RE: Is Atheism compatible with Buddhism?
October 14, 2011 at 4:02 am
(This post was last modified: October 14, 2011 at 4:13 am by Justtristo.)
(October 12, 2011 at 7:34 pm)padraic Wrote: No,that's why there are relatively few hard atheists. No atheist I know personally is arrogant enough or stupid enough to assert "there is no god" or"I believe there is no god" .That attracts the burden of proof
I personally have my "hard atheist" moments. Also I believe I met a "hard atheist" in real life, he also had the habit of trying to 'deconverting' people. Interesting enough his sister was on "fire" for Jesus Christ.
(October 14, 2011 at 3:01 am)Chuck Wrote: I dated a buddhist as well. Strictly speaking, atheism is neither a-religionism, nor naturalistic rationalism. So atheist can adopt any religion that does not depend on suppositions of any deity per se. Schools of buddhism i observes, as my former girl friend take pain to point out, does not rely on explicit supposition of any deity. So in theory atheism should be compatible with these schools Buddhism, whether one calls it religion or not, that eschews direct reliance on any supposition of deity.
But based on my observation, even though buddhism does not require insistence on any specific deity, it tends to promote a squishy, indulgent mindset that encourages individual followers to eschew rigorous and critical thinking, and embrace a sophistry-ing mindset that causes the individual to embrace and rely upon his own notion of deity, which tends to conform to what is subtly promoted by institutions buddhism. I have a particular sad story of a close acquaintance of my former girl friend who, in her dying days, lamented why the Amita Buddha did not come to take her to nirvana. So in this sense, while Buddhism does not necessarily teach anything the atheist might object to, it does create packs of devotees who individually would, as direct effect of Buddhism, meet with the disapproval of atheists.
BUT, I think while the theology of the schools of Buddhism I observed with my ex does not direct demand suppositions of deity, it does promote amongst it's followers an uncritical willingness to indulge in any personal moral and intellectual weakness that can be assuaged by a faith in some deity. So some atheists might be Buddhists, most have good cause to turn up their noses at Buddhism.
I would agree fully with you about what Buddhists at least among westerners subscribe to and their general mindset. As I see a lot of Buddhist teaching stripped of their woo component aren't particularly bad and it has helped me quite a lot.
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