Buddhists and Christians agree: Katrina was karma

Larry King, our favorite geriatric talk show host, revisited the old why-God-lets-horrible-things-happen problem on a recent show, trotting out the Dalai Lama and baby-faced Christian tele-evangelist Joel Osteen to “explain” Katrina. The interesting thing was that both seemed to agree: stuff just happens.

KING: Your Holiness, how do you explain someone who believes in a higher being allowing this to happen to good people?

DALAI LAMA: Of course, from the Buddhist viewpoint, every event, every experience (UNINTELLIGIBLE) such a disaster, which is very, very painful, unspeakable sort of experiences. Are these things also, is it due to our own past karma or actions? And that is, I think, main causes, and the conditions the world climate conditions is changing, that also one factor.

Fine, but this is subject to misinterpretation. He does mean, doesn’t he, that the causal actions in question are generic, not some recent acts of evil on the part of the residents of the Gulf Coast that they are getting punished for, as some commentators, amazingly, have contended?

King continues: “But it doesn’t cause you, your Holiness, to question faith?”

DALAI LAMA: No. Of course, there—I think, for me, as a Buddhist, the real belief of all causality causes conditions, causes an effect, go like that [moving hands in a large circle]. Of course, the—even Buddhist own time, in the very eyes of—in front of Buddha’s own eye, is some people to suffer. That means things happen due to their own previous action of karma…

For the Christian answer, King moved to Osteen, asking “How do you respond to that same question? The Buddha said it’s the natural evolvement of things. What does the pastor say?” (Was Larry calling the Dalai Lama “the Buddha”? And is there really a word “evolvement”?) Osteen’s answer was almost indistinguishable from the Dalai Lama’s, although he omitted the causality twist and focused on God helping you make it through just after He destroyed your entire city:

OSTEEN: Well, Larry, what I believe from the Christian faith is that, you know, God is control. We don’t understand why all these thing happen. I think some of them are just natural disasters and you know, I think that when we come out of this we know that God is right there with us, the he’s the God to comfort us and, I don’t think we can explain this. So, we don’t try to get bogged down in that, we just try to—try to remind ourselves that God is a good God and, he’s on our side and he’s going to bring this through—bring us through these times of difficulty.

KING : Why not question it? If he’s a good God and he’s on your side, why did he flood New Orleans, something he could have prevented?

OSTEEN: You know Larry, I don’t think there’s an answer to all that. I mean you could go and figure out—and try to figure out why are babies born abnormal and why did this happen, that happen? I don’t think you can figure that out, Larry. I mean that’s, the Bible says, “God’s ways are not our ways, he works in mysterious ways,” and so, I don’t—I think that’s where a lot of people get hung up. But you know, part of trusting God is having faith in the tough times. And I think that’s what we—that’s what we do as Christians right now.

2 Responses to “Buddhists and Christians agree: Katrina was karma”

  1. David Crader Says:

    Sounds like Joel Osteen is familiarly complacent. I think Jesus said when asked by the disciples what the end of the age will be that , and im paraphrasing here…”It will be like it was in the time of Noah.” A family member recently asked me if the Tsunami and the Nawlins’ Banger Sisters (Katrina and Rita) were the Rapture. Here is my response to that:

    “No, not quite. The rapture will be on such a large scale that will blow your fucking mind…billions, not millions, not hundreds of thousands like the Tsunami, not thousands like Katrina, but BILLIONS.

    Now, with that being said, are these events, Tsunami, Katrina, Rita precursors leading up to the rapture event? Yes, Christie and I think they are.

    My reasons for stating that no this is not God’s work, this is is the work of the devil, is the covenant of the rainbow. After the floods God sent on the earth in the times of Noah He made a promise to Noah and his family after the flood waters receeded. God said “I will never again send the waters to destroy man for his transgressions.” That’s biblical. That’s “from the horses mouth” as it were, so why they even call these things acts of God is beyond me. Anyhow, God sent the floods to erradicate the bad angels coming down to earth and reporducing with human women to give birth to angel-human hybrids known as Nephalim (Genesis chapter 6). It is our belief that the Nephalim became the Greek gods (they were the heros of old, the men of reknown is the description given to them in Genesis, which is also the description given on Greek mythological gods by Harvard and Rhodes scholars as a definitive answer to who Zeus, Venus, Aphrodite, Hercules, etc. were)

    Through a plethora of information that can only be defined as very broad spectrum research, christie and i have made a hypothesis that the Nephalim, being half angelic and possesive of superhuman powers, including but not limited to immortality. IE, they couldn’t die, so God had to chain them to the ground and bring water to the earth, as the oceans and seas did not exist pre-flood. They were chained down, and the planet flooded. After it was confirmed thata ll hunman life on earth had ceased and that all angelic life or half angelic life, had been subdued in the floor of the ocean, He receeded the waters enough for Noah and his family to begin repopulating the earth.

    What does it all mean? Well, our ongoing hypothesis is that the day of judgement is very VERY near, if not at the door. The “church” has been saying this for 2 millenia, but they never gave hard evidence beyond the fact that man was seething with corruption. In a nutshell , the church has been chicken little crying that the sky is falling, and now that it actually is, no one wil believe them, even with the proof of prophecies being fulfilled as they are now. Nothing short of Jesus appearing in the sky and holding back the force of the hurricane will make anyone believe that the end is near. Anyway…the hurricanes are being created the same way the glaciers are melting, the ocean and the atmosphere are heating up, to never before seen levels. Why? Science says its increased geothermal activity…we agree, but the cause of that increased activity is what has me praying on the regular. We think those angels and their half human hybrid offspring who are chained to the ocean floors bonds are being loosened and they are slowly escaping from the abyss. Want science to show you? Do a Google image search on the Mid-Atlantic ridge or on the Atlantic Trench. Also, “Black smokers” not gonna go into too much detail on them just google those topics to see the details.

    What is next? I believe a grand earthquake is very imminent. Also, expect something to do with the Pope as a blurb on the bottom of CNN. All of the political and worldwide plotting for the antichrist to come to light is being done right now, while most of the media attention is on the hurricanes and their aftermath. New Orleans itself is a huge piece of the puzzle, from the voodoo to the french origins, to the fleurdelys (the Saints logo, also on many former royal coats of arms, the boy scout association, among others) and catholicism. Read Revelation chapter 12 and when you do imagine a woman that is either about to give birth or did give birth as Katrina hit and was then evacuated to somewhere between New Orleans and Houston and is maybe now evenm being evacuated again to somewhere like Arizona or New Mexico or Oklahoma.

    What can you do? Not a damned thing, except pray, try and make sure that you have done everything you can do to bring those you love to salvation. The stubborn ones to. Getting em cornered and look em in the eye and say like you would to a 9 yr old that just said the n-word for the first time how very serious what you are saying is and that it isnt something to take lightly, nor is one safe once proclaiming their belief in the salvation. EVERY TIME YOU DO SOMETHING THAT IS A SIN YOU MUST PRAY FOR FORGIVENESS!”

    Ill close on this, I ran across your blog doing research on Neurotheology tying into all of th above coupled with Alchemy, Voodoo,the Priory de Sion, and natural disasters among other things. I am quite pleased with the neutral prospective your site takes and found it very informative and with your blessing will comment frequently.

  2. Numenware, a blog about neurotheology » Blog Archive » Book review: Letter to a Christian Nation Says:

    […] nagging feeling shared by everyone that there is something a little bit wrong about a God that lets Katrina happen, that lets babies die, that watches over planes smashing into skyskrapers, and basically fucks all […]

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