FATE & KARMA

The fate of a person is generally thought to be the arrangement made for one before one is born, and it is unchangeable. But where does fate come from? Who arranges and manages it and for what purpose? Up until this point, no one has had clear answers to these questions. Nevertheless, many people believe in fate. Others do not believe in or accept the idea of fate. Is fate real, or is it a concept imagined by humans? Is fate a superstition, or can it be explained scientifically?

As discussed in chapter 2, to search for answers, we first need to gather related information from many sources. Then we can look for hidden clues which will help us see through the nature of the subject. We’ll use the same method here to understand fate.

Fate, according to the teachings of Buddhism, as well as some Eastern religions, exists because of karma (the natural law that deals with cause and effect in a person’s life). All of our deeds, whether good or bad, moral or wicked, kindhearted or cold hearted, that we carried out in our previous lives shall be naturally reflected in and influence our current life. This Buddhist teaching sounds reasonable, but there are still two weak points about this view:

• First, if there was no supreme power to manage reincarnation, the souls would freely choose the family in which to be born. This would lead to situations where evil souls would oppress good souls and incarnate into the fetuses of rich, luxurious, and powerful families. And the good souls, as a result of being less competitive, would end up in poor and less fortunate families. Incidentally, bad souls would be blessed and the good souls would suffer. Therefore, the concept of karma in Buddhism turns out to be ineffective and not promoting fairness.
• Second, in Buddhist teachings, the concept of God does not exist. Humans are not guided by any deity. If this is the case, there’s no one to create souls. Instead, souls are available naturally when people are born. This can be understood to mean that the soul is merely an abstraction of human rationality and emotion and is a product of nature; after a human dies, everything ends. What we have in this life is the result of the choices and decisions we made in this life, without any intervention from any supernatural being. Thus, if there is no soul, there will be no reincarnation or karma. Evil deeds people did in their previous lives will not be reflected in their current life.

Muslims consider fate to be a very important factor in one’s life. According to Islam, human fate is part of God’s will. It is said that God sets the fate of each person before birth, and that fate will follow him for all his life unchangeable. The concept of fate in Islam is unreasonable and unfair in these two respects:

• First, if God is a supreme power who is benevolent and wise, why would He treat the souls He has created unfairly? Some people live lives full of happiness, wealth, and success, while others are poor, miserable, and unhappy for all of their lives. If there’s nothing else to add this discussion, God is indeed unfair in His treatment of different people.
• Second, why does God creates fate for humans but not allow humans to have free will? If fate is unchangeable, do we need to try hard to succeed in life? If we do good deeds for others, how does God reward us if He has already predetermined all aspects of our life? If fate is unchangeable, is His revelation for commandments—supposedly for the purpose of teaching humans—necessary?

Meanwhile, the concept of fate is rather vaguely described in the Christian Bible. Most of Christianity followers say that God punishes all of mankind because Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit (fruits that came from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil). This concept is called the original sin. This concept also has two shortcomings:

First, Christianity views original sin as being the cause of all punishment—God punishes all mankind entirely because Adam and Eve committed a sin, and it has nothing to do with the sins of their descendants (i.e., later humans). If we said that God is all about punishments, to whom would we give credit for the greatness of life? Thus, the concept of original sin in Christianity only sees the negative side, but does not see the positive side that God provides for mankind.

• Second, it is unreasonable for God to continue punishing all mankind just because of our ancestors’ sins. We know that equality is a very significant principle for God, so why would He behave in such a ridiculous manner? Where is His righteousness? Does He really care about the equality of human souls? Is this the God that we come to expect?

Before you continue to talk about fate, let us look into the concepts of God’s punishment from religion’s perspectives. We know that the cause of punishment is from fear and therefore we take revenge, to protect our interest or because someone did not do what we want someone else to do. But let us think for a second, does our God really fear of anyone or anything? Does God need to protect his fame, as no one can offend God or defame of him. As for benefits, we must know that God is the great creator, should He need protection that much. Particularly with our idea that because people do not follow or disobey God’s commands thet should be punished by God is indeed wrong. Because once we believe that God created us and everything He has created those for us. Above all He gives us free will. If that is so, then for what reason he also forces us to follow Him, choose according to His will, obey Him or otherwise we’ll be punished. What kind of free will is that? It’s not acceptable. Given free will, humans should be able to choose according to our will. Humans should be able to choose either good or bad, virtue or mischief, left or right because we would like to, why we should be punished. In case God does not want humans to have free will to choose, God have a chose not to make them but in reality it is the opposite. Surely, God does not interfere or prevent human choices, we have complete free will to decide for our desires to deeds. God does not punish anyone of us even though one is extremely cruel, God does either reward or punish anyone, everything we have today reflect the results of our own choosing in our past live. Today we choose to mischief, we will be living in evil in the next life. Today we choose to do good deeds; we will be repaid with happiness. God’s job is to ensure that our choices can be carried out, everyone have opportunity to perform. Finally we understand that everything happens to us is due to the law of causality, not the punishment from God. He never had punished anyone and that will never happen neither.

After analyzing the viewpoints of these three major religions concerning the topic of fate, we find that they all have major shortcomings from a logical standpoint. But when we weave these viewpoints together and then eliminate invalid points while holding on to the good aspects, we can see clear, logical, and reasonable viewpoints about fate. They are as follows:

1. The reason God created fate for each person is the sin of the very first humans on Earth. This view draws on the concept of original sin in Christianity.
2. The criteria for God to determine fate for humans is based on the deeds we carried out in our previous life. All of our deeds, good for bad, in our previous life will be reflected in this life, either as a blessing or a punishment. God makes this happens according to the law of cause and effect. But in order to fulfill fate in a fair and natural way, our souls must reincarnate to receive reflections about our previous life. This view draws on the concepts of karma and reincarnation in Buddhism.

God sets a fate for each human, and then manages and fulfills it. This view of fate draws on Islam. Fate is pre-determined and unchangeable because its foundation is based on our deeds from our last life. Our deeds in this life will be reflected on the next life.

In addition, to have a better understanding of fate, we will analyze a line in the Qur’an of Islam: “And you do not will except that Allah wills. Indeed, Allah is ever Knowing and Wise.” (SURAH AL – INSAN 30). We’ll break this line into three verses:

“And you do not will”

In this verse, God says that, whether we like it or not, our life will be affected by the fate He imposes.

“Except that Allah wills.”

In this verse, God explicitly says that it’s His will, and He says so without explanation. We know that when God creates a new soul, it initially includes only the consciousness software program and the spirit software program; the subconscious storage and the RPLI storage are empty. That is what we all have in the beginning. God lets us have total free will in our first life. But in humans arose desires, ambition, selfishness, and cruelty, which caused damage and suffering to other humans. Thus, God has employed the law of cause and effect in order to arrange fate for everyone after the first life. We cannot say that God wants to arrange fate for the purpose of expressing power or his own interests, but all the benefits are for humans (all the practical benefits of fate will be analyzed further in the following section)

Thus, God designed fate to punish sin and reward good deeds so we can grow; and of course this must be done according to His principles of righteousness. At the core of fate, we should see that when God sets fate for each human it is because of the sins each person committed...

“Indeed, Allah is ever Knowing and Wise.”

http://giwho.com/chapter-4/