Karma or not ?

Not long ago, I had a conversation with a friend where he proclaimed a firm belief in the idea that "if you do good things, good things will happen to you." Further prying revealed that he did indeed have a strong belief in Karma.  Of course, I was fed a completely unsatisfying answer, "I believe in Karma but I don't think it always applies." So, basically, I'm being told that when you do good things, sometimes good things will happen to you and when you do something bad, bad things might happen to you.



Ultimately, as if it's not already clear, I do not believe in Karma. Just based on personal experience it doesn't seem to hold true and I think by its own nature, it is impossible. Karma cannot account for every result in the world. There are plenty of things which are outside our control... natural disasters, accidents, etc. Nor can one say that something negative happening to them is necessarily as a result of his past Karma... Tell that to the victims of the Nine Eleven. Still, it stands to reason that the more positive actions you perform, the more positive chains of events will occur and vice-versa.



I understand that people in general just use the term Karma loosely, because we ALL love it when a nemesis gets what was seemingly coming to them (i.e. status update: KARMA'S A *****, AIN'T IT?? followed by evil laughter :) But I have heard a lot of people state that they believe in karma. Why? It's completely beyond my understanding.



Get this, for every action that you, your friends, your old neighbor who ran off with an internet lover, or whoever commits there is a reaction somewhere, even though it doesn't necessarily have to come back to you or them. I'm just tired of hearing random people say when something good happened to them that it was karma. No, you got the internship because you worked yourself off in class and studied, and perhaps was even favored by the teacher.  I also strongly believe in God's favor because there were lots of times when good things happened to me, when I really didn't put any effort into making them happen. That’s God's favor; it was not karma looking out for me. When your ex knocks up someone from a one-night stand-- not karma! People breed everyday! Animals breed everyday! It's not a miracle or some cosmic force that made her egg become fertilized just to please you because your ex wronged you some time ago. It’s called “Cause and effect”. For every action, there is a reaction. 

 I'm going close with this: If karma exists, what did children ever do to get molested? Or die at birth? So how will they ever be righted? I don't believe in Karma, however I do believe in God, I have seen with my own eyes what he does. Yes I am a good person, but do good things happen to me all the time? No, especially not in love, but the bad things I do, I seem to receive payback for them without a doubt. So I guess it goes like this we reap what we sow, very true.



Not fussing at anyone in particular... I'm just tired of hearing people use Karma as an easy explanation for a difficult world.