Whenever there is news of a terrible natural disaster anywhere on our planet, talk about karma is bound to come up. Did people die because it was their “karma”? If a community is wiped out by a flood or earthquake, was that entire community somehow being punished?Most schools of Buddhism would say no; karma doesn’t work that way…. In Buddhism, karma is not a cosmic criminal justice system. There is no intelligence in the sky directing it. It does not hand out rewards and punishments. And it is not “fate.” Just because you did X amount of bad stuff in the past does not mean you are fated to endure X amount of bad stuff in the future. That’s because effects of past actions can be mitigated by present actions. We can change the trajectory of our lives. Karma is created by our thoughts, words and deeds; every volitional act, including our thoughts, has an effect. The effects or consequences of our thoughts, words and deeds are the “fruit” of karma, not karma itself.
One of my favorite websites is Right Wing Watch. Every day, they wade in the morass that is the Rabid Religious Right, those paragons of morality and righteousness who believe that every thought and action has an equal and opposite reactions…usually a bad one. Turns out there a lot of folks on the Far Right who hate homosexuals and the idea of marriage quality SO much that they’d believe Teh Gayz have the power to rain all manner of havoc and natural disasters upon the Earth and “turn the Bible into Mein Kampf.” Mike Huckabee even believes that same-sex marriage is responsible for the rise of ISIS.
So, can karma- as created by same-sex marriage- be held responsible for natural disasters such as hurricanes and earthquakes? Who knew Teh Gayz to be such a powerful source of malevolent godless energy?
[L]et’s look at a natural disaster scenario. If a person is killed in a natural disaster, does that mean he did something wrong to deserve it? If he had been a better person, would he have escaped?
According to most schools of Buddhism, no. Remember, we’ve said that there is no intelligence directing karma. Karma is, instead, a kind of natural law. But many things happen in the world that are not caused by human volitional action.
In short, there’s nothing credible about the belief that certain actions or beliefs can anger God so much that He/She would strike out in some sort of divine retribution. Turns out that natural disasters are just that- naturally occurring horrific events whose causes can and should be ascribed to natural forces, NOT some sort of Divine disturbance in the Force. Or marriage equality.
Those members of the Radical Religious Right who ascribe natural disasters to God’s anger over [insert hated thought, belief, or deed here] are merely attempting to scare vulnerable low-information sheeple into sending them money. They may actually believe the crap they’re pedaling, but there’s no scientific proof- zero, zip, nada, none, cero- that Almighty God, or the Flying Spaghetti Monster, or any other deity sends grievous natural disaster as a way of demonstrating their displeasure with Mankind.
Not that the truth will stop those so inclined from ascribing any unfortunate natural event to God’s displeasure with [insert hated thought, belief, or deed here]. As one of my own brothers is wont to say, truth is hate to those who hate the truth.
