are former believers of the woo, including myself to an extent. This belief in woo, [or karma in the case of this thread], combined with education, life experience, curiosity, etc - caused the effect of our minds evolving beyond the woo. To ridicule the woo without acknowledging this is akin to ridiculing the teat suckling the infant partakes in.

To take it a step further, "mixing up ideas about non-supernatural basic effects with woo ideas about Karma" is not only not counterproductive, but essential. If one is to be a true skeptic, deconstruction (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deconstruction) must be understood and applied not only to the non-self, but more importantly - to the self.

In my opinion. :)

[Professor Yaffle]

You might want to read Richard Wiseman's work on luck:

http://www.psy.herts.ac.uk/wiseman/research/luckfactor.html

[Dancing David]

Okay, some of the conversation in this thread (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=174079&page=4) got me to thinking about the idea of "karma".

Does anyone who would care to share their thoughts think there is any legitimacy to certain aspects of it? Woo or non-woo, whatever.

Along psychological aspects ... Tatyana made some posts in that thread linking to Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's theories on flow (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mihály_Cs%C3%ADkszentmihályi#Flow). I haven't totally delved into yet ... I like to hear consumer reports first usually :) And I was also considering the ideas behind some of Frankl's assertions in Man's Search for Meaning (which I haven't read in twenty years now). The idea that changing your POV, and focussing on hope, etc .... can actually lead to a person's living or dying and "spreading" those ideas to others to provide inspiration .... reminds me of karma to some extent I suppose. And of course there is the "what goes around comes around," and "paying it forward," and "Murphy's Law", etc and so forth. They are all kinds of karma-ish if you look at them a certain way. Perhaps.

This thread might go nowhere, but thoughts anyone?

ETA: I think the psychology behind it and related concepts are interesting, so anyone who can speak to those ideas and explanations I'd be specifically interested in, not to sound too personally biased :(

On karma:
choices have consequence
confimation bias

[Meadmaker]

One thing that must be understood about Buddhism and karma is how it differs from the common belief at the time the Buddha taught. In the Brahmanic religion that was developing in India at the time, karma was taught as being very much the way that most people think about it when they hear the word now, which is the Hindu version. If you are good in this life, you will be rewarded in the next, and vice versa. Furthermore, the Brahmins taught, if you were born into a high caste, that was a reward for goodness in a previous life. Conversely, if you were born into a low caste, you were obviously a no good scoundrel in a previous life and deserved what you got, but if you were good and paid your taxes to the Brahmins and their cronies, you might do better next time.

That is basically what people think of when they think of karma, but the Buddha was dead set against this idea and spoke against it at length.

As for what he actually did teach, instead of this belief, I'm not really sure. Not enough study of it, I guess.

[iknownothing]

Hmm .... okay, is desiring justice similar to desiring for a concept like karma to be real?

Yeah. Believing that karma's gonna get someone can be satisfying in a situation where you are powerless to actually bring justice. But in situations where you can work for justice, believing in karma could make you less motivated, more willing to sit back and let karma do its job.

Furthermore, the Brahmins taught, if you were born into a high caste, that was a reward for goodness in a previous life. Conversely, if you were born into a low caste, you were obviously a no good scoundrel in a previous life and deserved what you got, but if you were good and paid your taxes to the Brahmins and their cronies, you might do better next time.

I read awhile back that in Western cultures, people have tended to think that when bad things happen to people, it must be that they sinned and brought punishment on themselves. And in Eastern cultures, people thought that unlucky people must have bad karma. In either case, people just use the local religious thinking to maintain the status quo -- the rich must deserve to be where they are, and the poor deserve it too.