Could Sharon Stone Be Right?
Posted by Greg Bulmash in Politics & Religion, World AffairsSharon Stone recently suggested that the earthquakes in China might be karmic payback for the crap China's been pulling in Tibet. And when she did, people lost their minds. People have been calling for boycotts, claiming she's an idiot, claiming she's evil, claiming she's insensitive, and basically suggesting in various degrees how wrong she is. But is she wrong?
“I’m, you know, not happy about the way the Chinese are treating the Tibetans, because I don’t think anyone should be unkind to anyone else. And so, I have been very concerned about how to think and what to do about that because I don’t like … that. And then I’ve been, this, you know, concerned about, oh, how should we deal with the Olympics, because they’re not being nice to the Dali Lama who is a good friend of mine. And then all this earthquake and all this stuff happened, and I thought, is that karma? When you’re not nice that the bad things happen to you?â€
I know a lot of people are ridiculing Sharon Stone for this, but any of them who do and then claim to be a member of one of the Abrahamic religions that considers Moses a prophet and believes in the biblical story of the Jewish exodus from Egypt is a dyed in the wool hypocrite.
Come on. Did some grain merchant in Alexandria really deserve to have his firstborn son die because Pharoah wouldn't let the Hebrews go?
We totally accept God decimating a generation of Egyptian males because of bad policy decisions by the king, yet we pooh-pooh the idea that the earthquake was a punishment from God (or some supernatural power) for China's treatment of Tibet and its people. The parents of all the children who died in all those school collapses had no control over the central government's actions or policies in Tibet, but neither did the Alexandrian grain merchant have influence over Pharoah's actions or policies regarding the Hebrews. He still lost his son, didn't he? Why should all these Chinese parents be any different?
Can it only be a punishment from God if it's predicted by a guy in a robe who looks like Charlton Heston? We obviously believe that the citizens of a nation share the guilt for the acts and policies of its leadership and deserve to bear the brunt of God's wrath. If not, we would reject the book of Exodus. Wouldn't we? Are the plagues upon Egypt now something we can conveniently ignore? Do we really get to pick and choose which parts of the Bible we want to believe? How do we justify a faith in scripture if we only believe the parts we like?
I'm not saying she's right, but that she *could* be right. Although there have been people predicting a punishment from God upon China, no one predicted this particular one. So whether it's God or chance is still up in the air. But for those who would claim it's God, if you believe in the Bible, then you have to admit there is precedent for it.
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Maybe, but this was no prophetic pronouncement. She was talking about karma as a "natural law" of the universe. A punishment from God is different, which He does according to his plan and purpose. This might be a repercussion of their (China) actions, but either way, what she is saying is something total different.
True Karma is about living a good life so your next life is good and so you can learn the lessons of life to help you reach enlightenment. Karma takes a long time to work and usually isn't so quick.
Sharon Stone's Karma is more the "My Name Is Earl" brand of Karma which is a sort of Westernized equating of Karma with the last few words of Galatians 6:7: "for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap."
If you want to go Old Testament, then we have Hosea 8:7: "For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind."
But the thing here is not that I'm saying that she's right. I'm saying that anyone who claims she isn't, but also claims to belive in the infallibility of scripture is a hypocrite.
There's nothing in the Bible that says a punishment from God requires a harbinger to make prophecy of the coming doom. It's not like people who lived thousands of miles from Noah were even dimly aware of his ark-building or prophecies of the flood, yet they died all the same.
When Lot was rescued from Sodom by the angels, they didn't go tell all the Sodomites to flee. They just rescued Lot and his family, told them not to look back, and let everyone else in Sodom die.
How do we know that some angels didn't come in and save one family in the stricken province, and leave everyone else to die? I'm sure if some Chinese family started claiming that, the government would have them shot or carted off to a prison camp before any media got wind of it. The Chinese government would suppress any proof that this was divine retribution.
I said it before and I'll say it again. I'm not saying she's right. I'm just saying that if you believe in the infallibility of scripture, you're obligated to admit the possibility of her being right or you have to re-examine your faith.
Personally, I'd like to see lots of people questioning their belief in the infallibility of scripture than agreeing with Sharon Stone.