Figured that title would catch people's attention. Personally, I don't have any problem with saying that I have absolutely no idea if there is a 'God' or not. Same goes for Karma, tho. I do have to say that I believe there is no such thing as coincidence; everything happens for a reason.
This explanation alone brings up the question of whether or not there is a god, if there is, whether that god plays a role in the effects of our lives or not, or for me, it also begs to question the reality of the astrological charting.
When I was younger, really young, I always said that I wanted to be a lawyer and that I would never get married or have children. As soon as I graduated from high school, I decided to 'not' go to law school and I ended up both married and with child.
Since that time, I have had failed relationships, and the last one actually had me believing that I was wrong as a child, and I have had court issue after court issue, to where it has been me representing myself, finding that I would have been better served becoming an attorney, not for myself but to change something, it is best done from within. So is this God's will that even tho I do nothing lawfully wrong, that I end up embroiled in litigation anyway? Is it karma from a previous life or from going against what I had instilled within my own psyche since childhood? Is it simply based upon my extremely rocky astrological chart that actually portends alot of these issues?
I can't buy into a 'just and loving god' putting heinous obstacles in our way just to either test us or help make us stronger. I can't buy into the here-and-now karma when bad things happen without any cause for them. Yet I can't seem to fully grasp hold of the astrological concept, either - there is no dispute that twins, even identical, are different, and according to astrology, the planets don't change enough in a 2-minute time window to make them so different and have their lives turn out so varied (not true in all instances, as alot of twins tend to have the same life just with different personalities).
What are your beliefs and why?
Wikipedia wrote:Karma
Karma (Sanskrit: कर्म About this sound kárma (help·info), kárman- "act, action, performance"; Pali: kamma) in Indian religions is the concept of "action" or "deed", understood as that which causes the entire cycle of cause and effect (i.e., the cycle called saṃsāra) originating in ancient India and treated in Hindu, Jain, Sikh and Buddhist philosophies.
'Karma' is an Eastern religious concept in contradistinction to 'faith' espoused by Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam), which view all human dramas as the will of God as opposed to present - and past - life actions. In theistic schools of Hinduism, humans have free will to choose good or evil and suffer the consequences, which require the will of God to implement karma's consequences, unlike Buddhism or Jainism which do not accord any role to a supreme God or gods. In Eastern beliefs, the karmic effects of all deeds are viewed as actively shaping past, present, and future experiences. The results or 'fruits' of actions are called karma-phala.
Origins:
A concept of karma (along with reincarnation, samsara, and moksha) may originate in the shramana tradition of which Buddhism and Jainism are continuations. This tradition influenced the Brahmanic religion in the early Vedantic (Upanishadic) movement of the 1st millennium BC. Reincarnation was adopted from this religious culture by Brahmin orthodoxy, and Brahmins wrote the earliest recorded scriptures containing these ideas in the early Upanishads.
Views:
Some traditions (i.e., the Vedanta), believe that a Supreme Being plays some kind of role, for example, as the dispenser of the 'fruits' of karma or as exercising the option to change one's karma in rare instances. In general, followers of the Buddhism and many followers of Hinduism traditions consider the natural laws of causation sufficient to explain the effects of karma. Another view holds that a Sadguru, acting on a god's behalf, can mitigate or work out some of the karma of the disciple. And according to the Jainism perspective, neither a god nor a guru have any role in a person's karma - the individual is considered to be the sole doer and enjoyer of his karmas and their 'fruits'.
This explanation alone brings up the question of whether or not there is a god, if there is, whether that god plays a role in the effects of our lives or not, or for me, it also begs to question the reality of the astrological charting.
When I was younger, really young, I always said that I wanted to be a lawyer and that I would never get married or have children. As soon as I graduated from high school, I decided to 'not' go to law school and I ended up both married and with child.
Since that time, I have had failed relationships, and the last one actually had me believing that I was wrong as a child, and I have had court issue after court issue, to where it has been me representing myself, finding that I would have been better served becoming an attorney, not for myself but to change something, it is best done from within. So is this God's will that even tho I do nothing lawfully wrong, that I end up embroiled in litigation anyway? Is it karma from a previous life or from going against what I had instilled within my own psyche since childhood? Is it simply based upon my extremely rocky astrological chart that actually portends alot of these issues?
I can't buy into a 'just and loving god' putting heinous obstacles in our way just to either test us or help make us stronger. I can't buy into the here-and-now karma when bad things happen without any cause for them. Yet I can't seem to fully grasp hold of the astrological concept, either - there is no dispute that twins, even identical, are different, and according to astrology, the planets don't change enough in a 2-minute time window to make them so different and have their lives turn out so varied (not true in all instances, as alot of twins tend to have the same life just with different personalities).
What are your beliefs and why?
, so any views I like I will listen to them and use them as my own 
