"Letting Go of God" - Page 4

What the hell is this?

I think you should watch what you write sometimes. If you replaced "Christians" with "African Americans" or "gays" it would clearly show to be bigoted if not hate speech. But you have done nothing wrong as you continue to spew this nonsense against Christians?

But I have not used the word 'Christians'.

That would be an insult and an obscenity as well as a personal affront to the few remaining sincere people within that fold - even though they diminish in numbers by the day.

I have already stated (and you have persistently ignored) that I use the term 'Xian' to refer to the current disgraceful crop of so-called 'Christians' that have hijacked the religion and continue to sodomise it for their own personal ends of egomaniacal control, oppression and the pursuit of money.

As 'Christian' refers to someone who follows the teachings of Christ and as these impostors clearly do not then what's the problem ? Unless you are feeling something echoing in your own inner self which is an issue I know nothing of and cannot comment on.

Moreover, you are woefully wrong again on yet another count - I do frequently use equivalent terminology where necessary in other regards. The term 'Islamist' for example is one I will always replace 'Muslim' with when I am referring to a certain kind of maniac that is the Islamic counterpart of the Xian fundie.

Likewise, if it comes to my attention that there are people falsely masquerading as gays or Africans and bringing the 'real deal' into extreme disrepute I shall have no hesitation in coining a (perjorative) label and bashing them with it. If you know of such let me know - I'd be more than happy to oblige.

Meanwhile, I think you need to watch what you write (or read) and make sure you understand things properly before you launch into something that will make you look foolish and/or expose your rather obvious streak of unobjective bias.

Seg you will have to pardon me when I misread "xian"

I assumed "xian" = Christian.

My wrong.

Fellows

No probs - apologies if I was a bit terse. As you know I'm not a Christian (or a XIan) but in a way I wish I was (in the real sense), it's kind of too high a benchmark so I guess it's not surprising why people don't make the grade.

Unfortunately these topics do seem to end in acrimony 99% of the time but I am still convince that dialogue is the only way to get anywhere in life.

The only alternative is violence - real or verbal and that is just no good is it ?

Not good I agree.

Fellows

For an exercise in linguistics I propose replacing "God" with "Common Sense".

i.e. "Common Sense" tells Abraham to kill his son. Every parent knows there could be situations where stress gets so bad you do have these thoughts. Yet just as Abraham raises his dagger "Common Sense" holds back his hand and prevents him from killing.
Now the part where he should be put into a mental institution:
Abraham thanks "Common Sense" for saving his son by amputating a body part using a sharp stone.

Next exercise: God = "Continuation of the species"....

And so on.


The day god dies there will be peace on earth.

It's just not going to work.

Even if you could prove your point re Abraham it doesn't mean there is no God. You could disprove every religion ever conceived and it still wouldn't mean that.

All you have done is show the nonsensical nature of human (mis) conceptions of the idea of a God. And we all know that already.

God is a word. Not "the" word.

The bible proves that humans can tell stories. It can also be used as toilet paper in case you run out.

Or cigarette paper if you get the KJV.

You miss my point though. The Abraham story is (imo) a directly embedded 'truth' that tells us the absurdity of notions of God.

Why would God tell someone to kill his son ? what sort of person dopes that let alone God ?

And what sort of person actually plays along with it ? And is regarded as 'Holy' ?

And what if Abraham had done it ? What would be the aftermath ? Of course it would be murder (but then the OT is no stranger to murder - another clue) but what of the psychological fallout ?

The Bible is full of these 'intelligence tests'. Solomon and the woman who wants the baby chopped in half is another. Adam and eve yet another. And Job is probably the masterpiece.

None of it makes sense - in fact it is stupid. But it was written by geniuses - in the same sense that the Greek myths were created by geniuses. The stories touch on universal archetypes whilst being contradictory.

The whole thing is a giant Zen Koan - that is proof enough of its 'divine' origin but if you believe any of it you've failed the test. And it is a test.

It's not about belief. it's about something else. Something more...'alive'.

The bible simply describes evolution.
Humans are animals. monkeys have the exact same murder rate, drug addiction rate bad/good monkey rate as humans (this is scientific fact). The only difference is that humans are able to write down their experiences since about 60 years, almost all humans.
Religion is the same than drug addiction. escape from the daily stress and bore of survival. Brain teasing. Mind alteration. All religions do use drugs of sorts. The Catholic church is to this date one of the largest manufacturers of wine and beers. There are german church owned brewerys who have been in business for over 1000 years (maybe something to look into investing into, seems pretty steady) This also explains their influence into politics they are a business and have significant monetary power over the goverment.

Churches and temples and mosques and so on are businesses, dealerships for the mind altering substances and mind altering ideas. This is OK.

What's not OK is that God is on our money in our schools and in public. Like in the Pot thread it's about individual freedom to do what you want in your own house.

Now if you think about a paralell univers where indiginous religions would have become the world order. We would be chewing some leaves that would make us see god every day. (Now i need to figure out how to switch from here to there!!)


God should be regulated as a drug. If you are cought with it you should go to jail.

It's just a presupposition. Basically the soverenty of God as a epistemological principle.

You wound me!!!

tsk, tsk pfflam, I have over 500 books to go with that one in my 'closet', everything from Marcus Aurelius to Max Weber. Give me a break.

So it's logical then that I became a happier person once I abandoned all pursuit of God?

Whatever makes you feel good, I guess, and that includes incessant intellectual masturbation.

Good post, you've been doing some reading.

Here is the problem with Buddhism, there is no differentiation, except for suffering, i.e., 'the will to live must be suppressed in order for man to be delivered'. johnq, Buddhism without western influence is socially, or culturally irrelevant. Only after western influence did Gandhi have the philosophical framework to do what he did. You can't really use Buddhist principles and then consistently come in here and argue on these forums. You live in one reality, and argue for another, you enjoy the fruits of one philosophy and wish for another. You need to decide what you really stand for.


That is a badly uniformed statement. Christianity in general is the reason you have the law structure, and the assumptions that go with it, that you enjoy today. [although American was founded in terms of Christian Lockeanism]


That statement tells me you should put in the same amount of time studying Christian philosophy as you have Buddhism. Wrong on all counts. None of Christian philosophy works without the whole picture, Christ, Trinity, uncreated being, etc. there is no bolting on.

\





Mahatma Gandhi wasn't a Buddhist.

Please take this chance to weasel out of that "oh er, he was a Hindu and Hindusim is a major Buddhist influence" etc....


A Buddhist can engage in the full spectrum of dialog and still be true to their values even to the point of shouting or being coarse, if needed.

You seem to be saying Buddhists are supposed to sit down and shut the fuck up while the rest of us play "My God is better than your God".

My words (energy) are positive, negative or neutral depending on the reader. You're the most resistant one, but it's up to you to be so.


I stand for not presuming the dominant philosophy is the truth.

Please name some of these Western/Christian-derived (presumably) fruits and how "other realities" can't produce similar or better ones.

care to elaborate? Remeber, even history is irrelevant for a consistent Buddhist.

Meaning itself disappears, here's bit from Milarepa:

Because I see the self-face of the View,
The thought of contrast by itself dissolves;
How then can I have the Idea-of-Two-the self and others?
The View is void of limit and discrimination.
When in the Practice I become absorbed,
Good and evil are reduced to self-liberation;
How then can I have the Idea-of- two-happiness and suffering?
The Practice is devoid of limitary feelings and experience.

When I adhere to the self-continuance of Action,
Dislike is reduced to self-liberation;
How then can I have the Impulse-of-Two- craving and aversion?
The Action is free from limitary attachment.
Since self-liberation is the Fruit,
Both Nirvana and Samsara are reduced to it.
How then can I have the Idea-of-Two- getting and Abandoning?

Absence of fear and hope is
The Fruit of this great Practice.

How is meaning real? Or history?

Most meaning is given to us pre-packaged. We seldom inspect things anew ourselves (as Buddhism recommends) but instead pull out the old handed-down meaning, label or opinion.

History is just imparting meaning to items that are variously victims of entropy. Otherwise history is a collective meme that is fluid and simultaneously decaying and being rewritten and evaporating. No one can accurately recreate past events from remnants. It's the same old not precisely knowing the initial conditions thing.



I guess you plucked this out as some kind of example to prove your (flawed) conception of what Buddhism is (i.e., pessimistic or nihilistic or pointless or negative or a downer?)

As it turns out, although I'm less attracted to the more elaborate Tibetan branch, the passage quoted is extremely true, beautiful and points to exactly opposite to that which I think you are implying.

*Let me guess*. I'm sure that you, a Christian (whose drug is necessarily hope), skimmed hurriedly and bemusedly got to "Absence of ... hope is The Fruit of this great Practice." thinking it a kind of "GOTCHA! Buddhism = No Hope = negative = depressing and hence pointless".

This is precisely the shallow view I'd expect, based on other common misconceptions.

But it isn't about having no hope. It is about walking that line between fear (irrational beliefs that ignore present reality and make matters worse when the things feared don't materialize) and hope (irrational beliefs that ignore present reality and make matters worse when the things hoped for don't materialize). It is pragmatic. It is saying the joy of wise moderation is greater than the extremes of too much or too little. The Buddha found that neither self-punishing asceticism nor selfish overindulgence were beneficial.

But this carries over into other aspects of life. All the extremes are to be avoided, including that which you might have a hard-to-shake preference for. (avoided for our own sake, by the way, not some dogmatic governance over people by a god or elite ruling caste; karma is free will and judgement in one)

Grasping is the concept of having something good, and, since nothing is unchanging, that good thing invariably slips away so you get further and further into depression and loss. This isn't to say that good causes bad and bad causes good. The causality is in the craving (or the opposite, aversion). It is our ill-chosen actions that lead us to good to bad. Good and bad are not things but are our ignorant determinations put upon phenomena. We constantly project these determinations onto the phenomena before us and, when those phenomena change (as all must), suffering arises from our having to then change our determination or the very fact that we have to react at all repulses us.

We can appreciate goodness (and strive for it's proliferation or maintenance) as Buddhists but we know it is impermanent, which ought to instill a profound sense of appreciation for that beauty precisely for its tenuous existence.

The hope-pushers in the Christian faith are doing humanity a disservice by denying the see-saw-like back and forth sway life has, cyclicly going from good to bad to good to bad...(more accurately us constantly applying labels amongst all the other humans doing the same and the myriad interactions that causes). Our reactions to this ebb and flow can be to resist (and be overwhelmed), swim with the flow (in which case you are only just going to hit the returning waves all the harder and sooner) or just let go and ride with it (stop living in a flawed-concept-based world) in which much of the panic and chaos seems diminished by your relative tranquility.

Letting go doesn't mean drowning. Tread calmly and keep your head up. We do have to go about in our daily world and live in modern times but none of it has any intrinsic reality. it isn't a denial of reality, it is a stripping away of the mental conceptions-that-are-not-the-things-themslves. Including the things conventionally deemed "good", not just the bad things.

But the way isn't good or bad, it is the illumination that we are sillily applying such immutable nonexistent properties as "good" or "bad" to objects-that-are-not-objects. We try to make permanent the constantly changing. It is insanity. Everything is subject to change and hence decay or destruction or un-creation. Everything is interrelated.

That Milarepa piece is a beautiful rejection of duality/binary thinking that you would do well to re-read and try to take to heart.

Nuh uh.

With tht you are back to the 'is there an absolute ?' argument you lost a while ago.

Whatever meaning exists exists only in the mind of the one ascribing that meaning. It dies when that mind dies.

It is not therefore absolute.

There is a Zen koan that I'm sure you are familiar with about trees falling in forests which is germane in this regard.

You might what to first go down to city hall and try and sell that. But you can't, becuase it's nonsense.

Also, you're avoiding Gahndi's/Buddhism's irrelevance outside of western influences. We don't starve to death in the west becuase our general ethos isn't fatally flawed; if you let rats eat all your grain......

So following this line of 'thought' - historically there were times when we did 'starve to death in the west' - obviously our ethos was flawed then.

Unfortunately for you at the times in question it was the ethos of Xianity.

Our over-riding ethos in the west now is secular. So by your own argument the west is succesful to the degree it rejects your own belief system - the one that you are attempting to use as the basis of your argument.

Unfortuantely it is only an argument against yourself. Way to go.

That would explain all those Hidus in India......hmmmmmmmmm
(and yes I'm painting with a too broad a brush)

Try to keep some context, it will help to remember the last couple of centuries.

I was.

Good stuff? -- I noticed the Buddhist cant, right off the bat??? What? That and the Mega Churches will ride up to ruin. Okie Dokie.

You guys need to learn to stop with this parade of hatespeak, philosophical pretzel logic, and intellectual groping. Face it, your philosophies are incomplete, impotent expressions of nihilism and self-pity. They survive only through the most primitive forms of syncretism, and offer no hope for the future except the 'abolition of man', or anarchy, even when they can be articulated to any degree. And on top of that you have to retreat into a crabbed version of history to comfort yourselves.

Lay off the bigoted remarks and hatespeak, and leave the serious philosophical questions to those with philosophies mature enough to handle them. You hate Christianity so bad? -- to each his own -- all the same, this is yet another time I have come in here and break up a petty hatefest.

Consider yourselves spanked.

.

There is nothing in what I said that is contradictory to Buddhism. Buddhism does not disallow even harsh criticism, in fact it could be said all Buddhism is is a refined form *of* criticism.

You won't wiggle out of the (at this point) dozens of unanswered questions we've asked you to answer so easily by painting us as hateful and then get the thread closed.

There is nothing in what I said that a Buddhist isn't "allowed" to say:

This mega-church/Lakewood type phenomena is a brainwashing, a nationalistic rallying cry for this modern day Roman empire.

How is that hate? You're on the wrong side and I'm beseeching you to see it. The Christians ARE the Romans now. But hey, it won't be my kids being sent off to die. Hate would be for me to shut up and let it all happen to you quietly.

This isn't religion or worship, it is mindless indoctrination to instill an aura of moral righteousness in every atrocity the U.S. is committing (and will commit for the next decade).

How is that hate? I want each of the 30,000 Lakewood attendees to think, read, investigate, question reality on their own. I don't want them to fall victim to deeply dangerous mass psychological tactics that will control via intimidation or fear of believing anything different.

Politics and business are the only concerns of Lakewood, not the sanity or souls of the viewers.

You need Gods to command you to send your children out to die and to pray to when they are in harm's way.

How is that hate? I don't want your faith to be used as a grease to make the very real and active war machine run better.

There is -nothing- peaceful about the American born-again Christianity movement. It is a political tool, a way to instill obedience.

How is that hate? I want Christianity to not be politicized and violent (or apathetic) and counter to its own values.

There are other parts of Christianity in the U.S. that are peaceful (in words, despite vast amounts of complacency/apathy) but not the born-agains of the Bush ilk.

This is the sentence you've consistently ignored.


Such crap. Saying it doesn't make it so, despite how hard you try. Where is the nihilism in Buddhism? The Buddha rejected nihilism (and eternalism).

Buddhist philosophy is quite robust, as complete as you're going to find anywhere. It definitely doesn't have self-pity so what the hell are you on about?

Why is it that Xianity seems to be the only religion that cannot accept any other path and has to constantly badmouth and denigrate any other philosophy or spiritual formulation ?

I would really like an answer to this. No other religion does it.

Don't project your insecurities on to us.

Wait, please stop and tell me:

Do you think Ghandi was a Buddhist? Your writing so far has suggested that.

Are you trying to instead speak of pacifism? You, a devout Christian, are telling me, a Buddhist, that Buddhism's pacifism is fatally flawed or irrelevant? PEACE is flawed or irrelevant?

Rich. So, it's all about branding with you.

Second, your complaint of Hindu society is hilarious because the underlying criticism is entirely EVOLUTION BASED.

"Survival of the species dictates that we KILL the rats so they don't eat OUR grain and so we don't starve."

Darwin would be proud.

Third, outside of rare political statements (common to all cultures) or war/weather-induced famine, Buddhists DON'T STARVE THEMSELVES TO DEATH.

The Buddha specifically denounced BOTH over-indulgence AND aesceticism/self-mortification. Term MIDDLE PATH ring a bell?

johnq, segovious, just look at what you're doing, one thread after another, Christians are brainwashed, this, that and the other thing; fundie this, fundie, that, coy monikers like 'Xian'. Ripping Christianity from one end to the other, the Bible's falsified, and if you don't believe it was rigged then your a caveman, and on, and on, and on. And oh, by the way following this rigged Bible will be the undoing of Western Civilization.

Ring any bells?

You are both ripping the majority of Christians and you both know it. Don't sit here and rip orthodox Christianity and then put on some decorous shtick, hemming and hawwing you didn't realize that it constitutes the bulk of believers.

Even your loaded question at the top of this post is just more sly rhetoric. Why, gracious, segovious, when DID we stop plotting the destruction of worldwide peace, love, and understanding? -let get my comic-book edtion of the Systematic Theology and get back to you.


johnq, that is hate speech through and through -- and you need to cut it out. What's worse is that it's paranoid -- and not even loosley connected with the truth.

Look, I do not come in here ragging on any particular group, but when you guys starting running for the baby's room, I think it's in everyone interest to put things in prespective and keep you honest. There are very good, very logical reasons for being a fundie, and there is a very robust body of work in regards to apologetics, systematic theology, epsitemology, etc. that supports it -- there is no denying this.

I, and other Christians have a problem when adherents of philosophies that we believe have framentary applicability to real life, or philosophies that are not consistent, etc, treat my philosophy with abject contempt. There is NOTHING constructive in using terms like "brainwashing", or using prison language to make a point.

If we disagree, let's talk facts, respectfully, if not this a BB-gun fight.

No on the Ganhdi thing, that's my broad brush East vs. West thing going out of kilter. Ghandi is a handy illustration of the West meeting the East and producing change that otherwise would not tend to happen.

Actually, I don't take offense -- no one sins against another person, they sin against God. I'm merely pointing out an ethical failure on the part some posters who need to decide whether this is a Nuremberg rally or some sort of Socratic dialogue.

Your problem, shetline, is that you aren't listening.

Buddhism destroys particularity by definition. The apparent failure of Buddhism to connect with the demands of reality are there for anyone to see. And yes, I'm sorry, Buddhism was founded by a guy who wouldn't deal with reality and decided that suffering was to good for God to allow -- and ran to self-pity as and ideological resource. Apparently this in not a leap of faith adherents aren't willing to make. Fine, to each his own.

Does this mean that Buddists are "BRAINWASHED"?? Evil? Tools?

No, it means they are wrong. Not Idiots, not evil robots, just wrong.

Which is the crucial difference here: I'll tell you that you're wrong, but I get a computer screen full of narrow invective. I can tell you why your wrong, but I suspiciously only get the mantra that I'm (besides when I'm called stupid or unread) vain and judgemental.

Where is the materialist systematic that is more than "leave me alone' and 'let me do my own thing'?

Oh, so you when you do it it's a "broad brush", when I do it it's "hate speech". Please.

Physics is all a lie because it 'destroys particularity'?

What is something particularly?

Is anything not made up of what it is not, and therefor is essentially a set of relationships rather than some-singular thing?

Hold on to phantoms and increase suffering . . . I think that's what a buddhist might say . . .

And just to comment on w=something that was said way back when: RE: 'Reality" and Christianity . . . . in the world and not of it . . . . for millenia a central notion of Christianity is that this world is a viel of tears and a seductive misery . . .best to rise above this false world where 'the bright-one' rules and think about the other realm, this world is all illusion for a good Christian, better not fall in love with it . . .

(that Idea, in many peoples minds, is the true root of Western Nihilism . . . that denigration of this world by the other -invisible world . . . as well as by Pure-Reason . . . a two pronged medley that sounds like impending denigration of this world . . . as well as a convenient excuse to treat it as just a bunch of stuff to be used up and spent to beter our Calvinistically-devine graced (I mean rich) selves . . . )

I think it was the part where I admitted that I had gone too far by lumping Ghandi in with the Buddists. Twice.

Also on the quality of your Buddist peace, love, and understanding....

..has nothing to do with denegrating you, but everything to do with pointing to a philosophy that is trying to move in opposite directions at the same time. Do not confuse my criticism of your philosophy with rants of 'stupid-heads' or any other personal blather.

And quite frankly this getting way, way off-topic. And it's getting late.

..what do you mean was? The evangelical Church is about this [holds up two fingers] close to effectively jumping right back into that gnostic crappola.