Help me out here, Ex Buddhists.

[Brian37]

Again you are making the mistake of approaching this with the abrahamic religion view. Buddhism doesn't claim a monopoly on kindness or any other human traits, nor are they saying that it was their invention. Yes the religious rituals and other nonsense is pretty much the same as other religions but because they were imported from other religions. At it's core buddhism is based on it's philosophical aspects, whereas in the abrahamic religions you get only some bits and pieces of philosophy to cover all the ignorance.

I understand your position, but you cannot attack buddhism as a whole, but you can start off with the many contradictions in their current beliefs, like those between the hinyana and mahayana practices.

Still missing my point. People form groups and because of the pretty in them they get stuck on them.

You would be dead wrong if you claimed that individuals within all three Abrahmic religions, couldn't admit others outside their label can be kind. Mostly moderates and liberals in all three also admit kindness isn't unique to them. The point is that people are raised Buddhist and or buy it at some point in their lives because something in it gives them that sense of importance and or belonging. EVERY RELIGIOUS PERSON, violent or non violent does this.

Buddhism is NOT a philosophy, it is a religion. It has hero figures, prayers, rituals, monks, holy places. Just like every other religion.

The ideas of being kind are found with other words in ALL religions. I attack Buddhism for the same reason I attack all religions. They are all human invented constructs that at best act as social placebos, but more often than not they create in group and out group dynamics. Chinese Buddhists do not get along with Tibet. Japan is full of Buddhists as well and they don't get along with China.

Going between the words "philosophy" and "religion" are mere word games that humans use to avoid that it group think through our wishful thinking. It is the same moving the goal posts and having it both ways at the same time that Jews and Muslims use with words "race" and "religion", call them on that, then they move to ethnic and culture.

My point is that good is in our evolution, so is bad. We are all capable of cruelty and compassion. Our behavior in grouping more often than not only extends that empathy to the local. The west has had a longer history of making that empathy about law and not religion.

Buddhism does not get a pass either. It would be hard for someone who is not Buddhists in many parts of China or Asia or the Orient, to migrate and mix. At best, as a species, we mostly see the other as guests and when those "guests" as minorities start upsetting social norms, that majority reacts to it. EVEN within the same labels as sub sects.

Religion only explains our ability to group at a placebo level. It is our false perceptions that cause us to create these groups. Playing word games with "philosophy" and "religion" it is still an ignorance of our behaviors as being in us, not the clubs we invent.

Victor Stenger in "The New Atheism" in the later chapters addresses even the ancient "philosophies" of the "religions" of Asia, including Jainism and Taoism.

Jainism, Taoism, Hinduism and Buddhism all started in close proximity to each other in the same way we know that Hebrew and and Christianity and Islam come from close proximity as well.

Ideas no matter if you call them philosophies once you group enough people in them to the point of creating a club or tribe to the point they affect politics, you have a religion. They are still not tools to understand scientific reality or even our natural behavior. They are merely social constructs humans invent.