Celebrities In Karmic Universes Shouldn't Throw...

Is it too late for me to join in the Sharon Stone bashing? No? Good.

Stone has been worldwidely and rightly condemned for announcing that she believes that the recent earthquake in Sichuan, China was karma for China's violations of the Tibetan people.

What hasn't been suggested, I don't think, is that perhaps Sharon Stone should refrain from expressing such an opinion until she learns the metaphysical distinction between the concept of karma and the concept of a vengeful god.

Karma is not an entity and possesses no consciousness. Having no consciousness, it cannot act as a moral arbiter that can evaluate justice and mete punishment.

(I have always interpreted karma along the lines of a mathematical principle that by nature things just average out over the course of space and time - nothing more complex than that).

True, the Chinese themselves are asking whether the earthquake is judgement upon their government, but this self-scrutiny and hypothesising on the part of the Chinese is a different kettle of fish to Stone's rich (in both senses of the word), ensconced, moral showboating.

Like other celebrities who seem desperate to prove that the lavatory of their mind can boast the status "occupied", she can be considered no more than a non sequitur irrelevance.