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Why does religion make sense only to humans, and not other intelligent life forms?
by nsxwolf 12y ago
Why does religion make sense only to humans, and not other intelligent life forms?
- ekianjo 12y agoBecause religion is a human creation, and all our holy texts are very human centric (and barely regard animals as anything else than food, while we now know that tons of animals have a great deal of consciousness and emotions similar to humans). EDIT: Just to make things clear, I'm not saying that God does not exist, but what I'm saying is that the system derived from that belief (i.e. religion) is very much created by humans and for humans.
- hyp0 12y agoBuddhism includes reincarnation as animals
- ekianjo 12y agoI was waiting for that one. But animals are just vessels for humans souls while waiting for another reincarnation, as far as I understand. So animals are not given much soul on their own.
- krageon 12y agoPut another way: "animals are vessels for souls while waiting for reincarnation". It now applies to everything souls (possibly) reincarnate into, while still being true. I think that viewed in this way, it is obvious that the Buddhist concept of a soul is not human centric. The soul would be an entity trying to escape a cycle of reincarnation (and one of the potential candidates for reincarnation is a human). Aliens could fit right in there as just another vessel.
- _sword 12y agoIf I recall correctly (and this depends somewhat on the school of Buddhism), all sentient beings are thought to have the potential to attain enlightenment by virtue of possessing Buddha nature. People can be reborn as animals and animals can be reborn as people. As I recall there isn't really the concept of animals being "containers." Instead, they're sentient beings that could be people from past lives or could be animals progressing through the cycles of death and rebirth.
- ekianjo 12y agoSo why are not all Buddhists vegetarian then ?
- _sword 12y agoIt depends on the school of Buddhism. What I wrote about mostly comes from my readings of Mahayana Buddhist texts. As I recall, Mahayana Buddhism generally requires a vegetarian diet. I don't remember Theravada thought as well, but a quick search online is telling me that it allows meat eating but with a number of rules (and differing interpretations of those rules). "In three cases meat may not be eaten by a monk if he has : (1) seen (2) heard, or (3) suspected that the meat has been especially acquired for him by killing an animal (i.e. the animal has been killed specifically for the monk). This rule is called the Rule of Tikotiparisuddha (Pure in Three Ways). However, the meat of the following ten beings is forbidden to be eaten by the monks : human, elephant, horse, dog, snake, lion, tiger, leopard, bear, and hyena. (Vinaya, Mahavagga, Book 4)" http://www.dhammasara.webs.com/JivakaSutta.html http://www.dhammasara.webs.com/JivakaSutta.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhist_vegetarianism#Views_of_different_schools http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhist_vegetarianism#Views_of...
- hawleyal 12y agoThis is only our perception. Other creatures could have created their own mythology.
- ekianjo 12y agoYeah, and their alien mythology would be alien-centric just like our religion is human centric.
- gpvos 12y agoIndeed, and it's interesting to speculate what the similarities and differences would be. Since they will likely also have evolved in a Darwinian way, I think there will be more similarities than differences. Although, like the article says, if they have evolved further and especially if they uploaded their minds into computers, it might have become something rather different.
- hawleyal 12y agoI would say that religion is cultural, and doesn't really have anything to do with evolution.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- terhechte 12y agoI think he was referring to our human religions that we came up with.