So I am Here with My first Question

[SenseMaker007]

I guess you could argue that you need faith in the Dharma as a means of solving the problem of suffering in order to practice it fully? But that's not "a faith."

I suppose a hard-nosed skeptic might demand evidence that Dharma leads to liberation. It seems that it could be demonstrated anyway.

In regards to "practicing Buddhism fully" I think most people employ faith when they do that.

So, at a practical level, Buddhism is a faith. But (theoretically) it doesn't require faith.

You could even go deeper with the analysis and say that the end goal of Buddhism (enlightenment) involves a person accepting reality with out any obscurities whatsoever including faith. An enlightened person is without such things as faith, hope, fear, longing etc.

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Schopenhauer's views are similar and he's, obviously, a philosopher and not a faith leader.

Are you a fan of Shopie? I never read any of his books. I feel like Nietzsche (with whom I'm very familiar) might have "ruined" Schopenhauer for me, since one of Nietzsche's pet projects was refuting him.

I prefer Schopenhauer because I think his pessimism and will to life is a lot more realistic than Nietzche's will to power.

Nietzche was, of course, a student of Schopenhauer and used to agree with him greatly and admire him greatly. Then suddenly one day he had a revelation, did a 180 and totally disagreed with him. Maybe that was the day his syphilis kicked in?

Nietzche is very strong on metaphysics, though. He recognizes that objects aren't distinct from their properties and that causes, and other physical laws, aren't separate to objects, for example.

Nietzche is more poetic, though. Although Schopenhauer is more punchy. Compare both their responses to free will:

I can do what I will: I can, if I will, give everything I have to the poor and thus become poor myself—if I will! But I cannot will this, because the opposing motives have much too much power over me for me to be able to. On the other hand, if I had a different character, even to the extent that I were a saint, then I would be able to will it. But then I could not keep from willing it, and hence I would have to do so.

The desire for "freedom of will" in the superlative, metaphysical sense, such as still holds sway, unfortunately, in the minds of the half-educated, the desire to bear the entire and ultimate responsibility for one's actions oneself, and to absolve God, the world, ancestors, chance, and society therefrom, involves nothing less than to be precisely this causa sui, and, with... daring, to pull oneself up into existence by the hair, out of the swamps of nothingness.

Nietzche's version is far more epic, poetic and memorable ... but Schopenhauer's version is more logical and to the point. Although he puts it more concisely here:

Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills.

And it even got a mention from Einstein:

I do not believe in free will. Schopenhauer's words: 'Man can do what he wants, but he cannot will what he wills,' accompany me in all situations throughout my life and reconcile me with the actions of others, even if they are rather painful to me.

And Schopenhauer can say some pretty epic stuff:

Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see.

The chief objection I have to Pantheism is that it says nothing. To call the world "God" is not to explain it; it is only to enrich our language with a superfluous synonym for the word "world".

And it's not as if Schopenhauer can't be poetic too:

"... pleasure in the beautiful consists, to a large extent, in the fact that, when we enter the state of pure contemplation, we are raised for the moment above all willing, above all desires and cares; we are, so to speak, rid of ourselves...And we know that these moments, when, delivered from the fierce pressure of the will, we emerge, as it were, from the heavy atmosphere of the earth, are the most blissful we can experience. From this we can infer how blessed must be the life of a man whose will is silenced not for a few moments, as in the enjoyment of the beautiful, but for ever, indeed completely extinguished."

This one is my personal favorite, though:

…the law and its fulfillment, namely punishment, are directed essentially to the future, not to the past. This distinguishes punishment from revenge, for revenge is motivated by what has happened, and hence by the past as such. All retaliation for wrong by inflicting a pain without any object for the future is revenge, and can have no other purpose than consolation for the suffering one has endured by the sight of the suffering one has caused in another. Such a thing is wickedness and cruelty, and cannot be ethically justified. …the object of punishment…is deterrence from crime…. Object and purpose for the future distinguish punishment from revenge, and punishment has this object only when it is inflicted in fulfillment of a law. Only in this way does it proclaim itself to be inevitable and infallible for every future case; and thus it obtains for the law the power to deter….

And he can be pretty damn irreverent and witty:

The Greeks looked upon the world and the gods as the work of an inscrutable necessity. A passable explanation: we may be content with it until we can get a better one. Again, Ormuzd and Ahriman are rival powers, continually at war. That is not bad. But that a God like Jehovah should have created this world of misery and woe out of pure caprice, and because he enjoyed doing it, and should then have clapped his hands in praise of his own work, and declared everything to be very good — that will not do at all!