I'm an atheist but I quite like Buddism...

[The Grand Nudger]

You have a strange idea of what might be interesting. No media whatsoever...and no talking?

noooooooooores:

Where are those roomba riding kitten clips again?

[JonDarbyXIII]

I concede to weird - I've got 'weird' in spades. But yeah, it's all about inward reflection. A friend of mine once did it for 60 days. I figure 7 days will be good and I can get the T-shirt.

[The Grand Nudger]

Meh, I've already done the whole "silent for x" period of time thing. Blew. Good luck to you. I know a few hundred mf'ers who've done it. We're all still dumb as boxes of rocks, same as we were before. Think the buddhists are selling you a bill of goods on this count.

[tantric]

Sounds like woo. Point to a buddha so we can see how perfectly they follow this path?

It's an ideological construct. And a person who existed in the past. Do you understand non-dualism, philosophically?

Not really a demand for exclusivity in my case. But being who I am, if some person claims that a tradition grants them something that I want, and I see a more rational alternative without additional baggage and no magic, I take that instead (the baggage is usually the problem which I would like to see resolved - it grinds my gears when people "get it right" for absurdly silly reasons...a much stronger case can be made). Often enough, I just don't want what any given religion says it offers. I have what you might consider smaller aspirations. Most of the time I'm just looking for some tangible work that I can do which provides a demonstrable benefit to myself and those around me. With my hands, mind you, not my "spirit".

Buddhistically speaking, that's fine and even appropriate. We don't care at all what label you accept. The guide here is the phrase "Ahimsa paramo dharma" - if the path you follow leads you to non-violence and co-existence, it's not broken and doesn't need to be fixed.

OTOH, if you are not seeking spiritual peace and a meaningful life, why do you care about those of us who do, so long as we "Ahimsa paramo dharma"?

Some atheists may, but unless it has to do with their atheism particularly, meh. In any case -this atheist- doesn't. Now I'm not holding you, personally, accountable for everything that buddhists have ever done. That's on them. The issue is that when their buddhism is pointed to as the impetus (your example regarding killing priests, btw, terrible example of a tu qo..because it was some additional belief about the shittiness of priests, not the claimants lack of belief in god which spurred the comment), and I can get whatever you think buddhism gives without that shitty thing, again, I bench buddhism. Like I said, I'm a humanist. I don't think that either atheism or theism (or deism) would continue to have any meaning to me if I were presented with a god. If you're asking me whether, for example..if I met the christian god (or any other) I would become a christian (or any other), or not- the answer is "not". I wouldn't. My atheism does not inform me in this regard, or any other.

What you're saying here isn't really clear - elucidate?

the buddha taught that humans are at a special point between animal and divinity - we are self-aware, yet we still suffer.

Woo....don't care. Useless to me.

the goal of buddhism is the end of human suffering


-and good luck achieving that by means of magic.

At this point I'm not clear on what you mean by 'magic'. If everyone on Earth believe in some fable that led them to be kind and good, would that be magic? We're not doing that - though we do have a POV that encourages compassion which results from a non-dualistic understanding of self. I don't see that this requires magic.

What's unsatisfactory, suffering, or the human condition? I think that your summary of where suffering comes from is woo-based, and I don't think that suffering can actually be removed by leading an ethical life or practicing "mindfulness".

Okay - when most people have their basic physical needs satisfied, they do not become happy and content. We see that some people, but not very many, have joy in their lives. They are content. Siddhartha saw this in monks and religious people, that they get some kind of psychological benefit from their beliefs. Some of them become truly good people, kind to others, self-sacrificings, yet filled with joy and contentment. He wanted to know how this works, and what he found was that it has nothing whatsoever to do with the gods they worship or the rituals they practice. His stated goal and purpose was find out how these people attain this state of mind without the woo. I should think that atheistically, that is admirable? Part of his analysis of the human condition was to separate joy and pleasure. In neurochemistry, these are responses to serotonin (joy) and dopamine (pleasure). We get pleasure from getting things, like winning, or eating a big meal, etc, but pleasure is inherently addictive. After we feel it, it's gone and leaves a need for more, in an endless cycle. This is 'attachment'. Most people struggle with attachment and desire for material things, but there is also attachment to ideas and the sense of self. The point is, this pursuit doesn't lead to that contentment and joy, in fact, it obscures it. Joy comes from being a good person and living a good life. When you remember joy, you feel it again, when you remember pleasure, you feel the lack.

Mindfulness is about keeping to a philosophical definition of reality that avoids both objectivism and subjectivism. In the system I use, a moment of reality is composed of the perception of an objectively existing but unknowable reality. It requires both a perceiver and an object, even though the true nature of that object can't be known except through the filter of perception. Most of my 'reality' is constructed in my head by my conditioned and learned responses to perceptions - but there is still stuff outside my head. Whenever I try to analyze that reality, ultimately I come to either nonsense or paradox, because that reality is 'transparent to analysis'. It's nature is emptiness. You will probably call that woo, but most quantum physicists agree.

I already layed out my problem with -all of it-. I'm a humanist. I don't think that anything you mentioned in that last post or this post is capable of achieving what you claim it sets out to achieve, I don;t think that the foundations upon which any of it are erected can possibly withstand the weight of the house built atop. I don't think that your monks have escaped the human condition, even marginally, and I don't believe that there are any "buddhas" or ever have been. I prefer rational solutions to human problems, and I place humans and human matters at the top of my list. Spirits, buddhas, karma, enlightenment, transcending suffering, none of this means anything to me. Each and every one is a deepity.

(I take it you don't need to me gut your last post anymore, and that you've gone from "what woo?" to "everyone's doing it!" at this point, right? Amusingly..this is right where we started...isn't it..with the whole "kill the priests" routine?)

Let me end this with the suggestion that none of whatever benefits you've found in buddhism actually come from buddhism (and that some of those principles you mentioned aren't all that beneficial - to anyone). I think that they are more correctly attributed to you, personally. Your potential as a human being - all of our potential. Insomuch as religion seems ever present and standing in the way of that potential, I oppose it. Insomuch as it causes others to suffer on it's count, I abhor it. When it keeps it in it's pants, I ignore it.

Well, part of that is true. Becoming Buddhist for me was similar to how some people realize they are gay - I was taking a class on the subject, and during a lecture on philosophy, I realized what was being described was my native way of thinking. I was surprised in that I'd assume I was alone and very pleased to find out there were extensions I hadn't thought of before, but that logically followed. I experience my first moment of satori in 11th grade chem class while contemplating the sentence "There are no absolutes". You are very entitled to your opinions - my only goal is to help you to understand that in principle many modern and especially Western Buddhists are on your side in the goal of making life better for people and getting rid of irrational and damaging beliefs.

[JonDarbyXIII]

Meh, I've already done the whole "silent for x" period of time thing. Blew. Good luck to you. I know a few hundred mf'ers who've done it. We're all still dumb as boxes of rocks, same as we were before. Think the buddhists are selling you a bill of goods on this count.

Yeah, I don't foresee any amazing enlightenment - like I said, 6 to 1, they're all crap, but what can I say... I'm a tourist for the crazy.

[tantric]

Honestly, if you want to learn something useful from 'eastern woo', learn how to breathe. inhale though your nose by relaxing your diaphragm - your chest should NOT bunch out, that's breathing with your chest muscles. hold it. exhale through your mouth. take your time. personally, i think "Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva" during the stages and visualize good stuff coming in and bad stuff going out.

for one thing, this flat cures the hiccups. no joke. i can even cure other people's hiccups by getting them to breathe with me and focus on me, though this is a trick of the nervous system and not at all magic.

[wolfclan96]

As the thread subject states, I am an atheist but there are lots of things about Buddism I like - meditation, self discovery, presence of mind, the idea of a higher state of consciousness etc.

Do you guys think I am mad for this? I'd be interested to hear the thoughts of the atheist community on this topic.

I find myself on the same boat as well.

Now and days I've come to question God's existance and whether he was the loving deity people claimed him to be.

On the other hand, I love the ideas of Meditation, self inquiry, and seeing reality as it is without the words. One could argue that Buddhism isnt necessarily needed to do all this.

I suppose it is a valid argument, sure, but I neither think there is anything wrong with practicing Buddhism.

Some secs are woo but the majority of it is pretty solid, in my opinion. So no I do not think of you as Mad lol

[robvalue]

I'm going to a meditation relaxation class tonight, and the person running it mentioned Buddhist this that and the other, so it will be interesting to see how much woo will be in it. I tend to catch on fire once woo reaches even moderate levels.

I think there's nothing wrong with taking anything you find useful from any religion. Just remember to wash your hands afterwards

[The Grand Nudger]

Thanks, but I learned how to breathe, properly, in choir. No buddhism required.

It's an ideological construct. And a person who existed in the past. Do you understand non-dualism, philosophically?

It's one, sure. I doubt it's the other, or that anyone is or ever has been capable of doing what you claim "buddhas" are capable of doing.

Buddhistically speaking, that's fine and even appropriate. We don't care at all what label you accept. The guide here is the phrase "Ahimsa paramo dharma" - if the path you follow leads you to non-violence and co-existence, it's not broken and doesn't need to be fixed.

I am my countries strength in war, her deterrent in peace. I am the heart of the fight. Wherever, whenever. My path didn't lead me to non-violence, but it still isn't broken, and it still doesn't need fixing.

OTOH, if you are not seeking spiritual peace and a meaningful life, why do you care about those of us who do, so long as we "Ahimsa paramo dharma"?

Because I also don't care about your normative dictates, understand? Also, doesn't seem to be working, does it? Que Sri Lanka. I think that the spotty record of buddhism in this non-violence bit is entirely understandble given it;s shoddy foundation of woo. I actually -expect- woo to fail, so it doesn't surprise me when it does.

What you're saying here isn't really clear - elucidate?

It was pretty clear, but I'll repeat. Buddhism is ineffective, and woo based. There is very little in buddhism that I would even consider marginally worthwhile, and all of it can be sourced elsewhere, without the woo, and to better effect. When confronted with buddhists doing all of the things that buddhists do that you don't like, you tried a TQ, but it doesn't apply to me, or to atheism. Atheism, firstly, is not informative. Nothing comes from it. It's just a statement regarding the status of belief. Atheism doesn't lead to anyone killing priests, beliefs about the shittiness of priests lead to killing priests (maybe). Buddhism, however, apparently leads to a little more than your life of non-violence, que Sri Lanka. But even if buddhists weren't fucking it up (and hadn't been fucking it up for 2k years.......), you'd still be wooing it up...and to a humanist, that's fucking it up. If you ever a find a group of humanists(which -is- the informative portion of my outlook) fucking things up like your buddhist buddies are fucking things up, pointing to their humanist principles, you go right ahead and tell me, k? If I met Buddha, I would not become a buddhist. If I met jesus, I would not become a christian. If I met Allah, I would not become a muslim. That I don't believe any of your stories isn't what prevents me from joining your cults.

I have an ethical objection to all of your faiths. I consider them all to be social and cultural gaslighting -at their very best-...and much more at their worst.

At this point I'm not clear on what you mean by 'magic'. If everyone on Earth believe in some fable that led them to be kind and good, would that be magic? We're not doing that - though we do have a POV that encourages compassion which results from a non-dualistic understanding of self. I don't see that this requires magic.

No, that would be business as usual, human beings have a demonstrable habit of believing in magical things. Many people do believe in those "fables" -and even though each one makes some claim to kindness, goodness or morality, none of them seem to be able to make good on that claim. Buddhism included. You'd like to downplay the magic and focus on the compassion, but since the compassion is based, ultimately, on magic, I expect it to fail - and that's what it's done. Perhaps if someone offered reasonable, demonstrable, and non magical reasons and explanations for compassion we'd exercize it a little more, but so long as the woosters of the world are out there talking "karma" and "spirit" - I don't see that happening. Certainly hasn't happened yet...and like you said...you've had a few thousand years......

Okay - when most people have their basic physical needs satisfied, they do not become happy and content. We see that some people, but not very many, have joy in their lives. They are content. Siddhartha saw this in monks and religious people, that they get some kind of psychological benefit from their beliefs.

-a faustian bargain, in my estimation. I think that joy and contentedness can be arrived at without making a deal with the devil.

Some of them become truly good people, kind to others, self-sacrificings, yet filled with joy and contentment. He wanted to know how this works, and what he found was that it has nothing whatsoever to do with the gods they worship or the rituals they practice. His stated goal and purpose was find out how these people attain this state of mind without the woo.

Then how did so much woo find it's way into buddhism? Accident? Incompetence? Some "Buddha"....

I should think that atheistically, that is admirable?

Atheistically nothing, its a single line comment on the status of belief in gods. Your "enlightenment" is showing.

Part of his analysis of the human condition was to separate joy and pleasure. In neurochemistry, these are responses to serotonin (joy) and dopamine (pleasure). We get pleasure from getting things, like winning, or eating a big meal, etc, but pleasure is inherently addictive. After we feel it, it's gone and leaves a need for more, in an endless cycle. This is 'attachment'. Most people struggle with attachment and desire for material things, but there is also attachment to ideas and the sense of self. The point is, this pursuit doesn't lead to that contentment and joy, in fact, it obscures it.

So sayeth the woosters. I seem to be doing fine. Again, I'm a humanist, I place human matters on the pedestal. You;re already painting a picture of distancing oneself from being a human being as a path to success - and since this advice is being given to human beings..I find any notion of it's success unlikely to the highest degree. It would be like telling a dog that the way to fix some "broken" part of themselves (see...we already have to tell people that what they are is broken, right off the bat) is to simply not be a dog. Good luck for Fido, good luck for John Q. Meanwhile.........

....I seem to be doing fine.

Joy comes from being a good person and living a good life. When you remember joy, you feel it again, when you remember pleasure, you feel the lack.

Yeah, a "good" person and a "good" life as the buddhist busybody sees it -based on woo-, ignoring that "evil" is very often rewarded and those "evil" people manage to lead hilariously joyful and happy lives. So much so that the happy dictator/crook/douche has become a commentary on social truisms.

Mindfulness is about keeping to a philosophical definition of reality that avoids both objectivism and subjectivism. In the system I use, a moment of reality is composed of the perception of an objectively existing but unknowable reality.

Uninterested. If reality is unknowable then you are a know-nothing, and I have no use for you or anything you have to say. You aren't going to hold to that, though, are you? You're going to tell me alllll about "what you know" - in fact, you have been. Gaslighter.

It requires both a perceiver and an object, even though the true nature of that object can't be known except through the filter of perception. Most of my 'reality' is constructed in my head by my conditioned and learned responses to perceptions - but there is still stuff outside my head. Whenever I try to analyze that reality, ultimately I come to either nonsense or paradox, because that reality is 'transparent to analysis'. It's nature is emptiness. You will probably call that woo, but most quantum physicists agree.

Watch out, he said "quantum"! Run for the hills! I'll let you in on another truism of mine. The moment people start to talk about "quantum" this or thats in defense of their silly bullshit, as though it has some relevance in our day to day lives.... that's the final nail in the coffin. Take it up with Ramtha.

Well, part of that is true.

Thanks for cluing me in on the truth, know-nothing.

Becoming Buddhist for me was similar to how some people realize they are gay - I was taking a class on the subject, and during a lecture on philosophy, I realized what was being described was my native way of thinking. I was surprised in that I'd assume I was alone and very pleased to find out there were extensions I hadn't thought of before, but that logically followed. I experience my first moment of satori in 11th grade chem class while contemplating the sentence "There are no absolutes". You are very entitled to your opinions - my only goal is to help you to understand that in principle many modern and especially Western Buddhists are on your side in the goal of making life better for people and getting rid of irrational and damaging beliefs.

The problem, is that the method you wish to use is precisely what I am opposed to. Imagine if I offered to help you bring about peace and non-violence by shooting people (which I would, and have done). You;d spot the problem right away, right? However, because you have your buddhist blinders on you can't even conceptualize a way in which your faith system doesn't grok with my goals (or even your own, potentially), even though it's as obvious as my offer to kill people until a non-violent humanity is realized. This (among other things) is precisely why I have an ethical objection to your silly religion. I bet you're a smart person, I'd be willing to wager that you can see through a sales pitch more often than you fall for them...and then - skidouche- buddhism....and all of a sudden your day to day ability to separate woo from reality vanishes. Now, in your case, -and to your credit, you seem to be bending the reed as far as it will go. Trying to make buddhism seem less magical to you. Once you've finished doing that, though, you'll be left with a philosophy you could've sourced any number of other less magical places. You would have saved yourself time and trouble. That's all I'm doing, saving myself the time and trouble and calling buddhism precisely what it is.

@Rob. LOL< I know right? Trouble is, people rarely wash their hands as thoroughly as they ought to.

[tantric]

Rhythm, okay, you don't want enlightenment or spiritual peace. After the Buddha broke through to nirvana, at first he couldn't imagine teaching what he had discovered - so complex, subtle, obvious and strange, but a god said to him "there will be those will little dust in their eyes." Those are the people the dharma is for.....as we aren't allowed to seek converts, and you clearly don't see it or don't want it, there's nothing else I can talk to you about, but to hope that you find what you seek and wish you a good life. If you have questions, I'll answer, but going any further feels like forcing my point of view on someone - that only leads to suffering. Peace.