If I can :-)
>Grabbing the largest frigging paintbrush the world has ever seen, I would
>have to reply with-- Karma is a personally held belief that has cosmic
>underpinnings. Justice is a socially manufactured contract that has
>political underpinnings.
>
>It is my personal feeling that Karma is called upon when Justice fails.
>
>Any good?
Excellent.
My view is that Karma is a special kind of Justice[1]. There are at least
four ways bad things can happen to bad people:
a) as a natural consequence of their evil ways (the liar and thief loses
the trust of others, and becomes a societal outcast),
b) as an artificial consequence (the liar and thief is captured, tried,
and incarcerated),
c) as a random occurrence (the liar and thief is coincidentally killed in
a genuine accident),
d) as a cosmic retribution (the liar and thief dies and comes back as
a rat).
a, b and c are real manifestations of justice. People that believe in
justice act (consciously and unconsciously) to make a and b happen.
People that believe in Karma mistake c for d, but evidence suggests
that Karma is a myth. The universe is not fair[2]. It is up to humans
to create justice.
[1] Since our legal system is so entangled with the concept of justice, we
often equivocate the terms. Justice is "simply" when good things happen to
good people and bad things happen to bad people. The legal system was created
to try to make the latter half of justice a reality (with varying degrees of
success).
[2] Bad accidents don't happen statistically significantly more often to
bad people than good people and vice versa.
-- David McFadzean david@lucifer.com Memetic Engineer http://www.lucifer.com/~david/ Church of Virus http://www.lucifer.com/virus/