grace vs karma.

"i was saved by grace"

it was this line on a kid's t-shirt that sparked a recent conversation i had with alex. which inspired me to think about this concept: grace or karma?

for clarifying purposes of this blog, i will define grace and karma, in the best way that i can.
grace is the belief that all will be forgiven. it is usually believed by people of the christian faith, because according to the bible, god is all forgiving. so for example, if i make you mad by dropping your phone into a fish tank, as long as you forgive me, all it good and forgotten.
karma is the belief that what goes around, comes around. i believe that its origin is in indian faiths, such as the religions of hinduism and buddhism. so if i take the same example as above: if i drop your phone in a fish tank, you will either 1)retaliate by dropping my phone into a fish tank, or 2)get back at me at a different time in a different way such as by spilling a can of paint all over me in my favorite outfit.

so alex's question to me was: "do you believe in grace or karma?"

he said that you had to believe in one or the other. and i think that is true. any action has consequences, have it be small or large. if you don't believe that what you do will come back to you (karma), then it will probably disappear (grace). there is nowhere else for it to go.

so which is it that i believe in? grace or karma?

when i was little, my mom would take me to church. which is no surprise, seeing that she is a christian and, naturally, would hope that i follow in her footsteps. i think it was in the 6th grade, about 5 or 6 years ago, that i discovered that i did not believe in any of the christian beliefs. which, obviously, resulted in my refusal to attend church. since then, i have had no religious affiliation. I do not believe in a god, a higher power, or anything of that sort.

therefore, grace or karma is not a matter of religion to me. it lies solely in my belief of my actions and how others perceive them, and the result of that. on that word, i honestly don't know which i believe in.

i am sure that i have sinned in my life. in my seventeen years and 5.5 months, i have surely disappointed someone, done something to make someone else upset, or even purposely made someone mad. but karma does not only come in one form. as i said before, the retaliation can be at a different time in a completely different situation in a different way. as newton said, "every action has an equal and opposite reaction". in every case that i had ever sinned, i am 100% sure that something has happened as a result of that action. not only sins, but any action i have ever done. even if the reaction doesn't affect me or even has nothing to do with me, it is still a reaction to what i did.

going back to my earlier example: if i drop your phone in a fish tank. if you decide to be ever so kind as to forgive me for doing it, and don't destroy something of mine in return, you will still have some sort of reaction to my action. surely you will act differently that day, as you are probably sad/mad/upset because your phone is broken. you will not act the same way you would if you were happy that day. because of that, something will occur differently in your day and that will be the result of my action. this isn't exactly karma.

yet this isn't exactly grace either. maybe you did forgive, but you did not forget. because of that one thing that happened differently in your day, it will cause a chain of effects that could, possibly, affect my day. in this case, that would be karma (but i would've never known that).

so i guess what i'm trying to say is that you will never know enough about everything to ever know whether or not your action is forgiven and forgotten or if it will eventually come back to you. you may know the immediate effects, like if i kick you on accident, and say i'm sorry, and you forgive me, it is grace, as you forgave me and did not hold a grudge. as for karma, if i punch you and you punch me back, that is karma because what i did came back to me. of course, grace and karma go to much larger scales and include things incomprehensible to me. so i am in no place to hold an argument about it in those cases.

the belief in grace and/or karma is a personal decision. just like religion, it is used in a way of support, to know that the universe has an order and things happen for a reason. my personal decision is that i am undecided. i cannot answer alex's question. grace, or karma? what do you believe in?

i am a very non-religious person.

postscript: i'm really sorry if a lot of this blog didn't make sense or is offensive or contradicts itself and goes in circles. my blog is a way for me to organize my own thoughts and get it out in writing. it's kind of like my diary, but in a public way. like i said before, read if you want, comment if you like. eat some cheese.