Its been bothering me for a few years, this common use of the term "Karma," used when people are discussing the actions of another. Typically, the dishonest actions of another. I never hear karma used to describe good deeds.
I took a Great Religions class in high school, so I thought I should brush up a little on the concept before laying into it. That task proved impossible.
The Wikipedia entry was so far away from anything I could interpret coherently, I just gave up trying. One thing was clear, however. The writer of the entry wanted it to be known that,
"Karma is not about retribution, vengeance, punishment or reward; karma simply deals with what is."
But that's not how people use the term. They use it as if it did have something to do with retribution, vengeance, punishment, or reward, and that's what I take issue with.
I take issue with the idea that there is an accounting of one's deeds at the end of life, but not during.
There's something acutely disgusting about employing a lazy heuristic as substitution for rational thought and judgement.
The popular use of the karmic concept appears to mirror the "Just World" social bias, the idea that "what goes around, comes around." I am convinced that the Just World cognitive social bias is a direct result of religion's impact on human thought process. There is simply no secret or debate about the fact that religion seeks to undermine rational thought, replacing that process with pre-existing and inferior rules that reject any notion of the sovereign mind.
Of course, karma isn't anything close to being a good or reliable moral code. Karma is a lazy mind's substitution of a moral code. It isn't even coherently defined! Not in Western terms, anyway.
Karma sounds like a candy bar packed with nuts.
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