RE: In Buddhism Where Will Souls Go if they Haven''t Reached Nirvana Before the Sun Dies?
November 21, 2017 at 12:41 pm
(This post was last modified: November 21, 2017 at 12:49 pm by The Grand Nudger.)
(November 21, 2017 at 11:40 am)LuisDantas Wrote:Past lives being remembered by a consciousness that experienced them implies something entirely analagous to the function of soul. I understand that buddhism prefers to conceptualize this differently and use disparate terminology...but if it walks like a duck..and quacks like a duck. It's a duck. This isn't my problem, it's a problem for the conglomeration of ideas present in buddhism. Their "not a soul" does what a soul does in christian myth. This is all I'm expressing, and I've expressed it a few times now..with each response evading that singular observation.(November 20, 2017 at 5:14 pm)Khemikal Wrote: A transcendental immaterial consciousness reborn -with- karmic responsibility seems very close to the function of soul in western mythologies. To be expected, since it's an eastern mythology that seeks to answer the same fundamental questions and likely has at least -some- shared pedigree. In being repackaged for a western audience the concept of anatta was rendered to be no self or no soul in some materialist sense, but it's a fair question..then, to ask what gets reborn. The materialistic western buddhist might respond "oh, you know, circle of life".....but how does this square with the buddha (or anyone) recalling past lives?
What of that? Lives exist and can be witnessed and remembered. That does not imply an atman/soul.
Quote:Quote:Ultimately, alot is made of the differences between buddhism and....say, christianity, as a marketing gimmick.... to present buddhism as a less superstitious alternative. It isn't. When you cut through the obfuscation they're very similar, and western buddhism is very much like western cultural christianity. As in cultural christianity, in western buddhism..inconvenient but essential dogma is simply omitted. Rebirth or reincarnation makes no more sense in the western repackaging of anatta than the title of christ does in cultural christianity. Buddhism...as practiced here, is just exotic jesusism.
You would probably benefit from learning about the meanings of "Dharma".
Classic "you just don't understand". I do, I just don't agree. I could continue the comparisons here, as well, between dharma and righteousness as the summation and and palpable manifestation of cosmic law, right action, purification, and phenomenon.
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