Karma does not play favorites

Yesterday, a friend shared a quote which I find interesting and insightful. It says, “Karma has no menu. You get serve what you deserve.”

Generally speaking, religious people think that it is important to have a retributive system in order for people to behave morally. In the world’s religious systems, there are two major schools of thought. For the theists, it is God who is the enforcer of justice. For the non-theists, including both Eastern and Western pagans, Buddhists, Hindus and Taoists, it is karma which maintains cosmic justice.

Not long ago, I published an article in Medium titled The Dangers of an Anthropomorphic God. That article is very popular. Many of my readers respond favorably. Why is an anthropomorphic or “personal” God so dangerous? I quoted author Anne Lamott, who said, “You can safely assume that you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.” Perhaps it is not God per se that is the problem. It is that theists typically create their own image of God.

An anthropomorphic “God” takes sides because humans are biased and not impartial. Humans tend to reward people from their own camp and punish people from the other camps. It is no surprise at all that “God” hates all the same people we do. For this reason, it is easy to invoke the name of God to justify all kinds of…