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Do you believe in Karma?

No, it didn't.

...

Re: active addiction,

My father is actively addicted to wine, he just consumes it in moderation.
If he stops consuming it, he has minor psychological withdrawals.

He challenged me when I was a full blown junky to quit everything for a month.
He said, "I don't think you can do it."

I said, "I don't think you can stop drinking for a month."

So, we had a little competition.
And I won, by a fucking mile.

I don't believe there are any negative consequences for him, consuming two glasses of wine a night.
In fact, there are - reportedly - numerous health benefits.
He's not a drunk, but he is an addict.

There are no consequences for his drug addiction.

...

I've been to AA a couple of dozen times.
AA members, having ruined the drug for themselves, will tell you that daily alcohol consumption is - without exception - problematic.
Similarly ex heroin addicts often convince themselves that heroin is the devil.
 
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ForEverAfter said:
It is important to be concise, IMO.
I suspected that's what you meant, but I felt it needed to be clarified.
(You were responding to a quote from Ninae, which said "drug-use" and you said "using".)



The negative side effects (if they existed) certainly didn't equal or outweigh the positive benefits.
I don't think it's realistic to make a blanket statement about all drugs.
Some drugs are far more harmful than others.
Have you been addicted to every drug?
Or are you just making an assumption?
Click to expand...

I don't think there is a such thing as a "successful"
drug addict. And when I was younger I would have argued to the cows came home that drugs in moderation were fine.
Having been addicted to quite a few( unfortunately)
my perception has changed.
If I could go back with my knowledge of the pain I have been through I wouldn't do drugs period!
I don't feel I've really gained a dam thing from drugs....
nothing that I couldn't have gained without them that is.
 
You've ruined drugs for yourself. That is unfortunate.
(I'd wager I'm older than you. I'm older than most people on this forum.)

I was never addicted to mushrooms, even though I consumed them every day for a year.
When I stopped, it wasn't difficult at all and I experienced zero withdrawals.

...

Anyway, back to karma:

How do people who subscribe to "Western karma" explain the terrible things that happen to good people and the great things that happen to monsters?
There seems to be an extraordinary amount of evidence that things don't balance out in this life.

Without the justice system (which, obviously, is flawed) there seems to be little justice.
 
I think karma is another word for how our underlying unity makes everything return to us at some point.
 
^I liked that idea Ninae :)

I really have not seen much evidence of karma as most seem to be describing it. I've seen awful things happen to good people and vice versa. It seems really childish, the idea that the bad person must always pay. This just doesn't seem apparent. It also suggests that there is some exterior and objective grading of our behaviour (by whom? according to what?). This means we are compelled to follow a morality that we don't neccesarily approve of but have absolutely no choice in doing. You have to question our ensuing freedoms in that light... And if we are not actually free to choose our actions, why are we being held accountable for it?

That said, I don't think karma is really like that. I think it exists internally, perhaps as the conscience. Many relgions have successfully capitalised on this innate quality

Methmaniac said:
You take a loan out and borrow pleasure from tomorrow. At some point you have to pay back loan with pain. There is interest of course.
The penalty for default on loan is death.
Click to expand...

I too liked your analogy (I am feeling intoxicated also just from agreeing with you) but (sobering up?) I thought the last bit fell down. Default on this loan just accrues more interest. Paying it back and then borrowing more can often be immediately fatal too.

Drug use is more like a pendulum. If you push it in one direction, its inevitable that it also swing back the other way. Every time I take drugs, I know there is a refractory period of sorts, emotional refractivity.

Analogies don't really work to summarise a highly complex situation into a bite-sized quip :\ "You are what you eat...." (I am a sliced potato :()

I digress.
 
Withdrawals aren't usually that long compared to the addiction period and it's possible to feel it's been worth it. But it's not just the withdrawals, it can also lead to big negative changes in your life, which can be permanent, and adding that to it, it just about equals itself out (or maybe doesn't).

There are also some who go through really extreme things like prostitution or prison for it. I don't see how that can be worth it but there are many who completetely lose their mind like that.
 
karma means intention

if you do things with bad intentions, it will have bad repercutions in life of others around you and also in your life.
its very logical, dont know whats not to believe. its a fact. and the more bad intentions you have in life, the more unhappy you will be
 
What happens if you intend good things but they turn out bad?

My problem is that I doubt very much anybody gets up in the morning and thinks, "today I'm gonna do evil to people" and heads on out. even psychopaths probably think what is good for them is good for others.

How does karma work out the payback for 10,000 people dead from good intentions versus 10,000 people dead from bad ones?

There are probably scientists in Monsanto that truly believe GM is good for the world - it's still going to fuck us over in a very short time by all the evidence - do they get a free pass because they meant well? :D
 
I know. It's impossible to make this belief rationally.
In general terms though I do believe that you catch what you through..
If, for example, you try to live an ethical life making good actions because you are one of these persons (not referring to myself although I try:)) who believe in love and dont expect anything back, I would bet this person would have great feedback in life. I am exaggerating just to argument.
I see good and bad people every day.
And truly believe positive energy attracts positive "karma".
Obviously we will not find anything in science to support this. But I do believe it, not like a religion but IME
 
Erikmen said:
If, for example, you try to live an ethical life making good actions because you are one of these persons (not referring to myself) who believe in love and dont expect anything, I would bet this person would have great feedback in life.
Click to expand...

True to some extent. My mother was like that, but still had to deal with many of the usual problems in life, and killed herself. But she couldn't accept that everything wasn't good as that's what she had been used to.
 
Journeyman said:
My problem is that I doubt very much anybody gets up in the morning and thinks, "today I'm gonna do evil to people" and heads on out. even psychopaths probably think what is good for them is good for others.
Click to expand...

I don't know. Its more likely indifference that is the biggest "evil" in the world. We all know the facts of what our lifestyle does and requires, but most of us continue it. Not out of malice I don't believe, but just out of who-gives-a-fuck. And that attitude is the reaper of the blackest rewards IMO, but I sense you may not see environmental destruction in quite the same way as I :D
 
*grins* Oh I see environmental destruction and even the reasons for it. I just don't think (and have some evidence for it) that CO2 is such a destruction. We've got a heap of other things we'd be better to spend money on and millions sick and dying of things we could fix with just a few billion dollars.

We have to get off this consumption/expansion-based economy for a start - blind freddy can see it's got a definite end and it ain't gonna be pretty.

But somehow the people benefitting from all the destruction, rape of resources and subjugation of everyone around them do not appear to be subject to karma at all.

Which is why I see karma as in the same category as the Judaic Guilt Trip dogma - makes us rationalise that we deserve to be lowlifes while they get to live as lords above it all.
 
Its gotten to the point that I can't keep track of the myriad ways I completely shit on the planet each second. I mean, right now, I'm typing this nonsensee via burning fossil fuels (archaic Victoria) on a device using components torn violently from poor starving peoples vegie patches, with similarly powered square eye of doom insisting I need air freshner, whilst I wear clothing made from childrens skin (or something even worse :|).

I don't eat or consume animal products (in as much as I can) but I still use my iphone. Hmm.

Jourrneyman said:
Which is why I see karma as in the same category as the Judaic Guilt Trip dogma
Click to expand...

Its a fundament of so many religions, instill the idea that we are broken, that because of that we will suffer and only they have the way out. To my mind, most of these religons are the actual cause of the suffering they try to prevent, in their shaping of human psyche and notions of rightness and goodness and making it largely unattainable. A brilliant tactic but so easily destroyed by the simpler, easier and much closer rewards of capitalism.

Which is actually a sobering thought that I hope is wrong.
 
Unfortunately, the rewards of capitalism, by demonstration, do not seem to do much better in terms of a better life. The ever-escalating use of various pharmas, drugs, alcohol and other forms of escape would suggest our way of life is not suitable.

The rising levels of anger in the community suggest the same, and even worse, that we see ourselves as unable to break out of the pattern. Helplessness would appear the proximate cause of the anger - normal people do not have escalating anger because normally anger brings action to remove the irritant; the fact the anger levels are rising and spreading indicates, IMO, that we are not seeing the usual release from rage.

Do we suffer karma for being born into a society gone mad with control and punishment? Are we living this life for being rulers in previous ones? If so there's been a hell of a lot of evildoers around, given probably 6 billion of the 7.5 billion are living crappy lives now at the behest of power-crazed rulers.
 
Jman said:
Unfortunately, the rewards of capitalism, by demonstration, do not seem to do much better in terms of a better life. The ever-escalating use of various pharmas, drugs, alcohol and other forms of escape would suggest our way of life is not suitable.
Click to expand...

I agree completely. I almost throw my hands up in despair at my own sense of helpessness at the current doldrum. But I think that there are things an indivual can do to try and compensate. For my, I'm a vegan, I grow my own vegetables, herbs and some fruit, use my car very sparingly, buy and eat organic and 'fair trade', and try and connect with nature in a more intimate way by interacting with it regularly. I try and only make ethical decisions and so consider consequnces extensively before committing (except for drugs of course :|). I have found myself reading some Peter Singer stuff, the journals of Thoreau and Arne Næss to try and figure out ways to do this all more completely...
 
I had forgotten that Arne Næss even existed. I just thought he was an old man with gray hair and I couldn't understand what he was talking about.
 
thats great. im also a vegan. but ultimately mate, the problem is in you.
that illusion of self is consuming each moment of your life, and that wont go away by not polluting so much the environments.
willow11 said:
I agree completely. I almost throw my hands up in despair at my own sense of helpessness at the current doldrum. But I think that there are things an indivual can do to try and compensate. For my, I'm a vegan, I grow my own vegetables, herbs and some fruit, use my car very sparingly, buy and eat organic and 'fair trade', and try and connect with nature in a more intimate way by interacting with it regularly. I try and only make ethical decisions and so consider consequnces extensively before committing (except for drugs of course :|). I have found myself reading some Peter Singer stuff, the journals of Thoreau and Arne Næss to try and figure out ways to do this all more completely...
Click to expand...
 
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