Should Christians believe in Karma?

[Lamb]

I have quite a few Christian friends who believe in Karma. Should Christians believe in Karma?

I personally don't believe in it, although there were times when it seemed to happen by coincidence. Should something be said to those friends?

 

[Josiah]

No.


.

 

[tango]

It depends on what context they use the word.

My understanding is that in the strictest sense of the word karma is more about a cycle of reincarnation where you nominally earn your way through higher and higher life forms until you reach whatever stage where you no longer have to be reincarnated. If you live a good life you earn good karma and get "promoted" in your next life; if you live a bad life you earn bad karma and get "demoted". In that sense of the word I don't see how you can possibly reconcile the concept of karma with a faith that teaches we die once and then face judgment.

In a more informal sense we talk about karma when someone does something inappropriate and faces unexpected consequences very shortly afterwards. The guy who nearly runs you off the road on the expressway only to get pulled over by a cop, or the person who barges in line at the checkout only to find they face the trainee assistant who is struggling through their first day of work. We might refer to it as karma but I don't think that's even remotely what karma is actually about. It seems like a short version of "what goes around comes around". In that context I don't really see anything wrong with it.

 

[Albion]

Agreed. What people usually are doing when they speak of "Karma" is nothing more than using the word as a kind of shorthand for "what goes around, comes around" and is not meant as an affirmation of the non-Christian religious concept that is Karma.

 

[JennyorAlice]

I think some people who believe in karma because that is a way for them to feel better when "justice is served" when a person commits a crime and then that person receives punishment for their crimes in some form or fashion.

But I believe God is our judge and I am no ones judge. So I'm going to go with a "no" on this one. God will take care of the evil that is in the world, whatever that may be.

 

[Lees]

I have quite a few Christian friends who believe in Karma. Should Christians believe in Karma?

I personally don't believe in it, although there were times when it seemed to happen by coincidence. Should something be said to those friends?

I am always amazed at how people say they believe this or that but really don't when push comes to shove.

Years ago Jeffery Dahmer was beaten to death in prison. I went to work the next day and a man I knew, who was from Chicago, and a liberal democrat, was sitting there before we started work reading the newspaper. He looked at me and said 'Dahmer was beaten to death in prison...good, he got what he deserved'. To which I said, 'then you are for the death penalty'. Which I knew he wasn't as a liberal democrat. But he knew he had to say yes due to his remark on Dahmer.

Point being: all these liberals who hate the death penalty and God who instituted it, still want some higher power to correct the injustices. But because they don't want God, they must attribute it to something else.

Why would any Christian ever say he believed in Karma, when he has God?

Lees