6 ms·

Religion is a smoke screen. Does it matter if you chop bits off your kids "because a book told me to" or "because my mom told me to"? All religions are silly r

by MrPatan 11y ago

Religion is a smoke screen. Does it matter if you chop bits off your kids "because a book told me to" or "because my mom told me to"? All religions are silly ridiculous relics. Let's stop talking about them. The problem is the culture as a whole. Does it work? Or does it not work? The way to know if a culture works is to look at migration patterns. People leave cultures that don't work and go to better cultures. But people from shitty cultures are still people, so this obvious enormous fact goes completely unnoticed. They are not going to accept so easily that their culture is not good. It takes generations. Or it _took_ generations. Now it may not happen at all, because some people pride themselves on respecting and _preserving_ other people's silly cultures, instead of just respecting the people.

gotchange 11y ago
Migration patterns, really? People have been migrating from everywhere even from the west to the Gulf countries for quite some time now. Does this make their culture any better than any of the migrants'? Of course not as national wealth and net immigration numbers are not relevant in this discussion.
wordbank 11y ago
> All religions are silly ridiculous relics. Let's stop talking about them. Why generalize? How about the core parts of Buddhism that are literally a checklist on how to calm your mind. And the same methods are used by modern psychotherapy as "cognitive behavioural therapy" and "mindfulness".
- smokeyj 11y ago
  It's like tradition. You don't say it's tradition to eat dinner - because there's a clear and logical reason why. Meditation has empirical benefits. Meditation is good. If you believe you have to meditate to not go to flaming eternal hell, that's religion. So I'd argue, keep the logic, drop the religion.
  - wordbank 11y ago
    > If you believe you have to meditate to not go to flaming eternal hell, that's religion. Buddhist "hell" is purely logical, there're no concepts in vanilla Buddhism that are not logical. You're not getting to hell for "not meditating". The hell is not eternal and you will go out of it eventually when you'll get better understanding of the universe. You're going to hell not because some god or Buddha say so but because the universe works that way: angry and violent mindstreams flow into worse states until they realize they should stop behave like they do. For people who're opposite to the idea of any other worlds but their own, there's a view that "hell" is just a state of unbalanced mind and not some kind of dimension for your afterlife.
    - smokeyj 11y ago
      If Budhism is simply a pragmatic and empirical guide to happiness, is it really a religion?
      - wordbank 11y ago
        Yes, because it have become an institution and transformed into rules of society in many countries. Many people are using it as a cargo cult without studying its philosophy and many monks are behaving in non-mindful ways. The teaching and the religion around it are like science and public knowledge about it. Of course many people know some laws of physics but not everyone is capable of building a rocket.
        smokeyj 11y ago
        Not that they're very distinguishable but that sounds more like a government than a religion.
mherkender 11y ago
Blaming culture is easy, because it lets you ignore history. Islam was once the height of civilization, but it fell apart because the Mongol empire was within range.
ue_ 11y ago
>All religions are silly ridiculous relics. Let's stop talking about them. You can't actually reliably say this without first going through every religion and telling us how ridiculous you find it. But I'm not really bothered about every religion. Out of interest, what's ridiculous about Buddhism, and how are you going to quantify the ridiculousness? Your argument doesn't work as well with Buddhism. It works to an extent (there are repressive Buddhist monks etc.) If I lived near a Buddhist (or Christian) monastery, chances are that I'd respect it, and I would wish to preserve it. I'd even offer up for an alms round. After all, they do no harm to me. Note that I'm only picking Buddhism because it's a religion I'm relatively familiar with. I don't know enough about Christianity (the largest religion in the world, which doesn't even advocate circumcision) to argue the point on Christianity.
- jordanpg 11y ago
  Litmus test: does it make any supernatural claims? Yes? Silly, ridiculous relic. Buddhism? Yes. Silly, ridiculous relic. Please don't bore us with the usual equivocating about how Buddhism is different, and complex, highly personal, etc. Are there helpful aspects to Buddhist beliefs? Maybe. But it's still Bronze Age philosophy with plenty of supernatural claptrap mixed in. I'm not aware of any useful aspects of Buddhism that don't have a purely secular equivalent.
  - ue_ 11y ago
    >does it make any supernatural claims? Yes? Silly, ridiculous relic. Not everyone views the world from an empiricist or materialist atheistic viewpoint. I don't think it's nice to say something is ridiculous simply because you don't see it that way. Further, many followers of religion wouldn't say it's supernatural at all - it's part of nature that hasn't been uncovered, or it can't be uncovered. >Please don't bore us with the usual equivocating about how Buddhism is different, and complex, highly personal, etc. Buddhism is largely different from other religions, first and foremost that it doesn't mandate the worship of a god, and further can be interpreted in such a way that can dispense with most of what you see as supernatural. Secondly, for it's "find out yourself" nature that encourages questioning and going beyond the realm of logical thinking. And it is highly personal - it's got the idea that you have to be the one to set yourself on the path. You can't be saved by someone simply by praying etc. >I'm not aware of any useful aspects of Buddhism that don't have a purely secular equivalent. Buddhists are aware of one - it's called Nibbana - and it can only be realized by following the Noble Eightfold Path, which I will say relies heavily on the idea of kamma and "supernatural" ideas. Please do not be so dismissive.
jordanpg 11y ago
The most important lesson to learn from all this is that so long as we live in a world where grownups can publicly use religious beliefs as a justification for serious decisions, we will also have to live with other people with guns using religion to rationalize their crazy actions, too. We simply have no grounds on which to tell them they're wrong. The solution is, as you say, to stop talking about them.

by MrPatan 11y ago

gotchange 11y ago

Migration patterns, really? People have been migrating from everywhere even from the west to the Gulf countries for quite some time now. Does this make their culture any better than any of the migrants'? Of course not as national wealth and net immigration numbers are not relevant in this discussion.

wordbank 11y ago

> All religions are silly ridiculous relics. Let's stop talking about them. Why generalize? How about the core parts of Buddhism that are literally a checklist on how to calm your mind. And the same methods are used by modern psychotherapy as "cognitive behavioural therapy" and "mindfulness".

smokeyj 11y ago
It's like tradition. You don't say it's tradition to eat dinner - because there's a clear and logical reason why. Meditation has empirical benefits. Meditation is good. If you believe you have to meditate to not go to flaming eternal hell, that's religion. So I'd argue, keep the logic, drop the religion.
- wordbank 11y ago
  > If you believe you have to meditate to not go to flaming eternal hell, that's religion. Buddhist "hell" is purely logical, there're no concepts in vanilla Buddhism that are not logical. You're not getting to hell for "not meditating". The hell is not eternal and you will go out of it eventually when you'll get better understanding of the universe. You're going to hell not because some god or Buddha say so but because the universe works that way: angry and violent mindstreams flow into worse states until they realize they should stop behave like they do. For people who're opposite to the idea of any other worlds but their own, there's a view that "hell" is just a state of unbalanced mind and not some kind of dimension for your afterlife.
  - smokeyj 11y ago
    If Budhism is simply a pragmatic and empirical guide to happiness, is it really a religion?
    - wordbank 11y ago
      Yes, because it have become an institution and transformed into rules of society in many countries. Many people are using it as a cargo cult without studying its philosophy and many monks are behaving in non-mindful ways. The teaching and the religion around it are like science and public knowledge about it. Of course many people know some laws of physics but not everyone is capable of building a rocket.
      - smokeyj 11y ago
        Not that they're very distinguishable but that sounds more like a government than a religion.

mherkender 11y ago

Blaming culture is easy, because it lets you ignore history. Islam was once the height of civilization, but it fell apart because the Mongol empire was within range.

ue_ 11y ago

>All religions are silly ridiculous relics. Let's stop talking about them. You can't actually reliably say this without first going through every religion and telling us how ridiculous you find it. But I'm not really bothered about every religion. Out of interest, what's ridiculous about Buddhism, and how are you going to quantify the ridiculousness? Your argument doesn't work as well with Buddhism. It works to an extent (there are repressive Buddhist monks etc.) If I lived near a Buddhist (or Christian) monastery, chances are that I'd respect it, and I would wish to preserve it. I'd even offer up for an alms round. After all, they do no harm to me. Note that I'm only picking Buddhism because it's a religion I'm relatively familiar with. I don't know enough about Christianity (the largest religion in the world, which doesn't even advocate circumcision) to argue the point on Christianity.

jordanpg 11y ago
Litmus test: does it make any supernatural claims? Yes? Silly, ridiculous relic. Buddhism? Yes. Silly, ridiculous relic. Please don't bore us with the usual equivocating about how Buddhism is different, and complex, highly personal, etc. Are there helpful aspects to Buddhist beliefs? Maybe. But it's still Bronze Age philosophy with plenty of supernatural claptrap mixed in. I'm not aware of any useful aspects of Buddhism that don't have a purely secular equivalent.
- ue_ 11y ago
  >does it make any supernatural claims? Yes? Silly, ridiculous relic. Not everyone views the world from an empiricist or materialist atheistic viewpoint. I don't think it's nice to say something is ridiculous simply because you don't see it that way. Further, many followers of religion wouldn't say it's supernatural at all - it's part of nature that hasn't been uncovered, or it can't be uncovered. >Please don't bore us with the usual equivocating about how Buddhism is different, and complex, highly personal, etc. Buddhism is largely different from other religions, first and foremost that it doesn't mandate the worship of a god, and further can be interpreted in such a way that can dispense with most of what you see as supernatural. Secondly, for it's "find out yourself" nature that encourages questioning and going beyond the realm of logical thinking. And it is highly personal - it's got the idea that you have to be the one to set yourself on the path. You can't be saved by someone simply by praying etc. >I'm not aware of any useful aspects of Buddhism that don't have a purely secular equivalent. Buddhists are aware of one - it's called Nibbana - and it can only be realized by following the Noble Eightfold Path, which I will say relies heavily on the idea of kamma and "supernatural" ideas. Please do not be so dismissive.

jordanpg 11y ago

The most important lesson to learn from all this is that so long as we live in a world where grownups can publicly use religious beliefs as a justification for serious decisions, we will also have to live with other people with guns using religion to rationalize their crazy actions, too. We simply have no grounds on which to tell them they're wrong. The solution is, as you say, to stop talking about them.