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> It's not a religion, it's a framework that other religions have taken on. Same can be said about the Torah, the teachings of Jesus and Muhammad. Each has a p

by Iv 7y ago

> It's not a religion, it's a framework that other religions have taken on. Same can be said about the Torah, the teachings of Jesus and Muhammad. Each has a plethora of religions built on top of them, that we group into big families (Judaism, Christianity, Islam) despite some members of these families having tried to kill each other for centuries. I think that what makes Buddhism a bit apart is that it is also a framework several people use to build atheistic, humanist philosophies. It is less common (but used to be two centuries ago) to do the same with Christianity. There are also Jews who reject the belief in God and many religious parts of the Talmud but still follow many tenets of judaism for a variety of philosophical reasons. Living in Asia, seeing the more cultish aspect traditional Buddhism can have, made it harder for me to see it as a kind of special religion, rather than one that is exotic enough to westerners so that they can transform it into a modern philosophy.

tim333 7y ago
I think Buddhism is special for atheistic, humanist philosophies in that the foundational writings didn't go on about God. Of course people may have tacked stuff on subsequently. The Torah, the teachings of Jesus and Muhammad on the other hand all recognise Genesis and "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth..."
- ghthor 7y ago
  The torah as commonly translated does, but there is an interesting work from a physicist that brings a very atheistic/geometric translation of the torah to light that has been blowing my mind. https://youtu.be/OJGW2UANWRE https://youtu.be/OJGW2UANWRE
  - stallmanite 7y ago
    Thanks for the oddball YouTube link. Love finding gold with <300 views.
- Iv 7y ago
  Many Buddhist texts are full of supernatural claims about afterlife, the worlds of demons and devas, about prayers opening the earth to see flowers giving you the text of Buddha, that sort of things. Thinking Buddhism focuses on the philosophical parts is like cherry-picking Proverbs from the bible. Buddhism also has its own nonsensical cosmology [1]. We just don't care too much about it in the West. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhist_cosmology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhist_cosmology
  - tim333 7y ago
    I meant the accounts of what Buddha himself taught seem to steer clear of God. eg in the article: >when asked abstract metaphysical questions, such as whether the world is eternal, whether the soul is different from the body, or what happens to a liberated person (tathāgata) after death and so on, Gotama stays silent, or points out that he has set these subjects aside he seems to stick to the observable basics. Though as mentioned, of course people may have tacked stuff on subsequently.
brigandish 7y ago
I also live in and have lived around Asia, and I won't deny that there are aspects of the Buddhisms there that are full of the kind of nonsense you can see in any other religion (or pretty much anything humans touch) but that doesn't make any part of Buddhism, i.e. the 4 Noble Truths, a religion or having any of those aspects. It's quite clearly a framework (a set of observations, philsophies and methods applied to a particular domain) that is at once abstract enough to be pluggable yet comes with an initial implementation (thanks, Buddha). To labour the point I made earlier (somewhat), I can build you a terrible database using 4th normal form, that is called upon by a web framework using any number of patterns like the Active Record or Data Mapper patterns, pushed into an MVC pattern that is full of tacked on bits that make no sense (if you know what you're doing) and spewed out into an utter mess of a web page, but that wouldn't make 4th normal form bad, or MVC etc or the framework encompasing them a bad thing. Zen Buddhism (Daoism + vestiges of Indian Buddhism) is not Theravada Buddism (Indian Buddhism) is not Tibetan Buddhism (Bon shamanism + Indian Buddhism). It's always spliced into something. Non-Asian Buddhism does the same thing but often bringing in the extraneous parts tacked on. Where, for example, is there any doctrine in the 4 Noble Truths? Any part that says you need a guru? Any part that says to follow a book or a god (or gods) or the need to chant…? It simply doesn't have any of those things.
- Iv 7y ago
  Huh, what are the 4 noble truths if not a doctrine that instructs people to go towards the 8 paths? And if you chose to dismiss the religious and cultish parts, you can also find a lot of value in Jesus teaching about unconditional love and about inner spiritual discipline. I have no qualms in people using a cleaned up religion as a source for spiritual growth, and will agree that Buddhism has many features that makes it particularly friendly, like its focus on non-violence, but don't be mistaken in what you are doing in the process. It is still a typical religion that has little inherent reason to be more sensible than any other source. All its advices have to stand on their own merit.
  - brigandish 7y ago
    > what are the 4 noble truths if not a doctrine that instructs people to go towards the 8 paths? A doctrine is a belief of set of beliefs, not a set of premises or propositions for investigation nor a set of practices. For example, a hypothesis is not a doctrine, nor is the scientific method. Prince2, PMP, Scrum, Lean, Six Sigma et al are also not doctrines. The 8-fold path is an alternative breakdown of one of the truths (the last one, presented - as all are - as "truth" because under examination/usage they should be shown to be correct), not separate. Nowhere within the 4 or the 8 is there any requirement for belief or adherence to any authority in the form of a being or creed.

by Iv 7y ago

tim333 7y ago

I think Buddhism is special for atheistic, humanist philosophies in that the foundational writings didn't go on about God. Of course people may have tacked stuff on subsequently. The Torah, the teachings of Jesus and Muhammad on the other hand all recognise Genesis and "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth..."

ghthor 7y ago
The torah as commonly translated does, but there is an interesting work from a physicist that brings a very atheistic/geometric translation of the torah to light that has been blowing my mind. https://youtu.be/OJGW2UANWRE https://youtu.be/OJGW2UANWRE
- stallmanite 7y ago
  Thanks for the oddball YouTube link. Love finding gold with <300 views.
Iv 7y ago
Many Buddhist texts are full of supernatural claims about afterlife, the worlds of demons and devas, about prayers opening the earth to see flowers giving you the text of Buddha, that sort of things. Thinking Buddhism focuses on the philosophical parts is like cherry-picking Proverbs from the bible. Buddhism also has its own nonsensical cosmology [1]. We just don't care too much about it in the West. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhist_cosmology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhist_cosmology
- tim333 7y ago
  I meant the accounts of what Buddha himself taught seem to steer clear of God. eg in the article: >when asked abstract metaphysical questions, such as whether the world is eternal, whether the soul is different from the body, or what happens to a liberated person (tathāgata) after death and so on, Gotama stays silent, or points out that he has set these subjects aside he seems to stick to the observable basics. Though as mentioned, of course people may have tacked stuff on subsequently.

brigandish 7y ago

I also live in and have lived around Asia, and I won't deny that there are aspects of the Buddhisms there that are full of the kind of nonsense you can see in any other religion (or pretty much anything humans touch) but that doesn't make any part of Buddhism, i.e. the 4 Noble Truths, a religion or having any of those aspects. It's quite clearly a framework (a set of observations, philsophies and methods applied to a particular domain) that is at once abstract enough to be pluggable yet comes with an initial implementation (thanks, Buddha). To labour the point I made earlier (somewhat), I can build you a terrible database using 4th normal form, that is called upon by a web framework using any number of patterns like the Active Record or Data Mapper patterns, pushed into an MVC pattern that is full of tacked on bits that make no sense (if you know what you're doing) and spewed out into an utter mess of a web page, but that wouldn't make 4th normal form bad, or MVC etc or the framework encompasing them a bad thing. Zen Buddhism (Daoism + vestiges of Indian Buddhism) is not Theravada Buddism (Indian Buddhism) is not Tibetan Buddhism (Bon shamanism + Indian Buddhism). It's always spliced into something. Non-Asian Buddhism does the same thing but often bringing in the extraneous parts tacked on. Where, for example, is there any doctrine in the 4 Noble Truths? Any part that says you need a guru? Any part that says to follow a book or a god (or gods) or the need to chant…? It simply doesn't have any of those things.

Iv 7y ago
Huh, what are the 4 noble truths if not a doctrine that instructs people to go towards the 8 paths? And if you chose to dismiss the religious and cultish parts, you can also find a lot of value in Jesus teaching about unconditional love and about inner spiritual discipline. I have no qualms in people using a cleaned up religion as a source for spiritual growth, and will agree that Buddhism has many features that makes it particularly friendly, like its focus on non-violence, but don't be mistaken in what you are doing in the process. It is still a typical religion that has little inherent reason to be more sensible than any other source. All its advices have to stand on their own merit.
- brigandish 7y ago
  > what are the 4 noble truths if not a doctrine that instructs people to go towards the 8 paths? A doctrine is a belief of set of beliefs, not a set of premises or propositions for investigation nor a set of practices. For example, a hypothesis is not a doctrine, nor is the scientific method. Prince2, PMP, Scrum, Lean, Six Sigma et al are also not doctrines. The 8-fold path is an alternative breakdown of one of the truths (the last one, presented - as all are - as "truth" because under examination/usage they should be shown to be correct), not separate. Nowhere within the 4 or the 8 is there any requirement for belief or adherence to any authority in the form of a being or creed.