Freethought & Rationalism Archive

David B · 07-19-2007, 05:08 PM

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Originally Posted by abaddon

Quote:

Originally Posted by David B

Perhaps I'm not quite comparing like with like - for all my criticisms of the NARPs, I still incline to the view that the bulk of manifestations of NARPs are less out of touch with reality, and more humane, than the bulk of the manifestations of the Abrahamic religions.

Nonetheless - I could see a variety of Christian apologist arguing along the same lines.

David B (subscribes to the view that religion, generally, is something to go beyond)

I find "it's like Christianity but with itsy bitsy tiny differences" arguments singularly vacuous.

It's a nice sentiment though... Like "you're not so ugly as that other person is." :Cheeky:

"I still incline to view that the bulk of manifestations of IIDB's humanists are less out of touch with reality, and more humane, than the bulk of the [Christians]." Mmm, yeah... I guess that sorta-kinda works, especially considering humanism and Christianity are closer cultural cousins than Buddhism and Christianity.

(It doesn't matter if David B himself is or is not a humanist. I was going to go with "secularists" but the historical/cultural connection is slimmer).

Two points.

I'd have to do a bit of homework to find relevant sources, but I'm pretty sure I could find some Christian positions that have more in common with some Buddhist positions, than either has with with some interpretations of Christianity, or some forms of Buddhims, respectively.

And while humanism and Christianity are closer cultural cousins in one sense, there is another sense in which humanism has more in common with Buddhism. Especially when one considers the more extreme versions of Christianity, over the millennia, that prescribe death for those who don't conform.

David B (sees the humanist affinity for tolerance as having more in common with Buddhism than the Abrahamic religions)

abaddon · 07-19-2007, 05:14 PM

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Originally Posted by perfectbite

The idea of the 'Zen Master' painfully tweaking his student's nose and telling him that the flight of geese over the lake has always been there doesn't make sense especially if the Buddhist idea of impermanence (time passing) is taken into account yet this nonsense is what gets held up as being truly Buddhist because it is so illogically obscure.

Does anicca (impermanence) include time. Or is time permanent?

The story and its intent don't seem "illogically obscure" to me. Think of that William Blake quote you quoted once: "To see a World in a grain of sand, /And a Heaven in a wild flower, /Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand /And Eternity in an hour."

adren@line · 07-19-2007, 05:16 PM

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Originally Posted by aupmanyav

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Originally Posted by adren@line

I often see arguments on here that the Buddhism as courted by westerners is merely a recent invention that has been self-tailored to the critical western mind.

Adren, one cannot blame buddhism or hinduism for changing. They are built that way. Both depend on search for truth, hinduism more so. Hindus would give new definition to truth in each age (according to the knowledge of the age).

Mythology does not affect the truth. They are taken as children's stories, and one is supposed to understand beyond them. Girl's marrying dogs or trees is for the 'hoi polloi' (the unenlightened). Don't people laugh when they hear these stories? Hinduism (as also buddhism) exists at many levels.

Enlightenment is, again, a very personal thing. Different people attain it in different varieties. I find many faults with buddhist enlightenment.

The eight-fold path is with every religion, they call it variously. Basically these are the rules of society. Hindus call it 'Dharma'.

im not against the existence of superstitious ritual. In all truth I really dont care what people think or believe about God or God(s), but there are some assertions that the Buddhism that is devoid of superstition isn't "really" Buddhism.

And that is what I am addressing.

abaddon · 07-19-2007, 05:33 PM

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Originally Posted by adren@line

im not against the existence of superstitious ritual. In all truth I really dont care what people think or believe about God or God(s), but there are some assertions that the Buddhism that is devoid of superstition isn't "really" Buddhism.

And that is what I am addressing.

True. I see that a lot, and argue with it a lot in this forum. Critics seem to need Buddhism to be as silly as possible in order to have an easier time critiquing it. If they acknowledged and addressed the more sophisticated philosophy in it, criticism would become more intellectually demanding.

Lógos Sokratikós · 07-19-2007, 06:42 PM

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Originally Posted by Will.L

Buddhism in the west doesn't offer much more than humanism in my opinion.

I say anything that helps someone, in a critically thought out and non-dogmatic fashion (if possible), live a happier and more fulfilled life is perfectly relevant, but we certainly ought to ask ourselves "what's it matter" with regards to religion/science/philosophy because often times it doesn't, and in my opinion more negative comes out than positive...

and I digress...

I wouldn't call it "true" buddhism vs "superstitious" though... it's simply different versions of cultural adaptations. Truly this is as much if not more an anthropological and historical conversation as it is theological/philosophical.

For example the ancient Chinese were always a very sense oriented "see it to believe it" culture, and had a great reverence for and respect of the past... Thus when Buddhism in China became CHINESE Buddhism, its makeover was reflective of such characteristics (hence Ch'an/Zen in the end).

The point is, if it works for you, then great. If not, fuck it.

But universal conversations aimed at discussing religious themes or arguing for one way as "truer" or "better" in some way are irrelevant in the scheme of things. The only good that can come out of such reasoning is when it is done at the personal level IMHO..

I like this post, all of it.

"I say anything that helps someone, in a critically thought out and non-dogmatic fashion (if possible), live a happier and more fulfilled life" --> This is why I think that liberal Christians (and other liberal-ish religions) in the context of the US (where pro-religion positive and negative conditioning [both pos. and neg. conditioning reinforce, BTW] is strong) may have a strong emotional advantage over fundamentalist religions and maybe over non-believers, since it gives hope and a certain sense of security that "in the end everything will be alright".

As long as it's not fundamentalism. I mean, fundyism can't make you smarter or more emotional stable, and I don't know if it makes things worse (although my preconception is that it can make things worse).

"But universal conversations aimed at discussing religious themes or arguing for one way as "truer" or "better" in some way are irrelevant in the scheme of things. The only good that can come out of such reasoning is when it is done at the personal level IMHO." --> Yes. Bottom line, I believe it truly is unimportant if you believe in Jesus-heaven or rebirth-rebirth-rebirth-"Bing!"-Nirvana, or whatever floats your boat. I think it's great that Angela2 (where is she these days?) or Adrenaline have their liberalish religions, it kinda sucks to be a skeptic all the time. Shit- we need fantasy! Life sucks too much! (pardonnez-moi my French).

Lógos Sokratikós · 07-19-2007, 07:22 PM

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Originally Posted by perfectbite

My take on what LS is saying is that at base he agrees that ancient Buddhism cannot be taken literally or even figuratively but still demands impossible to give proofs of Buddhists that Buddhism does not derive from and is not permanently tainted with the idea of the superstitious supernatural and such a blinkered view of Buddhism won't allow him to engage in Buddhism in any form.

Although I get the impression that he would really like to be free enough to be able to indulge in a contemporary Western view of Buddhism (not one that is received from the far East) his inability or unwillingness to sensibly put aside what is obviously preposterous and self serving and to take the superstitious and supernaturalist free 'nub' of Buddhism as befits his personal understanding seems to either be beyond him or is somehow noxious to him yet, unless we unquestioningly swallowed what was offered to us hook, line and sinker, we all had to do that but fortunately, because Buddhism addresses personal understanding of what it means to exist and what that entails, although it may seem so at times, it isn't like looking for a needle in a haystack.

In one sense, if he sees Buddhism as being the domain of the superstitiously gullible I cannot blame him but commend him for not wanting to also be superstitiously gullible but what has soured in Buddhism was what didn't belong to Buddhism in the first place and, although it may take paying great attention, it doesn't take strenous (bleed at the mouth) effort to come to see that.

Buddhism is applicable to the scientist working in his lab or to the person who washes dishes for a living and says so. If they experience life then Buddhism addresses them directly.

That is one of the reasons I use the term 'core Buddhism proper' because it is the very nub of Buddhist thought and ideally should be free of the fanciful trappings that have been added on to Buddhism.

Basically, yes is my answer to your post, but I have my doubts if I would want to indulge in a contemporary Western view of Buddhism. I'm lacking a very important thing that I believe is part of the minimum common denominator of Buddhism: I don't believe in enlightenment via zazen, etc. I don't believe closing your brain's logical eye brings you freedom from delusion. Let me explain why:

If you take life "the way it is, without logical judgement", you fall for illusion and turn it into delusion. An example: Remember the experiment when you put a pencil into a glass of water half full? The pencil looks broken under the level of water as compared to above it. That's an illusion. Now, if I take "life" as is, you will trust what you are seeing is what you are seeing, and take illusion for reality. Illusion becomes delusion. Logic can fail, but you cannot cut through delusion and illusion without it.

That's why I think Tibetan Buddhists, for example, could/can not see through the delusion of this:

Quote:

special rituals are performed to propitiate deities, to precipitate rain, to avert hailstorms, diseases, and death, to ensure good harvests, to exorcise demons and evil spirits, and of course to destroy the passions of the mind and, ultimately, the ego

One vital ingredient is missing: critical thinking. Not that I blame them, no. For thousands of years, they had no way of knowing.

Seeing things (esp. people and disagreeable events in life) non-judgementally is great, it surely puts things in perspective and, therefore, curtails delusion. To a certain point.

Buddhism without the belief in Buddhist-version enlightenment and nirvana, etc, well, only leaves us with what psychotherapists call "mindfulness training". And that's not a Buddhism, is it? It's just complementary medicine.

perfectbite · 07-19-2007, 07:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by abaddon

Quote:

Originally Posted by perfectbite

The idea of the 'Zen Master' painfully tweaking his student's nose and telling him that the flight of geese over the lake has always been there doesn't make sense especially if the Buddhist idea of impermanence (time passing) is taken into account yet this nonsense is what gets held up as being truly Buddhist because it is so illogically obscure.

Does anicca (impermanence) include time. Or is time permanent?

The story and its intent don't seem "illogically obscure" to me. Think of that William Blake quote you quoted once: "To see a World in a grain of sand, /And a Heaven in a wild flower, /Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand /And Eternity in an hour."

Are you asking if time is subject to itself? I have no idea.

Are you asking if time will always be or is always will be then, I cannot imagine there never being a time in which time did not exist in some form or another. (Wasn't this one of Kant's unanswerable questions? What happened 3 minutes before time began or some such.)

William Blake's use of poetic license did not include forcefully tweaking someone's nose to make an illogical and entirely false point. The geese were never always there, that borders on the truly mad, they came and went as the seasons moved them to fly.

And, as I remember, the reason I quoted William Blake was to show Aupmanyev that the West has a solid foundation in even common secular ideas of the nature of reality and the nature of perception.

Such poetry belongs to all faiths and views in the English speaking West and I was getting tired of Hinduism being touted as the sine qua non of spiritual culture to the point that Aupmanyev was dismissive of the art and philosophy that the West had produced but relished the science.

I did not take Blake's quatrain as a teaching but as a poetic view that is generally, seriously accepted in the West not as whimsy but as the willingness to perceive and the openness of perception which I found rather lacking in that so called Zen master's view.

abaddon · 07-19-2007, 07:57 PM

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Originally Posted by Lógos Sokratikós

Bottom line, I believe it truly is unimportant if you believe in Jesus-heaven or rebirth-rebirth-rebirth-"Bing!"-Nirvana, or whatever floats your boat. I think it's great that Angela2 (where is she these days?) or Adrenaline have their liberalish religions, it kinda sucks to be a skeptic all the time. Shit- we need fantasy! Life sucks too much! (pardonnez-moi my French).

How about no Jesus-heaven and no rebirth-bing!-nirvana and no floating boats? How about no religions, no beliefs? How about no enlightenment and no nirvana?

Why is reality tough and fantasy easier, except we think our way into being out-of-sorts with reality and thus feeling burdened by it? Religion is fantasy. Just as all systems of thought are because they're inevitably abstractions away from experience. A description of experience is not the experience, and people often prefer descriptions and lose touch with life's immediacy. And that's what Buddhism, in spite of being "clothed" in a many-colored coat of superstitions, is pointing at -- life's immediacy. Like a finger pointing at the moon -- and that's not a finger pointing at some unreal netherworld.

adren@line · 07-19-2007, 08:19 PM

Quote:

Bottom line, I believe it truly is unimportant if you believe in Jesus-heaven or rebirth-rebirth-rebirth-"Bing!"-Nirvana, or whatever floats your boat. I think it's great that Angela2 (where is she these days?) or Adrenaline have their liberalish religions, it kinda sucks to be a skeptic all the time. Shit- we need fantasy! Life sucks too much! (pardonnez-moi my French).

it is as equally un-important to devote a significant amount of time trying to refute or reject what these people believe in.

It makes no difference either way. Theism/atheism/monism, all useless and a waste of time, just "junk" that floats around in your head between work and sleep. Your position is just as useless and unimportant as mine. Unless ofcourse you are some great philosopher....or a nobel prize winner?

or did you find the cure for cancer perhaps? Im sure your skepticism means alot to the rest of us who are equally as skeptic, considering your important position in global society and all.

abaddon · 07-19-2007, 08:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by perfectbite

Quote:

Originally Posted by abaddon

Does anicca (impermanence) include time. Or is time permanent?

Are you asking if time...

Actually I have questions about "time's flow" and am rather inclined to agree with the Zen Master, but more from perusing some Nagarjuna. I need to read him more to be certain I understand, and therefore want to bow out of this derail that I've caused... Sorry to put you to some trouble to answer, but still I'd rather not pursue it just now until I think more on it.

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