Re: karma question

["L. Bird" <pkeets@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

> > Here's an interesting karma question. Can others (say the leaders of
> > countries) accumulate sin for you? Did Saddam Hussain, by his actions, 
> bring this retribution on the Iraqi people? And has George W. Bush, by his 
> actions, redeemed their sin and now set it on the US people? Or is sin 
> non-transferrable?
>
> Why speculate on such nonsense?  Karma doesn't exist.  The concept is
> simply another of man's misguided attempts to impose some kind of order
> or reason on randomly occurring events.  It's as baseless & imaginary
> as "good luck" or "bad luck."  You'd be just as well served by consulting 
> Saddam Hussein's "astrological birth chart" in order to reach conclusions.
<sigh>

Here's Schrade the realist to debunk the notion.  Okay, I'm a pretty decent 
realist.  I can talk about the war in terms of dominance games and economic 
plans (since there don't seem to be any WMD).  However, I have double 
vision.  Eventually I have this philosophical shift.  In realist terms, 
metaphysics is, as you say, only another description of events, but it's not 
baseless and the events are not necessarily random.  Events have a cause, 
and metaphysics's a reasonable system which only represents a somewhat 
different perception and a different interpretation.

For example, if someone says they are haunted by a ghost, then they are 
haunted, whether or not I can see the ghost.  Likely it's in their own mind, 
and there is some reason that it's there.  A psychologist might exorcise it, 
but then a priest might do a better job.  It all depends on the nature of 
the ghost.

Karma has to do with accumulated probabilities.  If you live your life well, 
then you accumulate probabilities that you will have less heart disease, 
less cancer and fewer auto accidents.  However, if you sin, you've got bad 
actuarial probabilities and you may end up reincarnated as a roach.  Um.  
Maybe I shouldn't go into the reincarnation thing.


keets

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