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I have a friend who believes karma rules the universe. Karma is the overpowering deity which guides everything in the universe. His belief on how it operates is on the basic rudimentary version you imagine:
Do something good = something good happens to you
Do something bad = something bad happens to you
I've tried to question his beliefs on this multiple times but he just uses his stupid ass circular reasoning and it never up to actually defend his point.
My main point when I try to argue the existence of karma with him is that it's comforting. Karma gives an ultimate answer to everything in life. If something bad happens to you, there is no guaranteed existence of a god you can look upto in the sky and ask "why?", but you can use karma to tell yourself "ahh, because I did this arbitrary bad thing a week ago that totally links back to why I just dropped my food." I try to tell him that believing in karma is comforting because it gives an answer to everything, in a world where some things are simply impossible to answer. It's not nice to hear that the universe runs on entropy, and sometimes stuff just happens because it does, not because of karma enforcing it. But you really can't change the mind of someone who doesn't want to hear you out at all.
I've pretty much brought up everything I could lol. I tell him, "how do you know it's not confirmation bias?", and first, he didn't even know what that was, but just dodged the question. I told him that in his mind, it's a lot easier to chalk everything up to a single belief system which gives a simplified answer to everything as opposed to accepting the universe as unfair. And like I said, the big ol circular reasoning.
"How do you know karma is real and not confirmation bias"
"Because it just is"
FUCKING MORON.
Before anyone asks as well, I've asked him whether karma works in final outcome or intention. He said it was mainly intention.
I brought up an example: A man gets into a car crash and kills a family. Does he get bad karma?
And he said "a little bit." Now I asked why and he said because he didn't intend to kill them, but he still did nothing bad so he gets bad karma.
This should prove that his mindset on karma is just a comforting heuristic mindset on life, and actually breaks under pressure
You're telling me that this guy in my hypothetical got bad karma because... he just did?? I mean he didn't intend to kill them so why is he being punished for no reason.
He also said that life works in cycles. So, the life you're born into a result of your karma in the previous life, and it works in the cycle of deserved life > fresh life
meaning, you spawn into a life where depending on how good you were in the previous life, and after you die you spawn into a "fair/balanced karma" life where now you redeem yourself to see how well you live in the next life
First thing is that he didn't exactly define what a "balanced" or "fair" life is. I think that's personally impossible to define since there's so many variables in the world but hey, karma will do it's thing and make it "balanced"
And another darker example, I brought in the fact that some babies spawn in with cancer and die before they even have a consciousness, and I asked him if they deserved it, and he said "yes".
But the thing is that defeats the whole "deserved life > fresh life" claim he makes.
What that does is cheat karma. Dying of cancer being you even get to live is an objectively bad thing. Meaning those who do suffer that fate deserve it, but you can only make conscious good or bad decisions if you have a consciousness. This means that the babies who die before they even know they exist, literally skip their "deserved life" given they weren't even given a chance to suffer their "bad karma" and reprecussions and go onto now their "fair life".
Just my ramblings, don't mind me.
Do something good = something good happens to you
Do something bad = something bad happens to you
I've tried to question his beliefs on this multiple times but he just uses his stupid ass circular reasoning and it never up to actually defend his point.
My main point when I try to argue the existence of karma with him is that it's comforting. Karma gives an ultimate answer to everything in life. If something bad happens to you, there is no guaranteed existence of a god you can look upto in the sky and ask "why?", but you can use karma to tell yourself "ahh, because I did this arbitrary bad thing a week ago that totally links back to why I just dropped my food." I try to tell him that believing in karma is comforting because it gives an answer to everything, in a world where some things are simply impossible to answer. It's not nice to hear that the universe runs on entropy, and sometimes stuff just happens because it does, not because of karma enforcing it. But you really can't change the mind of someone who doesn't want to hear you out at all.
I've pretty much brought up everything I could lol. I tell him, "how do you know it's not confirmation bias?", and first, he didn't even know what that was, but just dodged the question. I told him that in his mind, it's a lot easier to chalk everything up to a single belief system which gives a simplified answer to everything as opposed to accepting the universe as unfair. And like I said, the big ol circular reasoning.
"How do you know karma is real and not confirmation bias"
"Because it just is"
FUCKING MORON.
Before anyone asks as well, I've asked him whether karma works in final outcome or intention. He said it was mainly intention.
I brought up an example: A man gets into a car crash and kills a family. Does he get bad karma?
And he said "a little bit." Now I asked why and he said because he didn't intend to kill them, but he still did nothing bad so he gets bad karma.
This should prove that his mindset on karma is just a comforting heuristic mindset on life, and actually breaks under pressure
You're telling me that this guy in my hypothetical got bad karma because... he just did?? I mean he didn't intend to kill them so why is he being punished for no reason.
He also said that life works in cycles. So, the life you're born into a result of your karma in the previous life, and it works in the cycle of deserved life > fresh life
meaning, you spawn into a life where depending on how good you were in the previous life, and after you die you spawn into a "fair/balanced karma" life where now you redeem yourself to see how well you live in the next life
First thing is that he didn't exactly define what a "balanced" or "fair" life is. I think that's personally impossible to define since there's so many variables in the world but hey, karma will do it's thing and make it "balanced"
And another darker example, I brought in the fact that some babies spawn in with cancer and die before they even have a consciousness, and I asked him if they deserved it, and he said "yes".
But the thing is that defeats the whole "deserved life > fresh life" claim he makes.
What that does is cheat karma. Dying of cancer being you even get to live is an objectively bad thing. Meaning those who do suffer that fate deserve it, but you can only make conscious good or bad decisions if you have a consciousness. This means that the babies who die before they even know they exist, literally skip their "deserved life" given they weren't even given a chance to suffer their "bad karma" and reprecussions and go onto now their "fair life".
Just my ramblings, don't mind me.
