29
30

[atheism]"Buddhist Atheist" Redditor explains their understanding of Buddhism and how they interpret it non-literally, making it totally possible to be both rational and critical, and believe in Buddhism, at the same time. (np.reddit.com)

[deleted] が 投稿

全 40 件のコメント
並べ替え:
ベスト
トップ新着論争中古い順Q&A

[–]bunker_man 9ポイント10ポイント  (1子コメント)

This isn't bestof material. Its someone blatantly spouting incorrect modern interpretations of things that are totally wrong. Original buddhist skepticism means that you'll realize he's right as you develop in practice and so don't need to pretend you know before you do. It doesn't mean anything about it being only metaphorical, or that being a valid outcome. That comes purely from this person's imagination. Early buddhism was clear that every other religion is simply wrong, and so ultimately you must come to the correct teachings to become enlightened.

And its wrong that Buddhism is more able to be atheist than christianity too. Read the gospels. Jesus' main goal in them seems to be a very worldly on earth kingdom of god that people are going to bring forth trough moral action and transformation. God is in a sense a source of inspiration and power for this, but one which can be extraneous to the goal. Heaven is a reward for compliance more than presented as a goal. The goal of buddhism is to become a monk and free yourself from its metaphysical world system. People adapting its practice into a psychological tool doesn't make that why it was founded.

[–][deleted] 2ポイント3ポイント  (0子コメント)

Thanks for stating your opinion.

[–][削除されました]  (24子コメント)

[deleted]

    [–]bunker_man 11ポイント12ポイント  (2子コメント)

    I don't believe there is a fundamental disconnect between rationality and religion. But why Buddhism every time?

    Because westerners have a deep misconception that buddhism was never meant to be literal, has no real guidelines that matter, doesn't have worship, and is uber tolerant in ways that christianity isn't. There's a trend established of a few parts of it taken out of context that they try to use to override its actual content in favor of what they decide is its "real" content. And they think they're peaceful and its peaceful, so it must really be like what they are. Ignoring that the idea that its more peaceful than other religions is also a misconception born from westerners looking at precepts designed for monks only, and depictions of the buddha himself, and deciding that that's how all Buddhists act day to day, or were even expected to.

    [–]Kegaha 1ポイント2ポイント  (1子コメント)

    In a way, that's how some Easterners (I mean, I can only talk from experience) see (or saw) Christianity. As if most of its followers were sort of living Saints. One example that comes to my mind being Uchimura Kanzô

    [–]shannondoah 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

    It also helps that Japan wasn't colonized. I mean, Indian perceptions of Christianity(Hindu ,Sikh ---I'm telling /u/JiddoIamStrong as well) are faaaaar more influenced by colonialism than, you know, in Sikhism's case, the Islamic influences.

    [–][deleted] 9ポイント10ポイント  (0子コメント)

    Because Westerners don't have a history, and hence no strong emotional reaction towards Buddhism.

    [–]B1GEast 2ポイント3ポイント  (0子コメント)

    a bit flabbergasted by the way Buddhism attracts atheistic, rational-thinking Americans and western Europeans.

    Because they're spiritual hipsters. Like Vegans that love to talk about all the reasons they're vegan and you should become one too.

    [–]aidenr -4ポイント-3ポイント  (9子コメント)

    Einstein is said to have asserted that if any religion can survive rationality, it's Buddhism. I would go one further and say that it isn't a faith at all; it is unconcerned with explanations of creation or supernatural phenomena. The founder even said he wasn't special, that he was only "the one who woke up". It's just a realization that human consciousness is the source of much human suffering, and that the solution is to work hard to make oneself into a new person who isn't prone to those anti-patterns of animal thought and selfishness.

    I don't think it's enough but it's not a bad start if you decide to disclaim all gods.

    [–][削除されました]  (1子コメント)

    [deleted]

      [–]aidenr -3ポイント-2ポイント  (0子コメント)

      My apology:

      I believe that Buddha could have been excellent in offering those noble truths and right about the material nature of the universe without also believing that they are supernaturally true. The ideas provide a polar dimension to the quest for enlightenment without which future seekers could well become corrupt in their understanding. Polarity without deity is a fine way to see aspirational atheism.

      These teachings are also potentially correct in their physical, thermodynamic senses. We know that matter and information are conserved in this universe. Taking Buddha's view that everything is equally alive, that implies that death is only a transformation of matter; this is no longer a surprise. Karma can likewise be seen as an effect of the conservation of information. In that view, nirvana could be construed as any future where cyclic strife shrinks to a degree smaller than entropy so that it's karma fails to propagate. That would be a radically different world from the perspective of the living and yet nothing would need to physically change for it to come into being.

      So I assent to these noble truths as well, but I do not require an imaginary (even if true) dimension in order to accept them. If there is an ocean at the mouth of this river, wonderful. Still I'll work on being a riverboat.

      [–]bunker_man 4ポイント5ポイント  (4子コメント)

      I'll help clear up your misconceptions. Buddha didn't disclaim gods. He placed himself above them saying that the hindu gods were not enlightened but he was. One of his early titles for this reason was god of gods. The first jewel is worshiping him. The earlierst scriptures are about miracles he performed. And one of the things defining what exactly he is basically involves him saying he is neither human nor a hindu style god, but is so divine and exalted he is effectively indefinable from within samsara. So he did the opposite of what you said. He added another higher layer of divinities.

      Saying its unconcerned with creation is meaningless from within its context. Hinduism is more or less monotheistic in ways, yet also has a tradition of saying it can't explain the ultimate creation. Buddhism is just expanding on this. Polytheism in general rarely places much importance on creation.

      He absolutely said he was special in the immediate sense. They called him lord buddha. He said other people could become enlightened too, but that was by his help whereas he did it alone. In fact, in theravada it was assumed most people would never be enlightened. In the ancient world, hierarchy was a given. The fact that you could become enlightened in millions of years doesn't mean you are supposed to think you are the equivalent of him now. Forms of which are much later ideas taken out of context.

      Saying its not a faith is like saying christianity isn't a faith because its a relationship. It is a faith. Its just that having the proper beliefs was considered something you achieve rather than a basic requirement. So if you didn't you were simply not wise enough yet rather than a heretic. Different context, but still there was no ambiguity over them saying they were correct.

      [–]aidenr -2ポイント-1ポイント  (3子コメント)

      My point was that Buddha did not require your reading of theology and therefore atheists have little problem adopting his teaching.

      The old gods are not mandated by the great truths, the noble truths, or the eight-fold path. To some readers they don't even really stand up to reason; those people might ask, "what is a god that cannot achieve enlightenment but remains trapped in an eternal cycle such that a simple human can think his way beyond them? Those gods are just products of human affection for eternality which is caused by fear of mortality."

      "Gripped by fear people go to sacred mountains, sacred groves, sacred trees and shrines." Dp. 188

      Your view may just be entirely correct and this other one may be broken, but perhaps we can say at least that many very different people have learned from the same teacher.

      [–]bunker_man 4ポイント5ポイント  (2子コメント)

      The old gods are not mandated by the great truths, the noble truths, or the eight-fold path.

      Yes they are. What you are saying is as coherent as taking Jesus saying that all morality can be described as ultimately an extension of loving your neighbor as yourself and loving god absolutely and declaring that that means there's no other implied moral precepts. There are, because he gave more detail, you're just ignoring them. The eightfold path includes right view. Right view includes believing in the buddhist cosmology. The buddhist cosmology involves divinities.

      To some readers they don't even really stand up to reason

      Yeah. Modern ones. Its a religion from well into the bc era. What did you expect? People in the past absolutely thought they stood up to reason.

      Your view may just be entirely correct and this other one may be broken, but perhaps we can say at least that many very different people have learned from the same teacher.

      People are free to be inspired by people, and even think they were a great and wise person. But if you think the person is only 70% correct, don't mislead people by pretending he only said that 70% of his full content. He said all of it. He was just wrong about some things that we can move past and accept were products of the times.

      [–]aidenr 0ポイント1ポイント  (1子コメント)

      I want to give your surety the respect of a thoughtful reply. Consider again what I'm saying, in the light of the other religion to which you alluded.

      Christianity is about God at its core. Jesus said "God's real, I'm part of God, your existence requires salvation by God, and you can't have it except through me. When I go, I'll still be around but a different aspect of God will be here with you." The great truths of Jesus are unfounded in the mind of the atheist.

      By comparison, if an atheist also disclaims the Hindu cosmology, he undermines very little of Buddha's teaching. The gods as Buddha understood them were artifacts of the physical universe, trapped like animals in (a very nice part of) the endless cycle of rebirth.

      You've crossed the wires of my argument by insinuating that I'm talking about Buddha disclaiming the gods; I said that an atheist would do so.

      You misconstrued my use of the word "mandated" as if I had said "implied". I stipulate to the reconstruction "Buddha said the Right View implies honoring the Hindu gods" but that is absolutely not the same as saying that "Buddha said that his teachings are true because of the Hindu gods".

      Unlike Jesus whose teachings mandate his own divinity, Buddha's teachings are separable from the Hindu cosmology with only the slightest of consequences: an atheist has to answer for how to have the Right View if religion is not provided by faith in deity. If the two teachings were ships, Jesus' divinity would be the hull of his but Buddha's adherence to religious life would be the figurehead. To an atheist there's no comparison.

      [–]bunker_man 5ポイント6ポイント  (0子コメント)

      This is more or less a stretch. Saying that dropping the cosmology changes little about the buddhas teachings is totally wrong. Since his teachings were about literal effects you were meant to get from them that only make sense in light of the cosology. The cosmology was literal, and what divided him from others is that only he could bring you liberation from it. Part of buddhism was even conceding that other religions could provide similar worldly benefits if you are not shooting for the highest goals, which only makes sense when taken literally. And the teachings on samsara weren't a different thing from liberation and the place buddha had in it. It was all the same teaching. So its nothing but your own interpretation based on what you consider the important parts that you can excise some parts of it and still make sense of it for buddhism, despite historically that Buddhists would have said you're doing it totally wrong, but this not working for christianity. Its pretty easy to make a nontheistic twist of christianity too. Cultural Christians do it all the time, and scholars do it too, called christian atheism. Things like unitarian universalism used to be christian denominations. A lot of people just stopped calling them that once it was obvious how big tent it was. If you go to /r/radicalchristianity you can easily get a lot of explanations about non theistic christianity that is taken very seriously. So this kind of divide where in christianity its important that divinity is real but in buddhism is not is based more on how modern westerners divide it in their mind than it does how historical people saw it.

      [–]Knotdothead -3ポイント-2ポイント  (1子コメント)

      FTFY: a realization that human UNconsciousness is the source of much human suffering, 

      Atheist Buddhist here.

      animal thought and selfishness.

      Waking up to that reality sure has made my life a lot easier.

      [–]aidenr 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

      UNconsciousness

      Unenlightened thought is only metaphorically unconsciousness, though, and we aren't assuming that every reader concurs with the metaphor.

      [–]clickstation -3ポイント-2ポイント  (2子コメント)

      1. Other religions still base their teachings on "God says..." which is not the case in Buddhism.

      2. Buddhism has strong psychological flavor to it. One of the most popular concept in Buddhism, 'mindfulness', has nothing religious or spiritual to it. It's basically just saying that hey, if you open your eyes while walking, you'll be less likely to stumble or fall into manholes. And psychology is very friendly towards non-believers / people of other religions.

      [–][削除されました]  (1子コメント)

      [deleted]

        [–]clickstation -2ポイント-1ポイント  (0子コメント)

        That's true. I was assuming we're talking about religions that are well known to westerners. Jainism and Shinto aren't really popular.

        in that it is based on supernatural and/or metaphysical assumptions that could never be empirically proven.

        I don't know what you mean by "based on" but (again) Buddhism never states that its teachings come from a supernatural invisible being.

        And when it comes to the teachings that are adopted by westerners, it's pretty much empirically proven. (Note that there's a difference between the teachings themselves and what the teachings are "based on" [definition needed])

        [–]posidonius_of_rhodes 2ポイント3ポイント  (0子コメント)

        Why would rationality and critical thinking be a barrier to Buddhism, or religion?

        [–]mirkyj 0ポイント1ポイント  (10子コメント)

        That was great. OP, are you just browsing 3 year old threads on the reg?

        [–][deleted] 0ポイント1ポイント  (9子コメント)

        I was practicing meditation and wanted to know if it was a waste of time, so I typed "is meditation bullshit" into DuckDuckGo and this came up.

        [–]Knotdothead 0ポイント1ポイント  (1子コメント)

        It's not a waste of time. It's more like using time in a different way.

        [–][deleted] 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

        Well yes of course everything is using time in a different way. You can't really "waste" time, unless you die.

        [–]mvanvoorden 0ポイント1ポイント  (5子コメント)

        I can tell you from experience that meditation is not a waste of time. It just takes a lot of practice before you get good at it. If you want proof that it works, the only way to find it is to do it yourself. Go to /r/vipassana, or just go straight to dhamma.org and book a Vipassana course. It's free, has a non-sectarian approach, and it's sort of a boot camp in meditation, with immediate results. Best present I have ever given myself.

        I can also advise you to read Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion by Sam Harris

        [–][deleted] 1ポイント2ポイント  (4子コメント)

        No. If I want to know something about meditation I will read something by Ledi or some genuine Buddhist guy. No more Westerners for me.

        [–]mvanvoorden 1ポイント2ポイント  (3子コメント)

        Then I would recommend The Joy of Living by Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche 

        [–][deleted] 0ポイント1ポイント  (2子コメント)

        I'm sorry, I didn't make myself clear. I also will not read any " " "best-selling" " " title about this.

        [–]clickstation 0ポイント1ポイント  (1子コメント)

        You seem to think being Western and/or best selling is directly opposite to genuineness. How so?