A Battle Between Sin and Karma
Despite the fact that I was a declared enemy of God, Jesus had different plans for me. I was puffed up by pride, but I still felt guilt over what happened with Mary back in high school. Liar told me she was no different than the other Christians I hated, but in my heart I knew that wasn’t true. She’d been a friend who I cared for greatly, and I betrayed that friendship. No matter how much I hated other Christians and attacked their faith without any regret, what I did to her still bothered me. The more I exalted myself and the more spiritual gifts I mastered, the more the rift in my heart became apparent.
When I mentioned this to Susan and Gloria, they reemphasized the teachings about Karma and Liar completely agreed with them. Karma is supposedly like a spiritual law of nature. Gloria told me that anything bad I did do would be returned to me three times and everything good would be returned to me ten times. It is this law that Gloria taught was key to spiritual growth. She said it’s also one of the main ways the New Age movement is compatible with all religions, for everyone has some understanding of fairness and justice. She claimed Karma is the spiritual fulfillment of both and all religions give their faithful members good Karma.
However, I knew in my heart that was a lie. Although I accepted and believed in Karma, what it really teaches is that sin is something temporary. The Spirit of Truth was testifying with my heart that no matter how many bad things might happen to me in this life (or in any hypothetical lives to come,) the fact remains that I had intentionally hurt someone I loved. Even by the loose standards of the New Age movement, that's really bad. I knew in my heart I was a sinner, and all sin is eternal. Only something equally eternal could pay the price for sin. I might have been winning one debate after another against Christians on campus, but one argument they kept coming back to stuck in my mind: we are all sinners and that the penalty for sin is death. That made sense to me. Death is eternal, just like sin.
Liar told me to reject that line of thinking. He reminded me that eternal sin doesn’t exist. Even if it did, if the Christian God was real, surely He’d hate me just as much as I hated Him. So, by the absurd logic of Christianity, I’d be going to Hell no matter what else I did. He said I didn’t shouldn’t worry about it. After all, Christianity isn’t true… right?
