In Wicca there's a strong belief in the threefold law - the idea that any
energy that you send out will come back to you three times as strong. This
doesn't really make sense to me, as it seems to go against the ideas of
every action having an equal and opposite reaction, and energy not being
created only changed from one form to another. I don't see how the energy
is suddenly tripled to return to sender.
I think a far more common-sensical idea is to simply accept that if you're
a positive person, you attract positive energy, and if you're a negative
person you attract negative energy. This makes sense because it works for
examples like if you go out of your way to help someone, they're a lot more
likely to help you in the future than if you had caused them their problems
in the first place. It also means that crappy things happening to good
people, and bad people sometimes coming out on top are still acceptable
situations because it's not like this is a hard and fast law.
So, the purpose of this thread, is what do you believe in? Several
religions seem to have their own versions of this idea, sometimes it's as
simple as 'do as you would be done by', and even the atheists here should
have some form of opinion, possibly agreeing with me.
Do our actions have specific repurcussions? Does the energy we send out
somehow return to us?
____________________ Do not fear death so much, but rather the inadequate life.
gothicmorman
Fanatic
Posts: 233 Registered: 11/7/2002 Status: Offline
posted on 19/10/2006 at 09:41 AM
A practical application of this 'Law' in Wicca would have all energy sent
out and being tripled, and then all that energy gets tripled again. So
eventually there would be so much energy bouncing around that we would all
implode, that or a hell of a lot of it would escape the atmosphere or
something (I think energy can do that, but I havn't taken science for a
long while now). But basically what it seems like is that either we would
end up imploding from the sheer force, or a hell of a lot of energy goes to
waste.
"You get what you give." makes a lot more sense to me too.
I guess that is sort of something I believe in. I'm not really sure what I
believe in, I don't really have a specific set of rules or guidelines since
I'm don't follow any belief system at all, athiest, religious or otherwise.
I havn't really had long enough to figure a lot of things out for myself.
The way I see things, and have experienced things, is that life has a lot
to do with the people you meet. For me particularily people are more
important that prettymuch anything else, and I do think that one is liable
to get out of friendships what one puts in, though sometimes you don't get
anything out of it at all no matter how much you put in. Every person is
very different, so one sort of has to be different for each person to find
the balance between the two in which energy goes both ways.
I think energy has it's depths though, if we use it and use it and never
get any back, it eventually drains us and I think a person could die from
that. So energy must return to us or not neccessarily return to us but we
have to get energy as well as give it and it all kind of circulates through
the world. Hmm.
Schizo
Extreme Fanatic
Posts: 897 Registered: 31/12/1969 Status: Offline
posted on 20/10/2006 at 02:30 AM
I thought about this for a bit and I think the whole tripled-rebound thing
is a bunch of poppycock. If you treat other people badly, you aren't
likely to be treated very well back (unless you're a whole lot smarter than
some of the people I see trying that game) but I don't see any kind of
mystical cosmic backlash. Of course, if you look for 3's you're likely to
find them, rather like looking for bad luck on a Friday the 13th. You just
take the 3 most unpleasant things that happen to you and blame them on the
rule of 3 (or the 3 most pleasant - a lot of people forget that the rule is
supposed to work both ways, not like some kind of bogeyman waiting to get
evil-doers).
However, I think it may be true that if you want to throw shit, you have to
stick your hands in it. And if only 1/3 of the shit you throw hits its
intended target, you end up 3 times a shitty as the target. Which is why I
only throw shit BACK at people.
Devin
Administrator
Posts: 317 Registered: 31/12/1969 Status: Online
posted on 24/10/2006 at 04:21 PM
I read this and thought about it and the best conclusion I could come to
was:
Pixi - you so rock.
Applying the basic laws of physics to something like that is just so
obvious, but I've never seen it done. I've certainly never thought about
it. Everyone knows the 3fold law is just there to scare baby witchlings,
but I don't think anyone thinks about why they believe it in principal, but
don't believe it at the same time. Karma makes perfect sense, and works
within the laws of the universe, but the threefold law can only be a matter
of perception.
I think any junior witchling who is seriously studying this stuff and
doesn't ask the question "where does the other two thirds of this backlash
come from?" needs to stay in school.
____________________ So Sayeth Me
IamSquid
Extreme Fanatic
Posts: 658 Registered: 27/5/2002 Status: Offline
posted on 28/10/2006 at 09:41 AM
There isn't a good or evil, only how yoo decide to view a situation. If yoo
kill somebody, perhaps yoo will feel the world is better-off without them
in it, but yoo have to be willing to accept the consequences, legal or
otherwise, or else yoo'll be quite disappointed.
____________________
i wanted to die, and then it progressed into wanting everyone else to
die so i could watch, and then me die.
-ickgirl
Dolorosa
Extreme Fanatic
Posts: 856 Registered: 31/12/1969 Status: Offline
posted on 1/11/2006 at 08:23 PM
I've done a crapload of nasty stuff, and only ever got my just desserts
thrown back my way...on occasion you can avoid that stuff too, I really
don't think there are ANY hard and fast and absolutely true rules with
metaphysics and whatnot...in fact, I believe that realm can be identified
by being without such conditions. More I think about it, I wonder if that
doesn't apply to damn near anything on some level.
and I know good and evil are relative concepts and all that, but man...I've
been in a few places and situations where it just feels freaking evil. Not
sure how else to describe it but by that.
Pixie rawks like whiskey watermelons
____________________ In the valley of the Goats, the Goat Fucker is King
Xaoswolf
Fanatic
Posts: 463 Registered: 31/12/1969 Status: Offline
posted on 2/11/2006 at 11:23 AM
You just don't understand Magic, that's all.
It's like this, when I tap my swamp I get one black mana, then, I cast Dark
Ritual as a fast effect and I get three black mana in return. I give out
one, and get three...
What, that's not what you were talking about?
____________________ Sometimes I dream about dinosaurs shopping for cargo shorts at the Gap.
Does that make me a bad person?
Dolorosa
Extreme Fanatic
Posts: 856 Registered: 31/12/1969 Status: Offline
posted on 2/11/2006 at 05:52 PM
Good god...
I knew what you were talking about and it made me sad...
sad that i cant find my black deck
____________________ In the valley of the Goats, the Goat Fucker is King
Xaoswolf
Fanatic
Posts: 463 Registered: 31/12/1969 Status: Offline
posted on 3/11/2006 at 07:50 AM
You only have one balck deck?
____________________ Sometimes I dream about dinosaurs shopping for cargo shorts at the Gap.
Does that make me a bad person?
Kira
Member
Posts: 149 Registered: 31/12/1969 Status: Offline
posted on 3/11/2006 at 12:36 PM
It's comforting for people to have a way to explain why bad things happen
to good people and vice versa, whether it's a notion of prior karma or "God
works in mysterious ways." However, I found it oddly freeing when I finally
got to the point where I could accept the belief that fortunate and tragic
shit both happen, period, often randomly, and there isn't a damn thing I
nor anyone can do about it.
That said, I still like to do nice things for people because it makes me
feel good and more than once has gotten me something additional nice in
return. Similarly, I think that bad things happening to douche bags, ass
hats, and the like has more to do with human nature than any grand
spiritual system of points.
____________________ Wind me up and make me crawl to you, tie me up until I call to you.
I believe in the sound of one hand clapping... the sacred Chao and the
holiness of FNORD
I also believe in teh hawking paradox, where matter and energy, at teh
event horizon, can indeed be destroyed.
I believe in eat or be eaten
I believe in the nobility of the huiman race as long as they think they are
being watched
I believe that data wants to be free
I believe that quantum computing will be the wave of the future
I believe that one should clean house before offering to help a neighbor
with his(that is a political statement)
I believe in puppies and kittens and long kisses in the rain
and most of all I believe that there is no one, true way... what is right
for me is not necessarily right for you
____________________ The earth turns on a tilted axis - just doing the best it can.
Hohenheim of Light~Full Metal Alchemist
Sardonic-Pain
Fanatic
Posts: 248 Registered: 31/12/1969 Status: Offline
posted on 7/11/2006 at 12:05 PM
When you send out negative or positive energy thing about what is being
effected....
Mind, Body, and Spirit. Therefore whatever the ramifications are comes back
to you effecting those three things.
____________________ My Life is like a porno-Without the sex-Just the weird music
but why does that have to be a metaphysical concept?
If I treat you like shit, it pisses you off. you retaliate.. since you are
pissed, you will retaliate in a way that is more extreme than what I
originally did.
It is not need to be a metaphysical thing, but a fact of psychology
____________________ The earth turns on a tilted axis - just doing the best it can.
Hohenheim of Light~Full Metal Alchemist
Sardonic-Pain
Fanatic
Posts: 248 Registered: 31/12/1969 Status: Offline
posted on 7/11/2006 at 01:46 PM
I agree I was just trying to raise an argument perhaps for the
otherside...Karma is more my thing that that of the three fold law
stuff.
And since Energy can neither be created nor destroyed it has to go
somewhere...And unlike a magnet where opposites attract, When sending out
bad stuff you get back bad stuff and vise versa. I was just trying to throw
another argument out there since everyone was looking at it in a
psychological thing....
Isn't religion mostly based on the Metaphysical?
Honestly I think the wiccans wanted to have a trinity like the Christians
and some Wiccan don't use this rule of three thing cause it is a trinity
type thing...But then again the trinity is all one in the same and now I am
just confusing myself like I usually do............. lol
____________________ My Life is like a porno-Without the sex-Just the weird music
I see... thing is... Karma and the three fold law, are intrinsically
linked.. One is a misunderstanding of another, but if your statement about
devotion of energy is correct, their beliefs will manifest in their lives.
30 years ago, Dr Stephen Hawking declared that he had found a fundamental
flaw in physics as we understood it. According to physics, matter/energy
is, INDEED, destroyed in a black hole. this is called the hawking paradox.
Recently, he has declared that the matter/energy actually leaks to parallel
dimensions. This is his theroy, and the scientific community, in light of
the complete lack of mathemeatical proof scoffs as this solution. This is
an isolated instance that we are not likely to encounter...
so, let's look at this. when nuclear material exlpodes as a result of
critical mass, a specific amount of energy is released. e=mc^2 is the
formula for this. If it is true, the hawking paradox must also be a fact,
matter/energy (aslo called information in modern physics) does disappear.
All other calculations bassed on e=mc^2 have proven to be true, therefore,
there is very little doubt that it is accurate.
Problem is , the critical mass phenomenon releases the wrong amoung of
energy. The there is some missing. It is not enough to be concerned about
when one considers cause and effect, but from a mathematical model, it is
enough to be disturbing. It implies that somewhere, there is missing
information.
____________________ The earth turns on a tilted axis - just doing the best it can.
Hohenheim of Light~Full Metal Alchemist
IamSquid
Extreme Fanatic
Posts: 658 Registered: 27/5/2002 Status: Offline
posted on 7/11/2006 at 05:17 PM
It's pretty simple. Go ahead and be a douchebag, nothing's stopping yoo.
Sure there's a penalty for being a douchebag: Yor a fucking douchebag.
____________________
i wanted to die, and then it progressed into wanting everyone else to
die so i could watch, and then me die.