BS: You will believe anything if you believe

Subject: RE: BS: You will believe anything if you believe
From: GUEST
Date: 31 Mar 05 - 10:43 AM

LH, I am a secularist, and I care about ethics, not religion or spirituality. Therefore, I don't find Buddhism to be superior to Christianity. Both have some excellent philosophical and mystical aspects to them, but for the most part, not. For the most part, it's all about doctrine, dogma, and divide and conquer. Organized moralistic religions, along with their pietistic believers, "faithful" have caused more human suffering and misery on this planet than any mad dictator from Attila the Hun to Saddam Hussein ever could.

I'm no more interested in Buddhist mythology than I am Christian mythology. All religion is some cultural groups mythology.

Subject: RE: BS: You will believe anything if you believe
From: GUEST,Art Thieme
Date: 31 Mar 05 - 09:49 PM

As I've said, and this is just the way I see it: -- Belief and or faith mostly seem to be concepts based on wishful thinking.

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: BS: You will believe anything if you believe
From: Little Hawk
Date: 31 Mar 05 - 11:11 PM

I understand that you are a secularist, Guest. I was a secularist for sort of the first half of my (present) life...then I expanded my views a bit. I am not suggesting that Buddhism is necessarily superior to Christianity, I am suggesting that it is another way of looking at things, and well worth considering...as is Christianity also.

The common assertion that religions are responsible for "most of the past sufferings" of humanity are simply an indication that the speaker has an emotional problem with the whole concept OF religion. It is as easy to find evidence of religion uniting people as dividing them...helping people as harming them...just depends on what you have decided to focus your attention on, that's all. If your pet hate is religion, then you will only focus on the abuses committed in the name of religion...and you'll never run out of evidence to support that bias. :-)

Now, if you were instead hung up on the idea that power-seeking is the problem...or that money is the problem...or that men are the problem...

See where I'm going with this?

Your statements don't indicate as much of anything about religion as they do about you. You've got a hostility problem where the subject of religion is concerned.

I have a hostility problem where the subject of greed for money is concerned, so that's more where I tend to look when explaining the ills of the World, past and present.

I used to have a much bigger hostility problem around religion when younger, but have moderated it considerably, though I'm still not a big fan of organized religion, in a general sense. I prefer individual spiritual investigation to organized religion.

Buddhism is not about an exterior divine authority, it's about disciplining your own mind, so as to attain inner harmony and detachment. How does that offend you? And why would it? Most people are almost incapable of quieting or disciplining their mind...they don't control it, it controls them. The Eastern disciplines are almost all aimed at mastering, quieting, and controlling the mind, which results in controlling outer actions. The more subtle forms of contemplative Christianity (as practiced by a number of notable saints and adepts) were aimed at the same thing.

As for the normal, social, secular morality that you and I both subscribe to...such as not stealing, not lying, not murdering, being honest, paying debts, being kind, and so on....they ALL orgininated in ancient religious teachings. Every last one of them. All of our most basic common civil law started as religious rules of conduct.

So, my friend, where would we be now without religion? Living by the law of tooth and claw, that's where.

You have chosen only to see the historical abuses of organized religion, and in doing so you have thrown the proverbial baby out with the bathwater, as the saying goes. It was an arbitrary decision on your part. You might just as well have decided that MEN were to blame for the World's ills or that POLITICS is to blame or that COMMUNISM is to blame. And that would be the mythology which you would use to explain reality and to determine who the "enemy" was. And it IS mythology. You chose it, you see the World through it, and it becomes real to you...but it isn't real. It's simply a small part of what is real...a half-truth...a mental construction based upon prior prejudice.

Religion is both good and bad, helpful and harmful, uniting and dividing...just like money...depending on WHO puts it to use and HOW they put it to use. It's not all black, it's not all white, it's every shade of gray.

Subject: RE: BS: You will believe anything if you believe
From: mandoleer
Date: 01 Apr 05 - 06:46 PM

One thing that puzzles me about Christianity is when they tell you that if you don't believe, you should ask God to give you faith. Errrrr, perhaps I'm missing something there.... And sorry, Tanny, but while you may be 'part of it', I'm part of something else. There are a lot more gods around than Jahweh.

Subject: RE: BS: You will believe anything if you believe
From: Gray D
Date: 01 Apr 05 - 06:51 PM

Erm . . . if the earth is not flat, why do the sausages stay on my plate a dinner time?

A?

Gray D

Subject: RE: BS: You will believe anything if you believe
From: Gray D
Date: 01 Apr 05 - 06:54 PM

"at dinner time " I meant.

I'be nod well. See "April Flu's Day" dread.

Dray D

Subject: RE: BS: You will believe anything if you believe
From: Little Hawk
Date: 01 Apr 05 - 07:18 PM

Your sausages are hanging on for dear life, afraid that they will slip off the side of the plate, that's why. They know the World is round, you see.

Subject: RE: BS: You will believe anything if you believe
From: Gray D
Date: 01 Apr 05 - 07:36 PM

Liddle Hawk,

If your sausages have fingers . . . take them back to the shop.

No, really.

Dray D

Subject: RE: BS: You will believe anything if you believe
From: Little Hawk
Date: 01 Apr 05 - 07:37 PM

Worms don't have fingers, and worms can hang on. Slugs too. I rest my case.

Subject: RE: BS: You will believe anything if you believe
From: GUEST
Date: 02 Apr 05 - 11:31 AM

One need not accept religion or have faith to ponder what is mysterious to we mere mortals about life, death, the planet, or the universe. But that doesn't mean I buy into the idea that what is mysterious to me "means" something beyond the fact that I, along with the rest of humanity, are clueless.

And I'm perfectly OK with us being clueless about that stuff. What I'm not OK with is people starting wars over it, abusing and harming others because of it--and claiming they are doing it for my own good.

Subject: RE: BS: You will believe anything if you believe
From: GUEST,Blind DRunk in Blind River
Date: 02 Apr 05 - 11:32 AM

I believe I could use a flippin' beer ritht now!

- BDiBR

Subject: RE: BS: You will believe anything if you believe
From: dianavan
Date: 02 Apr 05 - 10:44 PM

Seems you always believe something until that belief changes based on experience. I have a system of beliefs that is quite fluid and it could include something absurd until something occurs that changes that belief into a new belief.

Are there any humans that believe nothing?

Subject: RE: BS: You will believe anything if you believe
From: Little Hawk
Date: 02 Apr 05 - 11:07 PM

None, Dianavan. None whatsoever. There is also no one who does not have some (usually many) beliefs based upon faith, although...they may be quite unaware of it. Most people ARE unaware of a great many of their most basic beliefs and motivations, because most people do not engage in much self-examination. They examine others instead, and they focus on the outer conditions around them...all of which, however, are interpreted directly according to their own inner consciousness...the thing they are not much inclined to pay any attention to.