Is Karma a Law of Nature?
It seems Matthew Gindin is destined to ask, and answer, this question.
After all, most of us know from practical experience that over and over and over again, the fact that someone behaves in a manner that brings pain and suffering to others, does not entail that in the end it will all come back around to get him. Just look at what the rich and the powerful right here on planet Earth have been able to get away with now for centuries. Is the man who runs that despicable sweatshop in some Third World hellhole going to eventually get what’s coming to him?
Well, yes, if you are a Christian and you have thought yourself into believing that “it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”
But what if you are a Buddhist?
Thought-provoking is one thing. But how then are these thoughts made applicable to all of the terrible injustices that do occur day in and day out around the globe?
In India for example. Just ask the Muslims there of late.
What of karma then? With no God, what actual entity/mechanism/force are Buddhists relying on to make sure that karma is accounted for. Not just on this side of the grave but on the other side as well.
Okay, let’s go back to how Muslims have fared in India as a result of the coronavirus outbreak there: nytimes.com/2020/04/12/worl … gotry.html
If you are a Buddhist, how, in your view, will karma be made applicable here? What of those who have persecuted the Muslims there? And what of those who have been persecuted by Muslims themselves elsewhere? Or those persecuted by Christians or any other religious denomination that throughout history has sustained one or another inquisition, crusade, jihad or holy war?
What “rituals” are required of the players here in order that their own future is bright? And that, when karma comes around, their future is brighter still. And that, when they die, the karma that is their fate in the afterlife also as bright as can be.