Karma: A Myth?

Before I go explain this idea of karma, I’d like to note that I do not believe in karma. Perhaps to a limited extent, but I’m diving into this post believing karma does not exist. I also do not intend to offend religions that believe in karma.

What is Karma?

Karma is the belief that you’ll get what’s coming to you depending on your past actions, it’s sort of a cause and effect relationship, i.e., whatever you do will eventually come back to you. Another quote that accurately explains karma is,

¨What goes around comes around.¨

Karma ,in the eyes of Hindus and Buddhists, is seen as a universal idea and somewhat relates to fate. Both religions claim that if you’re not punished for bad karma during your life, you will be punished in the next. For Buddhists, I’d suppose it’d be their next reincarnation. In Buddhism, karma is also seen as an ¨urge¨, e.g., You’re obese, but not because of your past actions, you’re obese because of your past urges to eat unhealthy food. Although my interpretations of karma from the perspectives of Hinduism and Buddhism may be a little far-fetched, I still respect their beliefs. However, I intend to argue about karma in a reasonable and logical way. Realistically speaking I don’t think anybody can know if we will be punished in your next life. Religious beliefs aside, the only arguments for karma being true are from personal experiences. However, believing in certain personal experiences are a little difficult, because there’s a chance they may be over exaggerated. I want to be convinced otherwise with cold hard evidence. Nonetheless, sometimes our memory of past experiences can be untrue as well.

How Reliable is Our Memory?

Although a bit off topic, I found this article to fit in somewhat comfortably to my argument. Aside from the article mainly explaining how eyewitness accounts are not as reliable as we think, I thought that it’s little section about “Reconstructing Memories” was interesting enough to add to my case:

“The uncritical acceptance of eyewitness accounts may stem from a popular misconception of how memory works. Many people believe that human memory works like a video recorder: the mind records events and then, on cue, plays back an exact replica of them. On the contrary, psychologists have found that memories are reconstructed rather than played back each time we recall them. The act of remembering, says eminent memory researcher and psychologist Elizabeth F. Loftus of the University of California, Irvine, is more akin to putting puzzle pieces together than retrieving a video recording… Many researchers have created false memories in normal individuals; what is more, many of these subjects are certain that the memories are real.”

I felt this was relevant because, assuming that the person claiming their story of how karma hit so-so is true, there’s a high chance of it actually being false. I believe that memory reconstruction affects us in a more universal way than just in eyewitness accounts.  And of course you can’t disregard the fact that their story can be totally made up.

Why I Believe Karma Isn’t True

Going back to my main point of why I just can not except karma as a real phenomenon:

• Crimes/Criminals still go unpunished

Sometimes, you need to think about all the crimes that never gets resolved, all the criminals that lived a full life without facing punishment. There’s no way of telling whether or not they were disciplined in their afterlife, but surprisingly we can figure out that crimes do go unpunished (Even towards children). Bottom line is, people get away with crimes all the time, where’s their retribution?

• Bad things happen to good/innocent people

If you can recall all the past tragedies that has plagued us: natural disasters, diseases, plane crashes, etc. One can point out that a majority of the ones who suffered were innocent. In addition, families and friends are also affected by tragedies, what did they do to deserve it?

• The “Karma-Chain”

Let’s say that you’re in charge of an organization/group. You have the power to assign positions, give directions, and most importantly discharge your workers. If there’s a certain worker who has been bothering others and slowing down productivity, should you fire them? Following the belief of karma, the pestering worker should already be gaining bad karma for his/her actions, but if you fire him aren’t you gaining bad karma as well? (For “hurting” him/her). What happens if you hit somebody for hitting somebody else? Who’s in the wrong? In my eyes, if I believed in karma, both would receive bad karma, however I always follow the idea that the instigator is always in the wrong.

To sum it up, yeah karma is a heavily religious belief, but there are many that say it’s a real phenomenon regardless of religion. I think people just want to believe that there’s a magical wand of justice or the fact that people always have to get what they deserve, whether it be bad or good. Karma is purely cause and effect, I don’t believe that being kind to somebody and receiving kindness back is a result of karma, same goes with meanness. Calling cause and effect karma takes it out of the range of reasonable. Obviously, this whole post was my sole opinion, however according to this debate page, 62% of the voters also deny karma’s validity. Yes, I too wish I can get rewarded for my past good actions, but sadly…

The world doesn’t work like that. 

Although it might seem like I’m contradicting myself, I do believe that doing good things will benefit you in the future (But as I stated above I don’t consider it karma). Be that as it may, we don’t know what the future will have in store for you. Unpredictable things may happen before the good things. It’s unfortunate, but the truth. In the end, karma is just a factitious concept created to satisfy people who expect answers to everything.