Thread: Does a mental disabled person accumulate karma ?

Originally Posted by Original Poster

You're still seeing karma as a means of restoring fairness to the universe, it's not. It's a means of teaching, it is the great guess and check table of existence. When a mind accumulates karma, it is because the mind acted the best they could given their understanding of the situation, and good or bad they are still forced to reap what they sow. This is more basic than people understand it as, mistakes are possible and righteousness is dubious. What you "deserve" can often still feel totally unfair.

Let me draw an example. Do you think karma would simply turn off when you're blacked out drunk? Are you no longer responsible for your actions? Does your karma turn off because your emotions get too intense to think rationally and you, for example, act violently and go red and come back and realize you've hurt someone? In a court room, there's such thing as not guilty for reason of insanity. In life, all actions come back around.

I'm not viewing karma in any terms other than "the associations of actions to people" (or souls or minds or whatever else you want). The only thing I'm trying to discuss is which people, in a just system (important), can rightfully have any of their actions associated to them. It doesn't even matter if that association is through karma or not.

The intoxication analogy is flawed and I'm surprised you'd even bring it up. The disabled don't choose their state of rational incapability, those who get drunk do. The promotion of cool-headedness and control of your own emotions says enough for the other, I think (though maybe you disagree).

Personally speaking, I'd like to think that there's a set "cost" associated with going beyond your means in intoxication (getting so drunk you're no longer "you"). What you've actually done isn't your fault, but it was entirely your decision to put yourself into the situation that made you do it. You could also do nothing wrong at all while intoxicated, but gain negative karma simply for putting yourself into that risky situation in the first place. Just my interpretations of things, though, only putting it out there. I don't really want to discuss it.

Originally Posted by Jesus of Suburbia

I'm not viewing karma in any terms other than "the associations of actions to people" (or souls or minds or whatever else you want). The only thing I'm trying to discuss is which people, in a just system (important), can rightfully have any of their actions associated to them. It doesn't even matter if that association is through karma or not.

The intoxication analogy is flawed and I'm surprised you'd even bring it up. The disabled don't choose their state of rational incapability, those who get drunk do. The promotion of cool-headedness and control of your own emotions says enough for the other, I think (though maybe you disagree).

Personally speaking, I'd like to think that there's a set "cost" associated with going beyond your means in intoxication (getting so drunk you're no longer "you"). What you've actually done isn't your fault, but it was entirely your decision to put yourself into the situation that made you do it. You could also do nothing wrong at all while intoxicated, but gain negative karma simply for putting yourself into that risky situation in the first place. Just my interpretations of things, though, only putting it out there. I don't really want to discuss it.

There's not really negative or positive karma. Karma is the natural consequence of your actions, whether it's negative or positive is subjective. It is poetic justice, in a sense, but that doesn't mean it lacks the potential for cruelty. You can shout "Forgive them Karma for they know not what they do" all you want, but what is sowed must be reaped. What you accumulate for drinking, by itself, is the toxins you put into your system. What you accumulate for losing mental clarity is the risk that you may commit an action with unpreferable consequences. Life is, after all, a gamble, and the results are not written in stone. What you sow while black out drunk, you sow not simply because you chose to put yourself in that position but because you sowed it, that's it. Actions create consequences, not intent. You can have the best intentions ever when, for example, you decide to burn homosexuals at the stake and release them from their sin. Everything you know could teach you that's the right thing to do. Was it your choice to get drunk on lies, rather than alcohol? You seem to be claiming retarded people are not responsible for their actions, but people who are otherwise handicapped from clear thinking still are, for some reason or another.



Have you ever, in your life, made a mistake because you weren't thinking clearly? Let's start there.

Originally Posted by Original Poster

There's not really negative or positive karma. Karma is the natural consequence of your actions, whether it's negative or positive is subjective. It is poetic justice, in a sense, but that doesn't mean it lacks the potential for cruelty. You can shout "Forgive them Karma for they know not what they do" all you want, but what is sowed must be reaped. What you accumulate for drinking, by itself, is the toxins you put into your system. What you accumulate for losing mental clarity is the risk that you may commit an action with unpreferable consequences. Life is, after all, a gamble, and the results are not written in stone. What you sow while black out drunk, you sow not simply because you chose to put yourself in that position but because you sowed it, that's it. Actions create consequences, not intent. You can have the best intentions ever when, for example, you decide to burn homosexuals at the stake and release them from their sin. Everything you know could teach you that's the right thing to do. Was it your choice to get drunk on lies, rather than alcohol? You seem to be claiming retarded people are not responsible for their actions, but people who are otherwise handicapped from clear thinking still are, for some reason or another.



Have you ever, in your life, made a mistake because you weren't thinking clearly? Let's start there.

We're no longer talking about the same thing. I'm trying to discuss the ethical implications of the matter. It matters more practically for a legal system, as you said in the form of the insanity defense, but it's a great spiritual question too. My question is only, assuming any system of judgment or the determining of an action's value is perfectly just, if it's proper to assume that those who cannot know better (and if you want to bring in more determiners, those who did not willingly and knowingly enter the situation that made them not know better) are held accountable for their actions by the system.

You're trying to bring it back to your definition of karma and I don't know why. The questions stands no matter what you call the system, as long as you assume that the system is completely just.

I'm not claiming anything about retarded people at the moment. I'm asking questions.