So many people around here parrot bullshit about Buddhism because it sounds exotic and different, and the largest and most common BS they vomit concerns its very nature as a religion.

People, obviously with zero acquaintaince with Buddhism, always tell others on this board that its not really a religion, and doesnt really have rewards and punishments.



So, quick question: Have any of you ever heard about their versions of Hell? Its like reading The Inferno.

What's your point? Why does it have to be Liberal Assholes?

Buddhism sound alright. Lose desire (materialism, lust) and you have happiness. Sounds about right. Doesn't interest me tho.

There are tons of Christians and Jews who know nothing about Christianity or Judaism, yet they still claim to be religious. Are they assholes too?

Why would you think I thoght otherwise?

And only the liberal assholes make the argument I cited.

You're wrong.

Nope.

Do you hate me for my religion Spirit?

Then who cares what you say?

ever think that what they are saying is that buddhism isnt meant to be a religion. sure it may be one but that doesnt neccessarily mean it was supposed to be one originally.

It is a religion, as is any philosophy, but it's rather secular, as evidenced by how flexible it is. Even before the western world was exposed to it, there were many forms and combinations, such as Shinto-Buddhism. It doesn't really have a unified dogma, alot of it is just baggage from whatever religion it supplanted.

Going of on a tangent, I liked it (on another forum) where some guy argued that you didn't see Buddhists fighting wars, and some Christian guy listed the conflicts which Buddhists had been active participants in...

blah blah blah, anything that has dogma is bullshit, can't any of you believe in yourselves instead of someone else, I mean how do you know the advice that was hardly adequate 2000 years ago is adequate now, the only thing I agree about buddhism is that the world is an illusion. We can't as much as we try to, love a material, we can only use and exploit it, like this computer. If you rely on it to give you anything more than a way to pass time you are going to be severely dissapointed.

quote:Originally posted by ilbastardoh:

blah blah blah, We can't as much as we try to, love a material, we can only use and exploit it, like this computer. If you rely on it to give you anything more than a way to pass time you are going to be severely dissapointed.

What about what you can give the world, that is basic respect. Fucking western mind always goes 'what can this give me me me me me me'.

Buddhism teaches that not only the world, but human inner representations as well, are illusions, unless you train yourself to look for the inner layer and decide to gradually go deeper into reality.

That is precisely what superficial or manic minds cannot grasp, thus hate and argue about: 'deeper into reality'.

Now about when, what, how, why, nay, don't, who cares? Assholes care about things because they feel threatened by the unknown, so they gather outsider arguments and fight it, but they will never have any idea what they're fighting against.

Serious people experiment before arguing.

quote:Originally posted by ilbastardoh:

can't any of you believe in yourselves instead of someone else, I mean how do you know the advice that was hardly adequate 2000 years ago is adequate now,

<cough> Don't you think this might be the reason the Buddha's deathbed instructions were not to believe anything any teacher [including himself] said unless it accorded with your own reason and common sense?

So harshly dogmatic....

What number five said.

Buddhism doesn't have a deity. The Buddha (Siddhartha Guatama) isn't a god. He was a teacher, who basically said "See for yourself". Kinda hard to argue with that.

And if you fail to see, there are several worlds ranging from a little harsh ro boring to horrificly torturous awaiting you.

quote:Originally posted by Spirit of '22:

And if you fail to see, there are several worlds ranging from a little harsh ro boring to horrificly torturous awaiting you.

Yeah, that Buddhist Inquisition can be tough, they take no prisoners.....

I'm talking about their idea of Hells, idiot, whose existence contradicts the sappy new-age liberal asshole trend to say Buddhism does not have rewards and punishments, maaaaaan.

Hell exists in some of the myriad varieties of Buddhism. It's not a unified religion. Besides, I'm pretty sure most of `em believe in reincarnation.

There are I believe Nine Hells. You go for an extended period of time, until you are purged of anything bad. Like Purgatory.

quote:Originally posted by Spirit of '22:

There are I believe Nine Hells. You go for an extended period of time, until you are purged of anything bad. Like Purgatory.

Nine! http://www.totse.com/bbs/eek.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/eek.gif) Where did you come by that belief?

...Buddhism, idiot. Remember? Point of the thread?

quote:Originally posted by Spirit of '22:

...Buddhism, idiot. Remember? Point of the thread?

When people speak badly of you, you should respond in this way: Keep a steady heart and don't reply with harsh words. Practice letting go of resentment and accepting that the other's hostility is the spur to your understanding. Be kind, adopt a generous standpoint, treat your enemy as a friend, and suffuse all your world with affectionate thoughts, far-reaching and widespread, limitless and free from hate. In this state you should try to remain.

-Dhammapada

From "Buddha Speaks," edited by Anne Bancroft, 2000. Reprinted by arrangement with Shambhala Publications, Boston, www.shambhala.com. (http://www.shambhala.com.)



[This message has been edited by redzed (edited 06-05-2003).]

"If you want respect in this world, carry a big knife, and know when to use it."

-Allesandro Mussolini

quote:Originally posted by Spirit of '22:

"If you want respect in this world, carry a big knife, and know when to use it."

-Allesandro Mussolini

Your on a BBS Jackass

I musta made a wrong turn then. I appreciate the heads up.

Allesandro and Benito... kinda like Vader and Skywalker, don't you think?

I dont follow... It was his dad though.

The old man was an old-style socialist, and the son rejected it. It ain't exactly the dark side, but you could imagine the wookies as the partisans to make it work for you.

lol. I love Star Wars.

So in fact this was to become a thread on fascism.?.

Anyway:

Buddhism. the question is not about dogma, but as initiates understand, about logical and/or experimental insights in wider reality.

Reincarnation is a sound hypothesis unless you're too closely western-minded and follow some cultural taboo against it. Reincarnation can explain why good people suffered and evil monsters prospered.

Hell is not like in xian myth: it is what you designed for yourself, some kind of a spiritual causality. Very logical too. So youre bothered to call it hell, it pulls unrelevant cultural references? Call it else.

The point is, "nothing is created, nothing disappears, everything gets transformed" (French physician Lavoisier's empirical law) is also valid hypothesis for the wider realm.

So if you do shit, you end up paying for it.

Not because some Dante wrote it, Dante was just an initiate rendering the allegory of causality within human soul, and by extension, in some hellish hypothesis.

If you see skulls on buddhist tangas, it doesn't mean they are obsessed with death, just these drawings and others, of demons and creations, represent the various ways illusions can be rendered. So we live in a world of illusion, and we are surrounded by (skulls and skelettons) illusions.

And in any tradition, the only problem if you see evil or stupid stuff is: what you see is what you are. Evolve...

(of course there are lots of newagey noobs who just buy the sweetened, commercial versions of tradition, but that doesn't mean tradition is corrupt by nature.)