U.S. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld once shrugged off the turmoil and looting in Iraq as signs of the people's freedom, he said.
"It's untidy, and freedom's untidy," he said, jabbing his hand in the air. "Free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things. They're also free to live their lives and do wonderful things."
Some believe that when bad things happen it is because of some action we took in our daily lives. The action caused the bad thing to happen. We sinned, we have bad Karma, we did someone an injustice.
Most people don't seem to focus on the fact that bad and good things happen on a daily basis.
Buddhists and Hindus believe that your conduct in a past life could be affecting the outcomes in this life. Cause and effect maybe causing and effecting your life with adverse outcomes.
Unfortunately, since we have no control over this aspect of ourselves in this life, that which we have done in past lives comes back to bite us in the present. Karma (that which is) from the past life is something we just have no control over. But, if we lead exemplary lives, we can create some good karma for the next life.
Christians, Jews and Muslims believe that bad things happen because you have sinned in this life. You are being punished when the bad things occur. You are told amends can be made in this life and the sins can be absolved so the unlucky things will stop happening. You will eventually be blessed if you just admit to the sin and express regret. You can be saved, you will be enlightened.
Can you believe that if you lead a moral life you can mitigate past Karma?
Can you believe that if you don't sin nothing bad will happen?
Can you believe any of this?
What if none of this is true?
What if bad and good things happen more as a result of the daily choices that are made rather than some sin or bad karma.
What if bad and good things are just a fact of human life? Can we really blame bad karma or sinful actions on unlucky outcomes? Or is this all superstition to keep you morally upright?
Morality, historically, has been tied to religious fervor all over the world. For some reason secularists are depicted as morally tainted and can't be looked upon as reliable guides in this life.
They are morally tainted because they believe in a few common concepts.
1. They believe all human beings have the right and responsibility to give meaning and shape to their own lives.
2. They believe in the spirit of reason and free inquiry.
3 They believe in the spirit of compassion and affection.
So i wonder,
does fear always bring what one fears?
Does our fear bring us closer to the calamity(bad thing) we anticipate while our hope for a better outcome remains elusive.
Do we anticipate discord?
Does this anticipation actually make the (bad thing) happen?
Maybe those bad things happening are more a result of our fear than our reason?
Like Rumsfeld says, "free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things."
So did we make a bad thing happen?
Maybe it is time to admit to making a bad thing happen and cleanse the country.
Like Rumsfeld says, i'd like all people to be "free to live their lives and do wonderful things" and i'd like to add, without our interference.
2 comments:
Well, i like the idea of squaring humanity. But humanizing Rumsfield is another thing entirely. Oh, I know he's human; i say he's made a negative contribution, many probably and his response which you have quoted here his way of turning his head, denying responsibility...but the bad thing is he was there, allowed to be there, encouraged to be there by so many who made very bad decisions thinking they were good. Frenzied people are not free; unthinking people are not free; to be free is to be able to choose; closed minds cannot choose. But they have and they do and they are not ashamed. This is the bad thing. And while religions fail, the prophet's voice is true: The human heart is deceitful above all things.
I've no idea why your blog got my attention but I would really like to post you. Well, you're talking about karma and bad things and whether we cause it. I have a great desire to clear things to you. So..
We shall have two different aspects. In the first one we take a view of a christian (or someone else who thinks that we'll have some kind of "afterlifes" and "pastlifes").
In that case we can blame karma and god and of course always (if it doesn't bother) ourselves. Then we don't care about physical facts and consequences. We believe that there's something massive energy called "badness" and it affects to our lives in spite of our doings. But if we have done something bad, the fault is ours.
Another aspect would be that things just happen. Because there can't be anything controlling, the term called badness comes with a human. If there wasn't the human, there would exist no badness then. Simple. Everything is proportional.
Human has its own will and freedom to do anything unlike animals. My opinion is that human is really really stupid and undeveloped creature who can't/don't want to think about things enough widely to understand consequences of our acting. That causes badness.
We should also have some moral which controls our doings but you can ruin and manipulate it in many ways. If something makes you upset or shatters your emotions you easly forget your sense of proportiality and do something that makes you feel good but causes sorrow to somebody else. Moral is dead then. Now we can notice that there happens lots of bad things amongst people only because of them. That's badness caused by people. There's also badness (called generally as bad luck) which is not anyone's fault. Let's think that the Earth would be empty of people. Animals don't have the free will, so they can't harm each other personally on purpose. In that case the "bad" things just happen as the nature works.
So my point was that badness is connected to people. Bad luck is just bad luck. You can decide whether it depends on your acting, your pastlifes or a conspiracy of the universe.
Well, I guess that was all I was meant to say. Take care.
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