daevric

I had a conversation with someone recently who believes in karma. Upon hearing this, I laughed and called it bullshit, whereupon she proceeded to attempt to defend the point with very little more than "I have to believe that what one does will come back to them, be it a positive outcome for a good deed or a sort of punishment for a bad one" (paraphrased, of course). This was also combined with one of the biggest cop-outs I've ever heard: that the person may not even realize it--if, for instance, something great would have happened to them had they not done something evil (for lack of a better word) but ultimately not happening, thus leaving their life in an essentially unaltered state, as opposed to improved by whatever it may have been.

...I'm not even going to dignify that last part with a response. I think it speaks for itself. However, I will discuss my thoughts on karma, and how much it has no ability to affect my life, even if such a self-contradictory concept could even exist.

First, the "self-contradictory" part, which anyone reading this who believes in karma surely raised their eyebrow at. Perhaps it's not self-contradictory if you believe in a completely black-and-white world where there is concrete good and concrete evil, with no perception involved to muck things up. If you don't, I'm sure you can imagine a situation where an action may be considered perfectly fine with one person, yet horrible to another. Hell, if you're not willing to accept perfectly defined, concrete limits of good and evil, you've accepted the possibility of such a situation by definition. In this case, does the person precipitating the action get "good" karma or "bad" karma? Now, the self-proclaimed "victim" of this action may choose to retaliate in some form, certainly, but that's hardly karma. That is the conscious decision of a person to pursue a course of action that he or she could easily have decided against--especially when you consider that the people who tend to believe in karma tend to be the kind of people who would let the situation go, "leaving it to karma," instead of actually lifting a finger to defend themselves of their own accord. But I digress...

That said, the fact that it's self-contradictory, while amusing, has little bearing my refusal to believe in the existence of karma. First, let's throw out the idea of determinism, for the sake of argument (after all, if the universe is wholly deterministic, this is a moot point as karma can't exist anyway--that's hardly a baby-step of logic, let alone a leap). If I have control over my actions and reactions, both physically and mentally/emotionally, I choose not to give some abstract power that kind of control over my life. I control my own destiny, and if I have to cut some people out of the way to get what I want out of life, so be it. My happiness resides in my mind, not in my surroundings--a happiness acheived through personal satisfaction and willpower, things karma can have no control over.

Ultimately, choosing to construct your morals and way of life based how you would like to be treated (Golden Rule and all that crap) is great--that's what my entire life is based on. (For clarification of an above point for those who are no doubt confused: if someone manages to cut me out of the way on their own path to their destiny, more power to them. That doesn't make it "evil", just because I've been inconvenienced by someone better than I am.) But don't expect the rest of the world to play by your rules and get punished if they don't.