Syncretism is the mixing of different elements of faith and religion. For example, people could lean on Jesus as their savior, but could also think that Kali, the Hindu goddess of death and destruction, (who also happened to be the teacher in my junior level English class) will some day come around to stomp out the world in her little dance, as she’s been doing since the beginning of time.
Syncretism is becoming more and more of a problem as people are trying to accept diversity and hold all sorts of different religions in equal esteem. I have seen an explosion of those wretched “coexist” bumper stickers that have the Islam moon and star, the star of David, the Wicca star, and so on. It might be as simple as believing in Jesus, but at the same time, daily consulting your horoscope (and believing it), looking into other forms of divination to understand the world, or even relying on some of the more “minor” forms of witchcraft.
I say all that to tell you that I don’t believe in karma. It will never run over my dogma, which is another ridiculous bumper sticker. Although I don’t believe in it, I do think that we bring consequences upon ourselves, and can look like karma. Other times things just happen to be coincidence and look like karma; I have chronic kidney stones. I have for about seven years now and it all started in such a strange way.
A buddy of mine who I happened to work with at that time had to call in sick several days in a row, because he had a very large kidney stone, and what did I do in my unsaved state where I lacked a lot of compassion? I laughed my face off! Six months later I found myself peeing blood, then being strapped down to a table where nurses and doctors took me through the whole nasty process, trying to figure out what was wrong with me, and why I was in so much pain.
I’m hoping to write several posts today, because I’m currently in the process of having one of those awful little guys makes his way through my right kidney, and I’m making excuses ahead of time, if I write something that sounds a little more ridiculous than usual, then just know that it’s because I’m high on pain pills my doctor gave me for days just like this.
