Could karma be more like the religious interpretations? Something not there because of people, but something that is embedded in existence itself? — Mind Dough
Most theories of Karma & Heaven envision some sort of cause & effect Justice in this or another world, but not necessarily in your current lifetime. Since human laws and judgments are notoriously biased, throughout history ethical thinkers have seen the need for super-human Justice. Most cultures have imagined wise & infallible gods of Justice, yet accepted that such perfect equity was seldom seen in reality. So, the ultimate righting of wrongs was typically deferred to an after-life of some kind. Unfortunately, such otherworldly justice had to be taken on Faith in seers & sages with access to the occult realms.
Some modern folks have given-up on Faith to make them feel better about the unfairness of the real world. But, I think they can take some insipid solace in the mathematical fact that impartial unbiased Randomness rules the laws of our physical world. Those evolutionary algorithms seem to be "embedded in existence itself". But they are truly fair & impartial in that they don't make exceptions to the implacable rule of Natural Law for people of moral merit. Thus the long-running lament : "Why do bad things happen to good people?" So, if Karma is a natural law, it must be able to discern Good from Evil like a moral agent. And its positive effect should be evident in the here & now, like all cause & effect events.
Karma : "destiny or fate, following as effect from cause". __Wiki
Sanskrit = action & reaction.
"Karma, as taught in the Buddhist tradition and other spiritual traditions of India, is a cosmic law that operates automatically, like the law of gravity."
Natural Law : . . . independent of, and pre-existent to, the positive law of any given political order, society or nation-state. Such genesis is seen as determined by nature (whether that reflects creation, evolution, or random chance), and a notional law of nature treated as objective fact that is universally applicable;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_law
Natural Justice : traditionally, assumed an intelligent agent of some kind to administer impartial rulings on the merits of each case of interpersonal contention. But in practice, Natural Justice is the result of random statistical algorithms inherent in the "laws" of Evolution.
Why do bad things happen to good people? :
Science --- https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog ... ood-people
Christianity --- https://www.christianitytoday.com/bible ... eople.html
Judaism --- https://www.chabad.org/library/article_ ... People.htm
Hinduism --- https://krishna.org/why-do-bad-things-happen-to-us/
Buddhism --- https://brightwayzen.org/why-does-god-l ... gs-happen/
Themis, goddess of justice : 84f500e39bc5cbb96e7a60066c91babf.jpg