(October 9, 2026 at 8:20 am)Silas Vane Wrote:

(September 30, 2026 at 11:08 am)The Grand Nudger Wrote: Like those times when the doctors do everything they can, but god kills your loved one anyway?  Thanks god!

You've repeated your original accusation instead of answering my question.

How did you establish that God killed the person?

Repeating a claim isn't evidence for it. Either demonstrate how you reached that conclusion or acknowledge that you haven't established it.

As I've told you multiple times in response...if you understand what atheism is you can't possibly believe that I'm claiming the gods do -anything-.  The thought experiment is not a claim that there are gods in the world doing things, it is an answer to your question.  Why people..and we could only be talking about christian people because those are the only people who think the christian god does anything....have trouble giving other people proper credit and also giving god thanks.  Because we, and christians specifically, and you.....emphatically...many times...do not want to credit god for such things...regardless of whether or not gods exist to do anything in the first place.  You may have in mind some theodicy that you feel this would be a good time to deploy..but as a matter of rhetoric it would be counterproductive.  Providing yet another example of my actual claim - which is not that gods do things, but that you have extreme difficulties as a believing person in thanking god for a wide range of things for utterly predictable reasons that cross religious boundaries. You are the answer to your own question. If you understood yourself in this you would have the answer to your own question - and possibly grow in your faith.

(October 9, 2026 at 8:20 am)Silas Vane Wrote:

(September 30, 2026 at 11:08 am)The Grand Nudger Wrote: Like those times when the doctors do everything they can, but god kills your loved one anyway?  Thanks god!

You've repeated your original accusation instead of answering my question.

How did you establish that God killed the person?

Repeating a claim isn't evidence for it. Either demonstrate how you reached that conclusion or acknowledge that you haven't established it.

Your god doesn’t have a plan for each and every one of us whether we like it or not?

(October 9, 2026 at 8:20 am)Silas Vane Wrote:

(September 30, 2026 at 11:08 am)The Grand Nudger Wrote: Like those times when the doctors do everything they can, but god kills your loved one anyway?  Thanks god!

You've repeated your original accusation instead of answering my question.

How did you establish that God killed the person?

Repeating a claim isn't evidence for it. Either demonstrate how you reached that conclusion or acknowledge that you haven't established it.

Because God could have saved the person and didn’t. QED.

Boru

(October 9, 2026 at 9:35 am)The Grand Nudger Wrote:

(October 8, 2026 at 11:10 pm)emjay Wrote: In what way do you mean? At the end of the day, whether you call it 'repackaged" or it actually is, makes no real difference to me because the part that is repackaged, if repackaged it is, speaks for itself logically and in its secular form, or a secular streamlined view of it... however one looks at it... it doesn't require any kind of 'faith' in anything external. Do you disagree with and/or think it is logically unsound, the same logic of it that I find so appealing, life-changing, and well, stabilising/comforting?, ie that everything that arises in life/consciousness is subject to change and is therefore not guaranteed to be permanent and therefore should not be treated and/or relied on as if it is guaranteed to be permanent, because nothing is. Do you think that is logically unsound/unhelpful? Whether that logic is 'repackaged' or whatever, by others or even myself to whatever extent (i.e. my idea of 'conditioned' might be different to what Buddhism had in mind, but if it is, it's still the same underlying principle; causality), doesn't really matter because logic speaks for itself, if it is 'sound', so it doesn't matter where it comes from. In my case I just find it incredibly useful from a reductionistic point of view, in so many ways.

One set of questions is historical.  There were three main periods (at least with respect to how we in the west view buddhism vs what buddhism actually is/was anywhere else).  The first was in the mid to late 1800's, culminating in the 1893 parliament of religions.  This is when buddhism was first stripped in order to undermine the case for colonialism.   That case being a christian nationalist case swirling around its primitive and superstitious nature, because the universe loves irony.  This is where the idea that buddhism is a rational philosophy rather than a devotional religion with cosmological beliefs and rituals was born.  The second was directly following ww2 and into the subsequent cold war, supercharged by the annexation of tibet.  Diaspora and exiled clergy needed allies and so they made further revisions to engage politically active westerners by focusing on compassion, human rights, and environmentalism.  The third period is the one that we (as in westerners) drove.  That started in the 60's as counterculture - taking the targeted revisions of late imperialism and communist chinese expansion as the thing itself and running with it from there.   

The other...is alot to unpack.  Do I think that buddhism is logical?  Do I think it does not require any kind of belief in something external?  In the strongest sense of either claim...no.  The sanitization (or westernization) of buddhism caused all of the same problems for the tradition that creeping secularism and contemporary ideation has for our homegrowns.  If we focus only on the version for western consumption then the fundamental impetus of the whole philosophy is undermined.  If we detach ethics from rebirth and karma, for example, we end up with a system that may be more logically defensible (the "may" doing alot of work in that sentence) but is not in any discernable way "buddhist".  Similarly, if we consider meditation a self help practice, one neat trick to build healthy egos, we have run into the wall of no-self.  When we consider it's usefulness to the exclusion of it's religiosity we end up with corporate mindfulness retreats.  On and on it goes, the list of mismatches between traditional buddhism and export buddhism and the western ideology it sought to coopt - which even export buddhism has not (and cannot) fully divest itself from and remain itself.   

Do I think that export buddhism can be comforting or affirming?  Sure..but with the above history in mind, and in light of my own personal experiences with identity discontinuity.... I would.  It's also comforting and affirming to people with wildly divergent and often antithetical views to my own...which is to say that there's nothing essential there.  OFC it shouldn't escape our notice that it wasn't meant to be comforting - it was meant to be a radical world denying religion on one hand, and a justification for a particular social order on the other.  A glorious combination that we understand the ramifications of with respect to any of our domestic cultural obsessions. Do I think that any of that has any bearing on you, what you find useful, how you use it, that it;s help you in life...or should...?  No.  I'll note here that cultural christianity as a revision with the same history and problems is, imo, a useful improvement over traditional and religious christianity as well.  Babble on about some christ or spin a tale about the tinkering bloodgod who nudges all things and I'll clock you as a moral and intellectual defective - tell me to like, be kind and shit..and I say "no duh - good idea - that stands or falls on it's own".  All of this stuff above is or would only be modifying to the kind of person whose internal valuation of buddhist thought (old or new, domestic or export) depended on it being other-than.  As in "the thing I like about buddhism is that it doesn't do or say this this and this silly and or evil shit, unlike christianity (or insert other world majors here)".  Bad news there, lol.

All right, thanks for the thorough takedown I accept that it isn't a full, coherent theory... philosophical or religious... unless you believe in karma and reincarnation; as the whole point of the Buddhist theory is about the escape from that endless circle of suffering, of birth and rebirth... via 'Enlightenment'... 'Nirvana'... which obviously I don't believe in and never will. For me, as an atheist, who doesn't believe in any kind of afterlife, 'non-existence' after death is just the default stance, and won't require any 'Enlightenment', or any other of the steps towards Nirvana in Buddhism, to reach , but that doesn't matter because it's not about that for me. Meditation - 'loving-kindness' and 'insight', mindfulness, and the specific logical statement I made about that which arises in life/consciousness being subject to change and therefore not guaranteed to last forever... those things are, in my opinion, all wonderful and meaningful in their own right whether you're using them with Buddhist Nirvana in mind, believing in all of the supernatural claims of Buddhism, OR, in my case, using it with only this life in mind, not as steps towards some imagined future, but rather as, IMO, incredibly useful ways of dealing with suffering in the present, in many different ways. As I said before, in a very reductionistic way, in my opinion. Each to their own of course, but for me, whether it makes sense as a full, coherent philosophy in this perhaps cherry-picked sense, doesn't really make much difference to me, because as far as I'm concerned, mindfulness especially is one of the best things I ever learnt to do, especially after my op, it has helped me through so much mental pain, and meditation too, just has this wonderful 'resetting' ability. I'm not doing them for the sake of 'Enlightenment' or Nirvana, I'm doing them for their mental health benefits in the present, which as far I'm concerned are awesome, when I can do them. An ongoing struggle of course, sometimes better achieved than others, and as I found out recently, much harder to do when in actual physical pain compared to not, both meditation and mindfulness, but nonetheless that goal of 'equanimity' in that, still feels like a worthwhile, ideal goal... long way off though, if not impossible, I accept.... but still a worthwhile goal I think. But anyway, what would you prefer, that I didn't use the word 'philosophy' about it? I could try I guess

(October 9, 2026 at 8:20 am)Silas Vane Wrote:

(September 30, 2026 at 11:08 am)The Grand Nudger Wrote: Like those times when the doctors do everything they can, but god kills your loved one anyway?  Thanks god!

You've repeated your original accusation instead of answering my question.

How did you establish that God killed the person?

Repeating a claim isn't evidence for it. Either demonstrate how you reached that conclusion or acknowledge that you haven't established it.

Do you really think your "arguments" are ever going to gain any traction here? If so, you really need to learn to read a room.

I’d probably caution against the idea that secular materialist mindfulness is free of woo on account of it carrying those three descriptors and couching itself in the language of clinical diagnosis. Or the notion that it’s utility (also arguable) suggests something about it being true. But, ultimately…as you note, from a utilitarian standpoint these other things you wondered about are kind of sidelines.

(October 9, 2026 at 8:15 am)Silas Vane Wrote: Do you accept or reject the biblical claim that Jesus Christ is God?

Reject.

Quote:And whichever answer you give, establish your reasoning.

There's no sane reason to believe that the stories of a Bronze Age deity that were mangled by the post-exilic monarchies of Israel and misinterpreted by a Roman mystery cult have anything to do with reality, much less the divine. The notion that the Creator of the Universe whelped a brat on some poor mortal woman is laughable in the extreme. The claim that the "deity" in question then sacrificed that human self to itself so that it could appease itself as long as you believed that the bastard was really him and had really saved you from an eternity of having your testiulos toasted in a volcano by giving up his long weekend should be the biggest load of rubbish ever spouted by a human.

(October 9, 2026 at 8:20 am)Silas Vane Wrote:

(September 30, 2026 at 11:08 am)The Grand Nudger Wrote: Like those times when the doctors do everything they can, but god kills your loved one anyway?  Thanks god!

You've repeated your original accusation instead of answering my question.

How did you establish that God killed the person?

Repeating a claim isn't evidence for it. Either demonstrate how you reached that conclusion or acknowledge that you haven't established it.

To be fair,  the deity in the bible is depicted as killing indiscriminately, even a global genocide, so it "has form" if you will, however leaving that and much more aside for now, maybe you can clarify this much, do you believe anything happens without your god's will?

“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?”

Epicurus

The God in the Bible kills children, supports slavery, and demands worship. If that's not evil, what is?