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this post was submitted on 05 Oct 2023
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People will fetishize anything and use anything to justify violence.
Buddhist practitioners can be as dogmatic as Christians, but having been brought up as one and studied the other extensively, Buddhism is not a religion in the Western sense of the word.
In fact there's many teachings on avoiding dogmatic views in both ancient and modern Buddhism. Because dogmatism brings about the exact suffering we're talking about.
Yes, Buddhists are as failable as anyone else. But the heart of the dharma begins with right view, which essentially means, don't be dogmatic!
Which is the exact opposite of how I was brought up in a Christian family.
Every religion claims that. Christians will tell you it is a lifestyle and a relationship. Jews will tell you it is a religion and culture. Buddhists will claim to be a philosophy and a mindset. No one wants to admit that they are just another way of doing X.
Of the three you listed only one doesn't follow commandments given by an invisible supernatural entity.
And this exact false equivalence is why Buddhism isn't a religion the way the West uses the word.
Cool we are just going to ignore all the Buddhists gods, like the seven headed snake (commonly depicted as the Buddha of Wednesday afternoon) and Maru. As well as the gods they borrowed along the way like Genash and about a million dead monks. We are also going to ignore all the passages in the Pali where the Siddathrata talks about his past incarnations and how he decided to decided to come to earth one more time to save humanity.
Hey remind me again, in the heart sutra what is the reason Siddathrata gives for the importance of giving gold to monks? I forget. Maybe I forget because he refers to it as a secret mystery.
Go ahead and continue. I want you to tell me more about what half remembered YouTube video from a fourlong secular Buddhist you saw once. I am just going to sit here and sort thru the hundreds of photos I have of me in South East Asia.
I'm only replying to your top paragraph because I sense a lot of hostility in your post and don't have the patience at the moment to wade through it carefully.
Buddhism doesn't extinguish other beliefs when it interacts with them. Nagas (the seven headed snake, who is not a God but more like a spirit, is a naga) already existed in southeast Asia prior to Buddhism. Likewise Genesh is a Hindu diety that already existed in India.
Some Zen Buddhist traditions even go so far as to draw parallels with Christian beliefs in the Kingdom of God and the ultimate dimension (a Buddhist concept for how everything is connected and interdependent).
Finally, I didn't argue that Buddhism doesn't incorporate the idea of spiritual beings (Gods, Demons, they can all be found in most Buddhist traditions). But they're not beings to worship or revere simply on account of their spiritual status. Or to listen too without question like in authoritarian belief systems. So, it's likely your post is a straw man but also possible you misunderstood my position and I didn't communicate clearly enough. Either way, what you're arguing against wasn't my position. (See italics right above and below if you need clarification).
The Buddha said don't take my word. See for yourself. And Buddhism is being incorporated under other names in all sorts of modern psychology practices. Because the shit works and is based on science (investigation of mental phenomenon with an open and unbiased mind) not dogma.
I hope someday you understand the difference. But I can tell by your tone that nothing I can say today will change your mind.
So this post isn't for you. But the silent witnesses on the fence.
Take care.
You are picking and choosing. You choose the few verses where Siddharth told you to verify what he said but you are ignoring the other parts where he instructed a brain breaking meditation practice that if followed would make you believe you grasp it. Nothing new or original. It is basic cult programming. For a man who supposedly demanded that people check his work not a single one of his followers has bothered to critique it in 25 centuries. Or if they did they were buried in a shallow grave somewhere.
Every religion does this. Enough chanting, singing, group activities, repetitions, shaming of heretical thought and eventually you will believe that you have the key to the universe and lo it is exactly the doctrine you were taught! What are the odds that the perfect way to exist just happens to be the way you happened to study?
The greatest extreme is of course in Zen strain. Concentration for endless hours on a paradox, not at all like meditation on the Trinity, right?
Way to deflect btw. As if I don't know what Samsura is. Noticed you didn't answer my question about the Heart Sutra. We both know why.
Basically you can't accept that there really is not much of a difference between the two religions. The Buddha was never just a man, he was a cosmic being that came to earth according to the stories. You are following India's Jesus. Just the Pali itself is twice the length of the KJV Bible and of all those hundreds of pages you pick out a few choice sentences making this celestial being sound a bit sciencey. You ignore all the stuff he got wrong, like his cosmology and geography, and expert shop to find the stuff he got right. You completely brush away the religion itself is practiced and I am firmly convinced that if you went to say Cambodia you would try to correct a monk with an "umm actually".