Karma's a ***!

[Angrboda]

I just had a similar convo on pagan forums in the last few days.  I find myself in the pitiable position of agreeing with Bel.  Karma is a way for people who could not personally do bad things to feel comfortable in the thought that bad things will happen to people they would not do bad things to, even when they thought those people deserved it.It's an outgrowth of our complicated and not entirely rational view on how the world should be, with full knowledge that this is not how the world actually is.  

Bad people get away with it.  No good deed goes unpunished.  -Enter karma, to mollify our dissatisfaction with these facts.

This ignores the other side of the coin which is the belief that if you are good you will be rewarded for your efforts, along the same lines as the belief that hard work will result in getting ahead, that people who are well off are where they are because they earned it, and so on. I don't believe that, and the more I read, the more I am convinced that compassion and respect for the other are better approaches to changing behavior. Karma represents a carrot-and-stick approach to life that while intuitive, may not be all that effective.