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GrizzlyBear
Shaman



Registered: 11/20/10
Posts: 100
Last seen: 9 years, 10 months
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Re: Has America changed the meaning of religion? [Re: PinKing]
#14568923 - 06/06/11 11:17 AM (12 years, 7 months ago) |
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It will put you in a perspective of being under a 'greater power'. Inevitably making you think that you are not in the control of your own self and that you should obey God's rule of morality. Which i think, is a stressful path to take. We are all our own God's and should take care to better our individual lives. Knowledge and Wisdom will come through experience
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badmountain
Stranger
Registered: 06/05/11
Posts: 6
Last seen: 12 years, 7 months
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Re: Has America changed the meaning of religion? [Re: Rahz]
#14570313 - 06/06/11 04:48 PM (12 years, 7 months ago) |
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Rahz said: Some of the earliest Buddhist text describes the past lives of Buddha as Gods and animals. Buddha talked about hell in some text ascribed to him.
he clearly lays out that what he is talking about is upaya, trying to get people up to a level where they can understand him by talking to them in terms they understand. lots of texts where he explicitly rejects heaven, hell, that wondering if there is a god is completely pointless, that it doesn't matter if reincarnation exists or not.
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badmountain
Stranger
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Re: Has America changed the meaning of religion? [Re: Icelander]
#14570317 - 06/06/11 04:49 PM (12 years, 7 months ago) |
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Icelander said:
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badmountain said:
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Icelander said: Superstitious and nothing more.
kind of smacks of that dawkins-esque atheist fundamentalism.
to group together all religions as mere superstitions is literally throwing away your human inheritance.
as much as fundamentalist christians bother me, martin buber's I and Thou is some deep shit.
as much as fundamentalist islamists bother me, you can't really fuck with avicenna.
and especially re: buddhism, understanding the method that buddhism spread is very important. buddhism employed upaya, a dialectic of skillful means, which means they would basically preach to each culture using the own cultures reference. this is the exact opposite of christian-style kill or convert the natives. this is why tibetan buddhism retains bon shamanism, japan shinto, etc etc etc
in any case, saying the highly developed buddhist philosophies of dependent origination and two truths theory is mere superstition only speaks to your ignorance.
sure, most buddhists in asia are superstitious. most people in america are fat. don't throw the baby out with bath water, yr missing out on some great shit.
I wish I could throw away my human inheritance. If only.
I can get all my deep thoughts from other sources than religions. Like poets or philosophers or the bagger in the check out lane.
With so called religions like Buddhism I already took the psychological truths that the buddha discovered out and threw the rest away. IMO he never intended all that high priest crap. He'd likely be shitting bricks if he saw what had been done in his name.
Don't need it.
yea i agree with this, idk. once anything becomes dogma or tradition it's pretty much fucked. many quotes from buddha and like-minded people about the first that you should do if you meet the buddha is kill him, to not listen blindly to anything he or anyone else says, etc etc
history weighs on the living like a nightmare or some shit.
Edited by badmountain (06/06/11 04:57 PM)
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badmountain
Stranger
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Re: Has America changed the meaning of religion? [Re: Poid]
#14570341 - 06/06/11 04:55 PM (12 years, 7 months ago) |
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Poid said:
There's no such thing as "atheist fundamentalism".
published in March 2008, is a critique of what Hedges perceives as a radical mindset that rages against religion and faith. Hedges states the book was motivated by debates he had with atheist authors Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens who, Hedges feels, excessively demonize religion, particularly Islam, in ways that, Hedges believes, were eerily similar to the thinking of Christian fundamentalists. The 2009 paperback edition (1416570780) was retitled When Atheism Becomes Religion: America's New Fundamentalists.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Hedges#I_Don.27t_Believe_in_Atheists_.282008.29
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WTF do you mean by "human inheritance"? Do you honestly think that religions are anything other than elaborate superstitions?
yea religions are more than superstitions. they were a way of understanding the world before science, they were a way of maintaining social hierarchies, they are a way of maintaining community, they are way for some people to have morals or meaning in their lives. yea sure they are superstitious too. i don't know, something about sitting here on the benefits of hundreds of years of science and modernity talking shit about religions strike me as arrogant or someshit, idk.
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Poid said:Icelander is not ignorant about Buddhism AFAIK..many Buddhist philosophies are great, others are mere superstitious bullcrap, and he recognizes this.
didn't know this as i am new here, thought i'd just jump in and make a fool of myself. anyways what he said later seems quite right. but a blanket statement like 'buddhism is mere superstition' or whatever is pretty broad.
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Rahz
Alive Again


Registered: 11/10/05
Posts: 9,230
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Re: Has America changed the meaning of religion? [Re: badmountain]
#14570411 - 06/06/11 05:09 PM (12 years, 7 months ago) |
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he clearly lays out that what he is talking about is upaya, trying to get people up to a level where they can understand him by talking to them in terms they understand. lots of texts where he explicitly rejects heaven, hell, that wondering if there is a god is completely pointless, that it doesn't matter if reincarnation exists or not.
And I highly doubt there was any expectation that a majority would 'get it', which throws his intentions and/or practical intelligence into doubt AFAIC. Might as well call it a royal lie. The ruling classes use it to this day and people act pissed, but when some historical figure cast in soft light does it, it's out of intelligent benevolence? There were early Christian priests who advocated a literal translation of the Gospel... because it would make it easier to understand. I don't agree with those strategies, no faith in their ability to enlighten, or in the way they serve to dumb down the masses making them easy to control.
Suggesting that it's okay to lie if it helps people to understand is pretty shakey. So now we're just arguing about whether lying is cool or not?
-------------------- rahz comfort pleasure power love truth awareness peace "You’re not looking close enough if you can only see yourself in people who look like you." —Ayishat Akanbi
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badmountain
Stranger
Registered: 06/05/11
Posts: 6
Last seen: 12 years, 7 months
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Re: Has America changed the meaning of religion? [Re: Rahz]
#14570557 - 06/06/11 05:44 PM (12 years, 7 months ago) |
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Rahz said:
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he clearly lays out that what he is talking about is upaya, trying to get people up to a level where they can understand him by talking to them in terms they understand. lots of texts where he explicitly rejects heaven, hell, that wondering if there is a god is completely pointless, that it doesn't matter if reincarnation exists or not.
And I highly doubt there was any expectation that a majority would 'get it', which throws his intentions and/or practical intelligence into doubt AFAIC. Might as well call it a royal lie. The ruling classes use it to this day and people act pissed, but when some historical figure cast in soft light does it, it's out of intelligent benevolence? There were early Christian priests who advocated a literal translation of the Gospel... because it would make it easier to understand. I don't agree with those strategies, no faith in their ability to enlighten, or in the way they serve to dumb down the masses making them easy to control.
Suggesting that it's okay to lie if it helps people to understand is pretty shakey. So now we're just arguing about whether lying is cool or not?
the expectation was that the majority would get it. this turned out to be wrong, i guess. if we're judging intelligence by a person's ability to convert a most people in the world to their point of view, then i'm sure i must be retarded. probably am anyways. i don't know, i just don't think i did a very good job explaining what upaya is. the whole point is to eventually bring people to the truth, by first showing them the conflicts in what they currently believe, and then bringing to the 'next level' of realization, etc it's fucking dialectics basically, it's not that just lie to a person once and that's it. it's a progress, something i guess i don't really have hope that americans will understand, being basically an instant culture
i am still probably not doing a good job.
i don't really think it was a royal lie. it's a bit patronizing, so maybe the two have that in common. he didn't think people would understand his ideas so he tried to talk to them in the language they were born into.
and while people do lie to gain control in buddhism, the original buddha was kind of doing the opposite, as in telling the truth to challenge control. he was challenging the orthodoxy at the time, etc.
it's not a fair comparison re: gospels either.
i don't really want to be defending all of buddhism here, obviously tibetan buddhism kept their followers in feudal slavery, nationalists in sri lanka and japan, fucking new age assholes in america and france, etc. and obviously buddha lived a long time ago and inhabited a completely different world-view that is hard to compare unless you're the type who can easily sling around accepted norms of your present situation as universals for all time and place.
just saying, there is a way of unpacking some bullshit from buddhism by using things the buddha actually said.
as for if we are really debating about whether or not lying is cool, that's a much more interesting debate. one of the upaya things goes like, if there's a fire in a building but the kids won't come out cuz they are playing a game, you can tell them a little lie to get them out.
i don't know, i think most kids would be running the fuck out if i yelled fire, but i've never had kids.
Edited by badmountain (06/06/11 06:07 PM)
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Rahz
Alive Again


Registered: 11/10/05
Posts: 9,230
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Re: Has America changed the meaning of religion? [Re: badmountain]
#14570699 - 06/06/11 06:09 PM (12 years, 7 months ago) |
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For what it's worth, I think a lot of what the Buddha said is good shit, and more to the point, I really don't know what the Buddha said or didn't say. All we have to go on is the religious text that bears his name.
As for the fire comment, treat people like they're children and they will act like it.
If the Buddha really said all those things, I can't help but think he had his hand in the same jar as Plato. Perhaps he was ignorant, but I wouldn't guess it. Teach the monks one thing, and teach the masses something else.
-------------------- rahz comfort pleasure power love truth awareness peace "You’re not looking close enough if you can only see yourself in people who look like you." —Ayishat Akanbi
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