Is agnosticism actually atheism without the attitude?

[flamingjimmy]

Likewise, there is no law that logic can only apply to things that don't involve creationism, therefore, science should stop saying that there is no reason to invoke something that can't be understood scientifically,when logically, the universe having always existed without cause is no more likely or comprehensible than God having always existed without cause.

No that is not the case. There is no need to invoke god, that makes the explanation more complex and less likely to be true.

 

Tell me why that is jimmy.

I already did, pages and pages ago, you ignored it. That's why I gave you such a short response this time, because I couldn't be bothered repeating myself. It's not like you'd take it in anyway.

[flamingjimmy]

Because Buddhism is, in general, free of dogma.

 

But that's not to say that millions of Buddhists don't believe in all sorts of silly superstitions.

[Chris_Sleeps]

But that's not to say that millions of Buddhists don't believe in all sorts of silly superstitions.

Is it in Buddha's teachings? I'm not that informed on it really. I know little bits, and Zen is what I've looked into the most. Tibetan Buddhism values the Daily Larma too highly, and the South Asian versions are odd. Thailand has an odd strain of it that could be religious.

 

I'd've called myself a buddhist a few years ago, but looking back I was ill informed. I never was. I don't want to follow the path to enlightenment. I don't believe in reincarnation, or Nirvana. I do however hold with the idea of Dukkha, that all life is suffering. I find that rational.

[quisquose]

No that is not the case. There is no need to invoke god, that makes the explanation more complex and less likely to be true.

 

Hypothesis 1. There has always been something

 

Observation: Something (which we know is possible).

 

Hypothesis 2. God creates something from nothing

 

Observation: Something; resulting from

 

God (which we don’t know is possible) + Nothing (which we don’t know is possible)

 

Where did God come from? God God? Infinite regress? If something can be eternal, then go back to Hypothesis 1.

[flamingjimmy]

Is it in Buddha's teachings? I'm not that informed on it really. I know little bits, and Zen is what I've looked into the most. Tibetan Buddhism values the Daily Larma too highly, and the South Asian versions are odd. Thailand has an odd strain of it that could be religious.

I'm no expert either, I remember exploring Buddhism in my teens, after being told it's different to all other religions, and found all sorts of sillyness I didn't like.

 

The form of Buddhism that took root in the west from the 17th to 19th centuries was by necessity completely focused on a small portion of specific Buddhist texts from the Pali canon. The West's idea of Buddhism derived only from this partial view of some texts, divorced from their cultural context. Buddhism was interpreted as an intellectual, rational, philosophical religion based on mental development3. This was not a true representation of Buddhism. It is as if a historian stumbles across a particularly legalistic fourth-century Christian treaty, and uses it to form his statements about the entire religion. It was in this context that the first western Buddhist centres were created.

 

It took hundreds of years before an explosion of texts and material became available that exposed true Buddhist diversity and we have now accumulated a vast knowledge of different scriptures and traditions in Buddhism4. Yet what did we do? We continued to study the high-brow stuff that had interested us before. "Within the vast array of textual material, some texts resonate more easily with western ideas of rationality than others. It has often been translations of these texts that receive wide attention while the more esoteric or apparently irrational texts have, until recently, been largely ignored or dismissed"3

 

Source

 

I'd've called myself a buddhist a few years ago, but looking back I was ill informed. I never was. I don't want to follow the path to enlightenment. I don't believe in reincarnation, or Nirvana. I do however hold with the idea of Dukkha, that all life is suffering. I find that rational.

Sorry for all the cut and paste, but what I want to say has already been said better by people more in the know than me. Here's a testimony from a self proclaimed sceptic Buddhist:

 

Most Buddhists, however, are not skeptics. They literally believe in the metaphysical baggage of Buddhism, which is different, better or worse, dependent on the tradition. They also frequently claim that the metaphysical aspects to Buddhism are critical to the belief system as a whole.

 

Some of the outstanding claims made by Buddhists:

-Enlightened monks can gain supernatural powers, such as telepathy, telekinesis, teleportation, levitation, immortality, invulnerability, and just about anything, really.

 

-When you die, you literally go to one of six realms (the lowest realm is hell, though it's not eternal) based upon your karma. If you're a Buddhist, you're never reborn as anything less than a human.

 

-About karma -- everything you do impacts your future life, not in the sense that your choices make the world a better place, but like, giving somebody the middle-finger when they cut you off in traffic might make you stub your toe. Or, as another example, schizophrenics are people who are paying for the "past karma" of taxing intoxicants in a previous life.

 

-Certain chants and mantras (such the Tibetan "Om mani padme hum") can bring about positive effects on the world.

 

-There are frequently said to be supernatural beings, such as gods (kamis in Japan), dragons, faeries, ogres, demons, spirits, ghosts, and dwarves.

 

-In Tibetan Buddhism, there is the idea that there are enlightened people who voluntarily choose to come back to Earth after death to help other people. They are called "tulkus." I.E., the Dalai Lama is the God of Compassion, who has come in the form of several different human bodies over several centuries now. Steven Seagal has also been confirmed as a tulku, though he has no official position in Tibetan Buddhim. Tulkus are sometimes confirmed through the previous tulku leaving a note with an ambiguous "clue" as to where he'll be reincarnated. The main sign, though, is that the person (usually a child) is familiar with the dead man's possessions and recognizes people that knew him.

 

Now obviously, I'm sure you will agree this is patent nonsense.

 

Many westerners, though, perhaps even atheists and skeptics might think that eastern religion isn't prone to the same kind of irrational dogmatism or that they don't have corrupt clergymen like we do. It simply isn't true.

 

The Buddha was unique in having a wonderful teaching of critical thought:

 

"Believe nothing, no matter where you read it or who has said it, not even if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own sense of reason and your own common sense."

 

-Buddha

 

However, Buddhists and monastics do not seem to agree with this (or perhaps I'm the one who is in error!) because when you question the metaphysics, they assert that you need to "investigate more."

 

source

[Chris_Sleeps]

-In Tibetan Buddhism, there is the idea that there are enlightened people who voluntarily choose to come back to Earth after death to help other people. They are called "tulkus." I.E., the Dalai Lama is the God of Compassion, who has come in the form of several different human bodies over several centuries now.

I've heard that idea before, called a Bodhisattva. A being who doesn't achieve Enlightenment in order to help others on their path.

 

There is the vast problem with Eastern Religions in that they are hard to translate into a western context. I've read a wonderful essay by Russell on the subject.

[RootsBooster]

science should stop saying that there is no reason to invoke something that can't be understood scientifically.

 

Why, what reason is there to invoke it?

[RootsBooster]

-In Tibetan Buddhism, there is the idea that there are enlightened people who voluntarily choose to come back to Earth after death to help other people. They are called "tulkus." I.E., the Dalai Lama is the God of Compassion, who has come in the form of several different human bodies over several centuries now. Steven Seagal has also been confirmed as a tulku, though he has no official position in Tibetan Buddhim. Tulkus are sometimes confirmed through the previous tulku leaving a note with an ambiguous "clue" as to where he'll be reincarnated. The main sign, though, is that the person (usually a child) is familiar with the dead man's possessions and recognizes people that knew him.

 

source

 

Heheh, excellent find Jimmy!

[Chris_Sleeps]

I'm no expert either, I remember exploring Buddhism in my teens, after being told it's different to all other religions, and found all sorts of sillyness I didn't like.

Do you like Alan Watts? He wrote on Buddhism from a western perspective.

 

[flamingjimmy]

Do you like Alan Watts? He wrote on Buddhism from a western perspective.

I've heard of him, but I'm not familiar with his philosophy, and sorry but I couldn't watch that video because of the extremely annoying animations and music.