Non believers who love Brokeback Mountain

[tfferg]

Well, they are all canvassing for the votes of the religious, of whom there must be enough even in a largley secular-minded society to be important in elections.

[tfferg]

Article from the UK on how the "New Atheists" have got it wrong, misunderstanding religiosity and provoking a stronger religious reaction.

http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/atheists-win-a-battle-but-may-lose-the-war-20100405-rn09.html

[tfferg]

Trouble in Paradise
Why are Americans so credulous about heaven?
[/b

Article reviewing a book on the history of the idea of heaven


http://www.slate.com/id/2249657/

[Jer009]

"The Buddha" is to be shown on PBS tonight.

(snip)

The Buddha never claimed to be God, or his emissary on earth. He said only that in a world of unavoidable pain and suffering, he had found a serenity which others could find too. In our own bewildering times of violent change and spiritual confusion, the Buddha’s teachings have particular relevance.”

http://www.pbs.org/thebuddha/program/

http://www.pbs.org/thebuddha/

[Sandy]

While true, it is also true that the Buddha lived in a time and culture that accepted as a matter of course that there were gods, thousands upon thousands of them. Also, through the doctrine of karma, many Buddhists accept a "qualified" form of immortality, namely possible rebirth(s). Against the cycle of rebirths, which the Buddha treated as merely another form of suffering, he posed the Middle Path to extinguish attachments.

The Theravada school of Sri Lanka and Thailand tends not to place as much emphasis on divinities as does the Mahayana school, such as Tibetan Buddhism.

[tfferg]

The Buddha regarded gods as irrelevant to the problem of suffering and the solution in the understanding and practice of the Middle Way. I think he may have suggested that the gods too were subject to karma and have not yet attained enlightenment.

Here in Theravada Buddhist Thailand, there are monks and lay people who practice meditation and/or study the Tripitaka, but most people seem to behave as if the Buddha were something like a god and practise all sorts of rituals that would seem to have little or nothing to do with the Buddha's teachings. They do this to make merit in the hope of being reborn in a better future life. Most people don't aim to attain enlightenment in this life. Many people do practise Buddhist virtues and Thais are generally tolerant people who value calmness and kindness.

I have met men who have spent up to a year as monks and found they seem to have learned little of the Buddha's teachings. For Thai men, ordaining temporarily as monk for a few months is a rite of passage they traditionally undergo before they marry. (Thai civil servants can take ordainment leave from work.) A man who han't ordained as a monk for a while is considered unripe for marriage and adult responsibilities. Young Thai men also undergo the ritual of ordaining to make merit which they transfer to their mothers.  Women in Theravada Thailand cannot ordain as monks or nuns - the excuse of the male monks being that the lineage of female monks has died out, so there is no woman qualified to ordain other women. Families organize great parties for days and nights when a son ordains and therei s usually copious consumption of alcohol and the procession carrying the gorgeously arrayed ordinands to the temple may include people swigging whisk from bottles!

Many rituals Thais who think of themselves as Buddhist perform are Hindu or Brahminic and even animist rather than Buddhist.

Many urban, middle-class Thai are attracted to a recent popular branch of Buddhism that preaches somethg lke Heaven rather than practice toward attaining nirvana. There's a great deal of emphasis on fund-raising.

[jnov]

in The Story of India by Michael Wood, he states the the reason buddhism, although originating in india, did not "take" there was precisely because of the existence of so many gods.  buddha preached a non-god (my words) path and most indians just couldn't or wouldn't give up their beloved gods to follow buddha.  hence why it did take so well in china, a country that did not have a tradition of god-centered religion.

[tfferg]

Buddhism was widespread in India for some centuries. And it did influence a reform movement within Hinduism. Vaishnavites recognize the Buddha as one of the avatars of Vishnu, along with Ramam, Krishna and others.

In our own times, many Indians who are stiill  what used to be called the Untouchables (since termed Scheduled Castes, Dalits, etc), outcasts of the Hindu caste system even though Indian law since Independence has forbidden discrimination against them, have adopted Buddhism.

[Jer009]

I haven't watched the PBS program about The Buddha; it's on my DVR and I plan to watch it soon. However, Buddhism is constantly referred to as a religion, when I consider it to be  a philosophy or a psychology of how the mind works.

 This in contrast to how the brain works, although there is great deal of overlap between the two. It's very difficult to tease out where the brain's activity ends and where the mind begins. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's work on flow and the field Psychoneuroimmunology (PNI) in illness, as well as continuing research in neuroscience and related fields is showing the way. It may simply be that it's all biological, and the mind is something the brain does, and the whole fascinating activity of consciousness ends when the brain does. As an agnostic, I'm open to continuing information, as long as it's based on science, rather than allegations from holy books that must be taken on faith.

As far as Buddhism, I object to aspects of Tibetan Buddhism, with it's prayer wheels and flags and such. I'm much more in line with the approach in Stephen Batchelor's Buddhism Without Beliefs: A Contemporary Guide to Awakening:

http://www.amazon.com/Buddhism-Without-Beliefs-Contemporary-Awakening/dp/1573226564/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1270741010&sr=1-1

Atheist author Sam Harris is a regular meditator, as well as a  student of neurology. All of these things taken together make me feel I'm heading in the right direction.

  

[Rob in Puyallup]

I've had a bit of experience here in the Seattle area with Buddhism. I used to "sit" at a beautiful traditional Korean Son (Zen) temple in Tacoma, called Seu Mi Sa ( http://www.flickr.com/photos/leicabokeh/3464195645/ ) then briefly got involved with a "Buddhist Institute".

Zen is very "non-religious", while the institute went from non-religious Buddhism to worshiping Ksitigharbha, the "Earth Store" Bodhisattva.

[Rob in Puyallup]

Another "fan" of Stephen Batchelor here, Jer!

[Jer009]

Zen is very "non-religious", while the institute went from non-religious Buddhism to worshiping Ksitigharbha, the "Earth Store" Bodhisattva.

I've read about Zen, chiefly Suzuki's, "Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind", but the paradoxes so beloved in Zen put me off somewhat. As far as worshiping any deity, however it's explained, that's something I'm not interested in.

Buddhism, mindfulness and meditation are large subjects! Thanks for your comments, Rob.

[Jer009]

How carbon dioxide in the blood could be responsible for near-death experiences

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1264385/CO2-link-near-death-experiences-Is-carbon-dioxide-blood-responsible.html#ixzz0kXbRJf0R

[Petrus Christus]

How carbon dioxide in the blood could be responsible for near-death experiences.
 
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1264385/CO2-link-near-death-experiences-Is-carbon-dioxide-blood-responsible.html#ixzz0kXbRJf0R

   This theory has been in circulation for some time now.
 
 Identifying CO2 as a causative agent in this case does not work toward demystifying death.
    We know of 'near-death experiences', we also know of what are termed 'after-life experiences'.
 
 To find that carbon dioxide might be responsible for what are termed near-death experiences, does not thereby unequivocally limit its function as a cause of 
in extremis delusions.  For those who believe in the immortality of the spirit, it might also be postulated that it functions as a natural key that unlocks the human spirit from the cocoon of the body.
  I must say here that this transition from mortal to immortal, being an evolutionary fact, holds true for believers as well as non-believers.

  Be advised, I am not alluding to any afterlife notion of 'Heaven' or 'Hell', for that at this point, is immaterial.

  PC/zad

[tfferg]

I haven't watched the PBS program about The Buddha; it's on my DVR and I plan to watch it soon. However, Buddhism is constantly referred to as a religion, when I consider it to be  a philosophy or a psychology of how the mind works.
  

I agree that the teachings of the Buddha are very much centred on practical psychology - understanding how the mind works and how to free ourselves from what he calls suffering and there are Buddhists these days who practise meditation and daily life on that basis.

However, there are millions of people who do practise Buddhism much more as a religion - who worship a supernatural Buddha and bodhisattvas who they believe can save them.