There's an area near where I live, the name of which is spelled Caldmore but pronounced karma. So in that sense, I too have to believe in its existence.

(October 13, 2016 at 10:53 am)Divinity Wrote: I believe in karma, but I don't believe it's some mystical bullshit force that balances everything out or anything.  I believe if you do nice things for people, it'll come back to you.  And if you do bad things to people, it'll come back to you.  At least if you live long enough.  I don't think it's something like "Bob killed someone, so Bob is punished by Karma by getting into a horrible accident."  I think it's more like.. "Bob's an asshole.  Eventually people learn that Bob is an asshole, and nobody wants to deal with Bob's shit anymore. Fuck Bob.  Fuck Bob with a rusty rake."

That is not the real karma Divinity.  
Karma is justice.
How justice can be done in one lifetime if someone torture and killed many people?
Even you you are killed after that still remain so many other killing that are not paid for so
justice is not done and karma has no meaning.  

How about...

... perhaps there is no natural justice?

I don't even see how the fuck that'd work.

What if Hitler was a really great guy in his previous lives? Does he get off the hook for killing 6 million people? Or were those 6 million people all bad people in their previous life? How can you really punish someone for doing something they don't remember doing? Seems to me like punishment for punishments sake, and not justice at all. Punishment should teach a lesson, and mystical karma would not be teaching anyone a lesson at all.

"I'm going to teach you a lesson you'll never remember!"

I think karma is a joke as much as religion is.

What magical power keeps the good and bad in check? How is it determined how bad something has to be in order to get punished?

Oh I called someone an asshole so now I stubbed my toe.

No, there is no such thing. Good things happen to bad people and bad things happen to good people simply because that is how the world works. It doesn't pick and choose it just happens.

(October 13, 2016 at 9:11 am)Little Rik Wrote:

(October 13, 2016 at 8:59 am)FatAndFaithless Wrote: Because Buddhism doesn't require the belief in a god.  You can be buddhist and atheist.  Many are.

Wrong mate.  

Buddha had a lot of intuition.
He knew that if he would preach God to ignorant masses his message would never be understood
so he opt for something different in order to get to the point anyway.
He taught yoga to these people.
Yoga is all about reducing the distance that separate us from God.
Buddha was a master of yoga.
He just used the best tactic available to him in order to reach the best result.
The first stages of yoga do not require an immediate believe in God but as soon as you advance in the practice you are bound to understand that a mighty force is waiting for you.

Most Buddhists have lost the understanding of what Buddha was teaching that is why Buddha deep spirituality was transformed into the religion that we got these days.
In other words Buddha original teaching have absolutely nothing to do with atheism.  

And all this bullshit about what Buddha originally taught, as opposed to what he knew, is pulled straight from your ass.

You have no way of knowing any of this shit. You just made it up out of thin air. It's just another of your fanciful "just so" stories.

Wikipedia Wrote:In science and philosophy, a just-so story, also called an ad hoc fallacy, is an unverifiable and unfalsifiable narrative explanation for a cultural practice, a biological trait, or behavior of humans or other animals. The pejorative nature of the expression is an implicit criticism that reminds the hearer of the essentially fictional and unprovable nature of such an explanation. Such tales are common in folklore and mythology (where they are known as etiological myths—see etiology).

I don't believe in Karma, but I don't believe in your outdated notion of justice either. But there was no option for just "there is no Karma", you had to attach "so criminals get off the hook", so I cannot pick any of the options in your poll.

Karma is a thoroughly crap doctrine. The notion that I can be punished or rewarded for behavior I had absolutely nothing to do with in some psychotically imagined prior existence is anathema to me.

Boru

People can be ANYTHING and still be an atheist. I've met Christian atheists. They don't buy the bull, they just like the social gains, and some of the new testement teachings(turn the other cheek and such).
Christian Atheist? Not tons of them, but they exist!
Jewish atheist? YES!
Buddhist atheist? OF COURSE! (Buddha indeed didn't teach to believe in gods, so there are MANY of these folks)
Taoist atheist? NATURALLY!

You cannot fit everyone into your neat little boxes.