Thanks for the comments. Good to see you following this section of my writing

1) Utility of praying and A’s argument is just a sample theist stereotype I wanted to depict.

2) Regarding the Prarabhda and Sanchita Karma – According to my limited understanding, these are just types of Karmas. Sanchita is your net cumulative karma including all your previous births.(Obviously rebirth is taken for granted). Prarabhda is that part of Sanchita karma which you must go through or work out in your present life. Karma theory falls apart without the assumption of rebirths.

@ Badri: +1 on your observation

Deep thoughts…

No astrologer can predict how a business will do. Reason: which horosope (planetary positions) would they use to do so? Is it the owners or the business (yes even it has a horoscope)? If the business has multiple partners then what happens? And even the best astrologers cannot predict this as there are multiple interpretations possible.

Taking a step back, the reason that the person goes to the astrologer is because the business is not doing well. Now when the astrologer says it will do well, he might go back happy and be hopeful. I think it is this hope that the person is buying from astrologer. If it turns out to be good, it is definitely not because that astrologer told so. He is not a wish granting person. However if it does not do well, how can the astrologer take responsibility? For economic reasons he has to shift it to some other reason for continuing his business

These are some of the thoughts I had on reading the article, especially the piece on astrologer.

1. I think the idea of shifting goalpost is commonplace in day-to-day decisions at personal level. Picture this: A is a diabetic.

A: I want to have sweets today. B: But you are a diabetic. A: But I did not have sweets for whole of this month.

So, A is trying to justify his action, in other words, ‘Rationalze’.

I also agree with the fact that karma can be (mis)used as a proxy for consequences – good/ bad.

2. Going further, in my opinion, your argument ‘God exists. God is omnipotent, omniscient. He’ll protect you’ and therefore ensuing reasoning about ‘utility of praying’ appears fallacious.

3. Regarding predictors using karma theory, you might like the post http://noenthuda.com/blog/2009/11/18/moron-astrology/ which gives some ‘econometric’ flavour to the whole idea.

4. Finally, regarding the observation that ‘karma theory stands on two pillars’, rebirth is not necessarily the factor (‘Prarabdha karma’ and ‘Sanchita karma’).

I slightly differ with your proposition of commonality “Like Hari/Vishnu being given importance in both the philosophies…”, because Ramanuja and Adi Shankara subscribe to different schools.

In my opinion, the reason for absence of factionism (in recent times) is that the esoteric nature of these philosophies render themselves inaccessible to the common man. In a way this is probably good because communicating these ideas through media other than direct communication mostly leads to misinterpretation (probably the reason why vedas and upanishads were traditionally taught through guru-sishya tradition).

1. In the motorcycle example, we might want to understand if the person already owns a bike. In this case, in general, I think he can wait.
2. In case the rider already owns an bullet, he will wait in all probability
2. Alternatively, if he owns a normal bike and looking for ‘big’ ones he might look at other options.

An analogy could be purchasing a mobile phone.

1. If you have a basic mobile and want to upgrade and if no product in market caters to your need (at a given price point) you can wait.
2. If you own a blackberry and are looking to upgrade, you’ll wait.
3. Alternatively, if you own a basic mobile and want to upgrade to a business phone, you’ll look at other options in Nokia/ Samsung