Moderator: Dan~
promethean75 wrote:as far as organized religions are concerned, buddhism is the least frivolous and completely free of any outlandish storyline or mythology. it's got all the typical issues with guys thinking they're messiahs and sages, sure, but the doctrine itself is much cleaner and more scientific than any other religion.
All religions, self-help programs, random folk psychologies and common sense, spiritualities, whatever have to be obscure. They more or less have to be. You can't really know what a state of mind that is radically different from your current one would be like. You have to go through long term practices to make changes. If you aren't interested in doing it or doing it enough, then it probably won't come soon. You say Christianity is more understandible. Well, sure the culture you grew up in was likely embedded with Xtian concepts and the culture has been influeced by Xtianity for a long time. I don't think the process of getting saved is as simple as you describe it, but what does surrender your soul to Jesus mean? I mean, like I get out of bed and I do that`? What do I actually do? via what criteria do I determine I did it`? did it well enough? I never met the guy. How do I know I surrendered it to him? What does that feel like? And that's even taking your simple version of Xtianity as the right one. Which Christianity`? catholicism, baptism....then the preachers and priests are going to be telling me stuff that I should and should do. The attitudes I should and shouldn't have.gib wrote: But Buddhism teases you. It shows you its sages, these men who have gone before you, how happy they are, how fulfilled, and it tells you: this could be you... but it lays before you a path that, for all you know, goes nowhere, and you're left wondering: how did you become so happy, so fulfilled? It boasts clarity, but only clarity to the enlightened, and mysticism to those in the dark.
And Christianity isn't? If Xtianity is like you say it is, it's this simple one step surrendering. That's getting rich quick and easy. Accept Jesus in your heart - or is it surrender yourself to Jesus? or are these the same - and bang eternal bliss is coming. And actually it seems to me Buddhism pretty much announces that it is a process, possibly a very long one, possibly involving many lifetimes, with a lot of discipline. Sure there are Zen type stories of sudden enlightenment, but any Zen center is going to have you on the mat meditating and not telling you you are almost there after day one.To me, Buddhism teases like a "get rich quick" ad campaign.
Karpel Tunnel wrote:You say Christianity is more understandible. Well, sure the culture you grew up in was likely embedded with Xtian concepts and the culture has been influeced by Xtianity for a long time. I don't think the process of getting saved is as simple as you describe it, but what does surrender your soul to Jesus mean? I mean, like I get out of bed and I do that`? What do I actually do? via what criteria do I determine I did it`? did it well enough? I never met the guy. How do I know I surrendered it to him? What does that feel like? And that's even taking your simple version of Xtianity as the right one. Which Christianity`? catholicism, baptism....then the preachers and priests are going to be telling me stuff that I should and should do. The attitudes I should and shouldn't have.
Karpel Tunnel wrote:I don't like Buddhism, but it seems to me you are expecting to understand something before participating.
Karpel Tunnel wrote:And Christianity isn't? If Xtianity is like you say it is, it's this simple one step surrendering. That's getting rich quick and easy.gib wrote:To me, Buddhism teases like a "get rich quick" ad campaign.
I do think some people think it's that easy, but you are way too complicated to buy that and a great many Christians certainly do not. Prayer, confession, making up for sins, dark nights of the souls, the entire Jesus reframing of the ten commandments meaning that even if one acts well, but one's attitude is bad, one is sinning and perhaps not a good person, the need for contemplation, and so on. YOu can participate in Buddhism in utterly low level effort ways also, certainly in the East, where people go through the motions of some Buddhist rituals, donate money to monks, get monks to bless their tourist bungalow project and figure they will reach enlightenment some life way in the future.gib wrote:These questions arise for you. They don't for me. I think you're right that Christianity seems clearer and simpler to me only because it was all around me when I was growing up. The idea seems trivially simple: you pray to God, he hears your prayers and he knows what's in your heart (what you mean to convey in your prayers). So if you pray: "God, Jesus, I surrender my soul to you," he knows what you mean and he takes your soul into his hands. You know it's done because you said it in your prayer and you meant it. <-- That's how some fundamentalist friends once explained it to me. That's how I understand it.
You have any guarantee for whatever you are doing now? Likely a mix of trying to not have certain problems, perhaps using heuristic plucked from here and there, following advice and ideas likely trickling through dozens of systems and experts. You are investing time right now in all sorts of activities - you have any guarantee they are helping? If that's all going fine, well then there's no motivation to engage in Buddhism or any other possible solution, since it is supposed to be a way to deal with and end suffering or end suffering's bite, so to speak. But it seems to me you are taking yourself out of the equation. If you are not drawn to Buddhism - because you are satisfied with your own methods, or becuase you don't feel you are suffering much, or because something feels off about it - then don't try it. If you are interested and have strong motivation, then you need to do something, and yes, we have to use our intuitions, to a great degree AS WE ALREADY ARE in how we try to solve these things. Obviously I am not selling Buddhism, since I don't like it. But I am trying to put it in a context. You already have a set of things you do to make things better. That's your religion, philosophy, self-help thingie. How many years do you think it will take you to figure out if it is working? How many years will it take to work? If you aren't doing much to try to fix things, but just basically like most people muddling through as best you can, well that has no guarantee of anything at all. It is what it is. Not saying that's wrong, but you are investing ALL of your time and energy in that. Satisfied, well, obviously choosing a spiritual path of any kind would be sort of odd unless you thought it sounded fun or you were just curious. If you think a one shot ritual can save you, well, that seems like an obvious choice. But you don't, at least it seems you don't so that version of Christianity, which I actually think is in practice extremely rare, is not for you.I'm expecting a firmer guarantee that the practice works before devoting years of my life to something that might, in the end, be a sham. Impossible, I know. Unrealistic, I know. But pretty normal, I'd think.
Karpel Tunnel wrote:And Christianity isn't? If Xtianity is like you say it is, it's this simple one step surrendering. That's getting rich quick and easy.gib wrote:To me, Buddhism teases like a "get rich quick" ad campaign.
These seems like some version of Christianity you would never buy. And it is precisely a get rich quick scheme. Monday morning you are heading back to that job. If you think you can flip a switch in your brain and believe that you solved all those problems that easily, you're a lucky guy even for a fundamentalist. I am pretty sure many fundamentalists worry, suffer, fear god (isn't that their phrase), wonder if what they just thought or did means they are going to hell, grieve tremendously when loved ones die despite them supposedly being in Heaven and so on. And I am sure many have times when they wonder if they really have surrendered to Jesus. They may not talk about this, though I will bet many do, but the US, for example, puts a premium on branding oneself and being positive.Yes, but it isn't a tease. If you believe it, then the job is done as soon as you surrender. There's no waiting and trying harder and gotta do it more, there's no "why isn't this working?" (There can be plenty of that if you're praying to God to improve your life and you're not getting results, but I'm talking about just believing that what you're doing is working somehow in some transcendent world).
Do you think we can split off the messiahs and the sages from the underlying doctrine itself?
He seems like one of these sages, doesn't he? Doesn't he seem like he's somehow made it to the end, to enlightenment?
And it's these occasional men who convince me that there's something to this Buddhism thing, that it actually works; well, maybe "convinced" is a strong word--maybe feel "persuaded" a little bit.
Buddhism, at least some versions of this, does explain this contradition. That this desire to eliminate contradictions is, once the others are dissolved, also dissolved. It is part of the process to use this heuristic in the earlier stages. And there are many learning and training processes where heuristics in the early states are NOT good ones to use later, but trainers will suggest them early on. So this criticism does not hold.Ecmandu wrote:Well gib...
You should be pissed at Buddhism.
It teaches not to be attached to an outcome, which is an outcome the teachings teach to be attached to.
It's internally inconsistent.
My religion, my higher power, is "unceremonious dedication to non contradiction"
Buddhism contradicts itself immensely, and should generate distrust and dislike.
promethean75 wrote:Pfft. The Buddha did more work in the field of consent violation study than you'll ever do. In fact his whole thesis was on the problem of consent violation. And he solved the hyperdimensional mirrors, too.
promethean75 wrote:Hint: grunge band from the 90s.
Karpel Tunnel wrote:I do think some people think it's that easy, but you are way too complicated to buy that and a great many Christians certainly do not.
Karpel Tunnel wrote:You have any guarantee for whatever you are doing now? Likely a mix of trying to not have certain problems, perhaps using heuristic plucked from here and there, following advice and ideas likely trickling through dozens of systems and experts. You are investing time right now in all sorts of activities - you have any guarantee they are helping?
promethean75 wrote:in buddhism, absolutely. the B wasn't a 'prophet', believed in no god, and certainly didn't think of himself as some kind of emissary like all the dudes in the abrahamic religions did. the doctrine only consists of a series of reflections, skeptical in nature, and the conclusions drawn from them. philosophical as they were, the B's ideas would be accessible to anyone inclined to follow his lines of reasoning, and therefore are not dependent on him... which is to say, you don't need a paul or jesus or muhammad to receive this wisdom. so no, there is nothing special about the B, except maybe the feeling he had of himself as being the founder of some profound truth. but that comes with the territory; you're gonna get a little excited when you notice none of your contemporaries have come up with the same stuff. so 'founder', sure, but certainly none of that megalomania that's found in self-proclaimed prophets.
promethean75 wrote:now see you're talking about buddhism as if it were some kind of instructional CD set you buy off amazon, bro. what do you mean 'works'? it's not really a 'solution' to anything... just a relatively major attitude adjustment toward the world. i guess if you're looking to become more tolerant, compassionate, forgiving, sympathetic, and in general more peaceful, this is probably the one for you.
promethean75 wrote:or you could go the zen samurai route and be a warrior who has stilled his mind and centered his heart and stuff.
One mght argue that not being able to dismiss an idea does not indicate something negative about that idea.gib wrote:How complicated I am is only part of the picture. I also don't believe in Christianity. I have no stake in the matter. So why do I care whether it's naively simple or more realistically complicated? If I wanted to believe in Christianity, I may be understandably unsatisfied with the simplistic picture, and I might invest in a more complicated, more demanding picture since those are usually more realistic. But since I don't believe in Christianity, how realistic the picture seems to me is not a priority. I guess the need for parsimony takes over in that case.
I can't dismiss Buddhism quite as easily for some reason.
You say 'more faith'. YOu need more faith to believe in Buddhism than.....?It comes down to faith. Guarantee was a poor choice of words. I require more faith in the methods of Buddhism, which is nurtured quite substantially by understanding how it works, in order to be motivated to follow it. I have a lot more faith in the methods I'm currently working with than I am the methods Buddhism offers. I have doubts in the methods of Buddhism.
You did not interact with my argument, you simply repeated yours. You are treating Buddhism as using a correspondance theory of truth. It isn't. The 'language is a mirror of reality' type thinking is questioned by Buddhism, and further....all that I argued above.Ecmandu wrote:Karpel,
It's totally inconsistent!
You should not be attached to non attachment.
It's like the mark twain quote, "everything in moderation including moderation"
Ecmandu wrote:
You should not be attached to non attachment.
It's like the mark twain quote, "everything in moderation including moderation"
Ecmandu wrote:
You should not be attached to non attachment.
It's like the mark twain quote, "everything in moderation including moderation"
For those who are not inclined to put in the spiritual effort it would be more effective for them to accept any of the Abrahamic religions, Judaism, Christianity, Islam where upon mere declaration of belief in God, viola! one is saved. How this approach has its cons beside the immediate pros.
Exuberant Teleportation wrote:Inner Peace leads to the enlightenment of the sleeping Dragon. God wears a mask that helps us to animate His divine enlightenment. We must become 1 with God and the harmony of the whole universe to understand existence. The Dragon Mind flows from Slowking in totems of Red, Blue, and Yellow. Examine Your world from all angles and You will see the interconnection of all things. Even that which is humble can be the key to greater things. You must learn Focus and learn from Your environment at all times. The lesson of perception may be the greatest goal.
Slowking is good at categorizing things and putting systems together.
Red = Moltres | Blue = Articuno | Yellow = Zapdos | Purple = Lugia | Orange = Sabrina | Green = Misdreavus
I'm always trying to find new solutions to the Millennium Puzzle. In the universe there is Aether, and We cause this to come together into a whirlpool. This is where We find Polarity. We also seek volcanic aftermath. If RED is Curry, then He can also be sour. Nascour saw My Future would be bright, because I was Focusing harder than everyone; I was Determined. Willpower sets us free, breaks our chains, and leads to Victory in the Force. We become more Willful when We are Passionate - and so I became Buddha!!
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