Karma's a Bitch

Tim Keller's book, The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism addresses the overlapping issues of God as a judge vs a God of love and how a "loving God" could send people to Hell. He essentially says that the notion of a wrathful, judging God who could condemn people to an eternity in Hell is a huge barrier to belief in Christianity or even in the Christian God.

I do see and hear this a lot but it has never been a hang up for me. Sure, I've wondered how God could send "nice people" to Hell, people that act kinder, gentler, more lovingly than some Christians. That's always sat a little funny with me. But I also see that most people aren't as "good" as they think they are and many are downright evil. I recognize in myself enough bad that would otherwise deserve some punishment in the absence of sort of grace or mercy. I also recognize that while I might be think myself to be more "good" thand "bad," there's no handy-dandy cosmic scale I can look at to measure how much 10 lies, 4 thefts, 13 acts of lust, etc weigh against 7 holding doors open for people, saying please and thank you anytime I'm in public, telling my wife and daughter "I love you," or doing a great job at work. What's the point system on which I can rely to measure my "good" vs my "bad"?

That brings me to the next point that is stuck in my craw. People apparently are hung up that God could judge and punish people, but they have no hangups, whatsoever, about human being extracting some amount of revenge against wrongdoers. Many might no longer believe the death penalty is a just punishment, regardless of the crime or wrong. But they would see mental and emotional, perhaps even physical, torment as fair game.

More subtley yet more pervasively, westerners these days love themselves some "karma." Of course, they don't have the first clue on what Buddhists or Hindus have to say about karma, at least not with any specificity. It's a complex and varied spiritual concept and definitions vary between eastern religions. Americans like to say, "Well, it means 'what comes around goes around.'" Not exactly. Hinduistic karma's closer to the Biblical concept of sowing and reaping. However, it has to do more broadly with cosmic cause and effect:

Karma is not punishment or retribution but simply an extended expression or consequence of natural acts. Karma means "deed" or "act" and more broadly names the universal principle of cause and effect, action and reaction, that governs all life. The effects experienced are also able to be mitigated by actions and are not necessarily fated. That is to say, a particular action now is not binding to some particular, pre-determined future experience or reaction; it is not a simple, one-to-one correspondence of reward or punishment.

Karma is not fate, for humans act with free will creating their own destiny. According to the Vedas, if one sows goodness, one will reap goodness; if one sows evil, one will reap evil. Karma refers to the totality of our actions and their concomitant reactions in this and previous lives, all of which determines our future. The conquest of karma lies in intelligent action and dispassionate response.

If we say that post-modern Americans have gotten it partially right and that what comes around goes around -- which is a cousin belief to Christian sowing and reaping -- we must also say that they accept the idea of cosmic judgment and retribution. People in our society really love this idea. Do a google search of "karma is a bitch" (apologize if the word offends anyone) and you'll see that people revel in the idea that someone that does something bad has something coming to him/her in return, often worse than the original offense. You can get "Karma is a Bitch" bumperstickers. I have friends on Facebook that put "karma" out there whenever a villain gets what's coming to him.

Modern, supposedly rational folks have no qualms with cosmic retribution (not tied to any physical or scientifically observable force in the universe mind you, and not even clearly attributable to a someone or something who could guide it.) Yet, they can't accept the idea that God could be the agent of retribution (or reward.) Why must God only reward people (for their sins and shortcomings) but we mere mortals get to sit back and enjoy "karma" crushing our enemies' souls, destroying their lives or just plain gettin' 'em back for their bad behavior?

The truth, I believe, is that people love vengeance. They just don't want to face the fact that God could be the agent of that vengeance and such vengeance could be directed at them. Karma's for "the other guy," the one that does really bad things.

Horrifying, disgusting, disturbing and funny all at once

I've been reading James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. It's incredibly good, much better than I expected.

Today I read JJ's recount of a priest's lecture about Hell and judgment given to a group of young Catholic schoolboys on "retreat." This bit goes for pages, but it's loaded with brilliant bits. This one stood out for me. It made me cringe and laugh (out loud.)

The horror of this strait and dark prison is increased by its awful stench. All the filth of the world, all the offal and scum of the world, we are told, shall run there as to a vast reeking sewer when the terrible conflagration of the last day has purged the world. The brimstone too which burns there in such prodigious quantity fills all hell with its intolerable stench: and the bodies of the damned themselves exhale such a pestilential odour that as saint Bonaventure says, one of them alone would suffice to infect the whole world. The very air of this world, that pure element, becomes foul and un-breathable when it has been long enclosed. Consider then what must be the foulness of the air of hell. Imagine some foul and putrid corpse that has lain rotting and decomposing in the grave, a jellylike mass of liquid corruption. Imagine such a corpse prey to flames, devoured by the fire of burning brimstone and giving off dense choking fumes of nauseous loathsome decomposition. And then image this sickening stench , multiplied a million fold and a million fold again from the millions upon millions of fetid carcasses massed together in the reeking darkness, a huge and rotting human fungus. Imagine this and you will have some idea of the horror of the stench of hell.

I wish I knew why that made me laugh because I don't think it was intended to be funny, at least not in the context of the story.