Sunday, March 14, 2010

Karma

Defined as : seen as bringing upon oneself inevitable results, good or bad, either in this life or in a reincarnation.

This afternoon me and my husband are catching up on our Facebook friends and I am also answering emails. When karma leaped into conversation, one of my husbands work mates has put up on Facebook that they are sick in bed, and another person who my husband use to work with commented with 'karma'.

A couple of months ago our bible study did a series about world religions, their origins and how they are similar and/or differ from Christianity. Really interesting. We looked at karma in relation to Hinduism and Buddhism, essentially the definition at the top of this post says it all. And to be honest it all seems like a bit of a cope out, it heaps all responsibility for what happens to each of us squarely into our own laps. This includes sickness, death and natural disasters.

I think I do need to clarify, we are the ones who make the choices in our lives, choice is something that God gave all of us. If we smoke, take illegal drugs or drink excessively then there are health consequences, lung cancer, liver problem etc... But to say that the people who died in the terrible Victorian bushfires, or the recent earthquakes deserved what happened to them is (I think) going too far, and is quite frankly cruel.

If karma was true then what would be the point to helping people who were affected by these sort of disasters? According to karma those people deserved it right? I think not. Personally I prefer to live by God's commandments of 'love the Lord with all your heart and with all your mind' and 'love your neighbours as yourself'.

I do believe that everything happens for a reason, because it was apart of God's plan. I don't believe that God makes us sick, or causes natural disasters, but he does use these events in our lives to teach and make us stronger. Through God's love a negative can have some powerful positive results.

No comments:

Post a Comment