The idea of Karma is bullshit - Shitting on Buddhism

[wtfNeedSignUp]

The idea of karma has gained popularity in the west in the last decades, mainly because it is a very romantic and simplistic - do good/bad and fate will respond in kind. But the more you think about it, the more heinous that idea really is, and the more it explains why India is such a shithole.

Most prominently it game-ifies the concept of sin. If Abrahamic religions put sin as a massive burden to be carried and being good as standard you aren't expected to be directly for, karma is something that can be repented by simply doing something equally "good", and the whole concept of morality shifts from being based of societal good, to being a currency to be hoarded so in your New Game+ you get to be a Brahmin and shit over all the lower castes.

Speaking of which, karma justifies societal castes. Since the people on the top must have been good karma hoarders so their actions are morally justified, but you can brutalize lower castes because they are sinners. It perpetuates the system since every caste has someone to lord over, and no one wants to change things since then they will hurt their future when they get to be the Brahmin.

 

[Shig O'nella]

and no one wants to change things since then they will hurt their future when they get to be the Brahmin.

That's cause Jeets can't think without being ordered to at gunpoint.

Good karma doesn't stack, you blow it all on your character roll at the start of your life. Your next life is entirely dependant on your actions in this one.
While starting as top caste gives you far more opporunities to farm good karma and progess along the path, it also gives you far more opportunity to lose karma and wind up as a bug in your next life.

 

[RacistComputer79]

Karma is when you catch a bullet to the chest. Unfortunately, violent criminals are coddled these days. The justice system itself is karma, but if the system is ruled by criminals, karma will never arrive. It is men who dish out karma, not God. Bring back the death penalty for murderers.

 

[Rootless Cosmopolitan]

This thread hits on one of my biggest pet peeves. Karma is a childish, primitive, and sinful ideology.

The Book of Job is the best book of the Bible. Why? Because it teaches that bad things can and do happen to perfectly good people. All Job’s asshole friends are Karma-believers and abandon him because they assume he’s being punished for misdeeds, when the righteous thing to do is make no assumptions and instead be compassionate.

 

[Rekieta’s Broken Penis]

In one sense, karma is just the principle of justice writ as a force of nature. Even the Bible makes many karmaic claims (see reapers and sowers). Where it comes to victim blaming, that is a universal belief amongst primitive (non-Christian) peoples and not unique to the Indian karmaic system. If a people didn’t believe in rebirth, they’d simply blame your ancestors for your lowly status in life.

If you’re interested in the topic of victim blaming you should read about Rene Girard (or listen to some of the podcasters who talk about him at length for an overview) because he explains the sociology of victim blaming as it relates to comparative religion really well.

Most references I hear to karma do seem to fall foul of the Christian writ against victim blaming. For the most part it’s people crying mea culpa on misfortunes which are essentially random. “Oh I guess it’s karma haha”.

 

[Broadside]

The word you're looking for is cope. It's cope.

 

[blackshirt]

I think it exists but not in a sense of mysticism, it's more a natural/sociological response. It's a self incurred punishment because your actions have consequences.

Say for example you are a scammer and you spend your time fucking people over, you will start to see everyone as prey. You will associate with other scammer "friends" that will fuck you over whenever it's convenient. You might have money but you'll only bag a shallow gold-digger. You do shitty things, you become shit, your life is shitty.

 

[Lurkmastergarbo]

Caste means race. Karma is literally good boy points that make you whiter in your next life. It does not affect the current game.

 

[daffodils]

Shitting on Buddhism

None of your criticisms make sense as an attack on Buddhism. At best, you're talking about Hinduism.

justifies societal castes

Buddhism was a radical rejection of the caste system, as evidenced by the story of Upali and Vasettha sutta:

I don’t call one a brahman
for being born of a mother
or sprung from a womb.
[...]
But someone with nothing,
who clings to no thing:
He’s what I call
a brahman.

game-ifies the concept of sin

Don't apply the Abrahamic notion of sin to a completely different tradition.

Orthodox (Theravada) Buddhists would, very roughly, say that the behaviors Christians call sin are misguided attempts to find happiness or relief. They have as their proximate cause craving and aversion, which in turn are rooted in ignorance about the nature of suffering and how to achieve true happiness. The process through which "sinful" behaviors arise is a feedback loop: the more ignorant and miserable you are, the more you "sin"; the more you "sin", the more ignorant and miserable you become. Fortunately one can learn, through mental and moral training, to disrupt this process and gradually rid oneself of ignorance. Any attempt to "game the system" would itself be rooted in ignorance and therefore counterproductive.

 

[Slap47]

Brahmin and shit over all the lower castes.

The whole point of Buddhism is to not reincarnate and end the cycle. This done by not desiring anything and not acting on desires.
Buddhism also rejects caste based on the idea that any individual can achieve high karma in their lifetime through their deeds. Obviously room for variety and sects as some Buddhists have castes and whatnot, but in general Buddhism is a reaction to the casteism and hustle culture of Hinduism.

 

[estacks]

The Buddhist concept of karma is legitimately just Newton's Three Laws also applied on a metaphysical level: Your actions have consequences. If you punch a wall you will break your fist. If you kill someone you will hurt yourself from the emotional backlash and how the society around that person will react. Anything beyond that is a Hindu corruption. Fundamentally Buddhism is a highly secular doctrine and most of what people hate on it for is from demon worshipping street shitters using the Pali Canon to wipe their ass rather than anything Buddhist itself.

 

[Male Idiot]

Western conceptions are more Buddhist.

It is just horoscopic "be good, be treated well" that most religions have.

Hindu karma is different and more retarded. It is a similar concept, but it is predicted on izzat, not Buddhist morals.

It is similar to Christian/Muslim sin and Jewish sin transferring to chickens.

Karma/Sin works for social order as long as it has consequences attached. Just like secular laws and Big Corpo Money.

Jews get around sin by transferring it onto chickens. The chicken ends up holding the bag, get out of jail.

Jeets on the other hand transfer karma into past and future lives. Their karma has the built in backdoor, that justifies abusing others because they could have lower karma. So your own karma isn't reduced when you steal, you just take the money from your target, and the target pays off some bad karma he had.

The Buddhist cares about his good karma, the Hindu cares about others' bad karma.

Slomo Shekelstein sold some CP on the darknet. But he can transfer the sin to the chicken, so it is the dirty pedo chicken that gets the punishment while Slomo got his Bitcoin and a clean conscience.

Hardeep Dickshit rapes a dog, but that is all right because the dog was a dirty muslim in his past 3rd life so it totally deserved it.

 

[Fishnumm]

someone's clearly never watched my name is earl

 

[Unarmed Gunman]

One way to think of karma is that when you do good, you tend to feel better about yourself and carry yourself in a certain way that can be perceptible to others. Many people are drawn to those who they see as "good people", and are more likely to treat you better as a result. So this cycle can result in good coming back to you, not though any mysterious force, but just because of how human psychology works.

This is also why it's not a guarantee that good things will happen to you if you're a good person, since not everybody responds that way to "good people". The law of the jungle is a part of human psychology too, and so when these two conflicting things are in play, there are no guarantees on the outcome. It depends on who you're dealing with.

 

[Slap47]

One way to think of karma is that when you do good, you tend to feel better about yourself and carry yourself in a certain way that can be perceptible to others.

This is an idea specific to cultures.

In some cultures you feel good about yourself through taking advantage of others - most notably Indian and Arab Izzat culture. The Arabs balance this abit through Islam's Abrahamic roots, but Hinduism goes all in on it.

 

[grasshoppermustard]

Both are slave morality. Always do what's in your best interest - sometimes that will include being nice to others because it buys you social brownie points, and other times it means taking what you want (within legal limits of course). Leave those with slave morality to cope with their delusions of good boy points for the afterlife while you get busy in this one. I'd pity them but even that is too much caring.

 

[HOMO FOR LIFE RETURNS]

Both are slave morality. Always do what's in your best interest - sometimes that will include being nice to others because it buys you social brownie points, and other times it means taking what you want (within legal limits of course). Leave those with slave morality to cope with their delusions of good boy points for the afterlife while you get busy in this one. I'd pity them but even that is too much caring.

Exactly. It's a dishonest way of making brownshitskins do good instead of honour, pride, and social benefit.

 

[Idiotron]

Karma, the way it's understood by people these days, is just that wishful thinking religious nonsense about "all the bad people will suffer eventually".
If there is no consequence for being a power hungry sociopath who walks over people's corpses to get to the top, that is depressing.
That's why we have all these "in the next life shit will be fair" beliefs.

It's also something that the elites count of the the plebs to believe.
If you'll wait for the afterlife to get what's yours, it means that you will just take it up the ass while you're alive.
The plebs won't revolt if they genuinely believe in the promise of getting everything after death.

 

[ZeCommissar]

If anyone actually believes in the version of Karma that is "bad people have bad things happen to them later" they're retarded. The Abrahamic faiths were smart to get past the obvious (why doesn't God just actively punish evil like he did in the past?) by saying God only intervenes subtly and its up to humanity to do good on Earth. His judgment comes after the end.

As stated ITT most westerners have a shit idea on what Karma is supposed to be. How can you live in 2025 and think 'Karma' exists?

We have stories throughout history of monsters doing horrible things to many people, and facing dying peacefully in a bed. We have elite pedophiles who have almost undoubtedly actively raped minors, and I bet prepubescent children, said children who are either slaves, or might not even be alive as I type this. These people make the decisions for us, our nations, our states/cities...and what will happen to them? Nothing. For every Epstein 10 more get away as we've seen.

I just don't get how someone can live in the real world and say "yep....they'll get theirs eventually!"

 

[souschef]

I think the interpretation is already wrong when you try to understand karma as something that has to do with "fairness" instead of simply the result of one's actions