General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Shirley MacLaine asks: Were Holocaust victims paying for sins in past lives? [View all]Hekate
(90,616 posts)...and that therefore a person who accumulated wealth and other worldly things deserved those things because he had pleased God. People who were poor and unhealthy had displeased God.
Much of this filtered into the well-known Protestant Work Ethic, which was not an altogether bad ethic to have. (It does encourage people to work hard and save for the future, after all.) A lot of it just came right on through American history with a streak of self-righteousness about the poor being undeserving. A lot of it reappeared in the 20th century in those Christian mega-churches where people were encouraged to pat themselves on the back for not being among the undeserving poor.
Now we come to the New Age, which featured a lot of crystals and wind-chimes and happy talk. Take a little bit of Buddhism, add a dash of colorful Hinduism, a whole lot of misunderstanding of those ancient and sophisticated Asian philosophies/religions, some wishful thinking about reincarnation, and voila! A misunderstanding of karma that bears a strange resemblance to the early American Protestant preaching about God rewarding the deserving and punishing the bad right here on Earth.
No, Shirley, it doesn't work that way.