Hello zinnat, you have been away for quite a while, good to hear from you.
I can agree with all your points above.
I presented similar points in the prior posts;
One of the main contention and the criticism of Buddhism by KT is Buddhism promotes the concept of no-self [anatta, anatman], thus shaking the foundation of the normal person to function properly, i.e. induce monks into asceticism and giving up ordinary life.
I disagree with KT on the above.
My point is Buddhism-proper leverage on the two-truths theory, i.e.
‘there is self - empirical’ and
‘there in no self - transcendent’
which is to be applied appropriately to the proper situations, and one is to be centered on the Middle-Path to optimize one’s well-being.
Do you have a view on the above?
One of Buddhism’s core principle is ‘anatman’ [non-self] which is a counter to the ‘atman’ of Vedanta in Hinduism. If I am not mistaken, you are more inclined towards Hinduism, thus you may not agree with the the principle of anatman?
well, certainly the personalitiies and cultures that develop in Buddhist communities East and West point towards a suppression of emotions and their expression. We are looking at the other end of the spectrum from an African American Baptist Church with gospel choirs and passionate sermons where the congregants openly and with sound and words express emotions. And expressing emotions with any passion in these communities nearly regardless of context will lead to various kinds of ostracism and social punishment. But if we look at both the practices and the core idea that attachment/desire are the cause of suffering, you see the goal as a disengagement from the emotions, a disidentification from the emotions, and a disconnect from emotional expression. You observe emotions, like passing clouds. You break the process of feeling to expression.
It actually goes beyond suppression and aims at total disidentification and a severing of feeling from expression.
It is not a coincidence that the communities reflect both the practices and the core disattachment from the emotions.
well, I do not think that Buddhism follows the docrine of anatman ( as we understand it), though it is also true that it is mentioned in their texts. if we look at the timeline and the circumstancial context of Buddhism, we will find that that was the time when Brahmans(priests) were in full control of the Indian society in the name of Vedas. As they were the only community which was allowed to learn and interpret Vedas, thus they were bending it as they wanted in the name of Vedas and mostly for personal gains. Both of Buddha and Mahavira realized that they need to free theIndian society from this trap of Brahams and the easiest way to do this was to eliminate the concept of eternal soul/self from the religion so that the brahmans cannot force the folks to do anything by fearing them from the suffering consequences of afterlife, Gods and hell and so on. Thus both of these religions stood up against the brahmans and castism.
The reason i think that this explanatiion is worth considering becuse Buddhiam do beleive in afterbirth, hell and heavens. Not only that, Buddhism has well defined vertical Cosmology of Spiritual Planes where one ascends step by step. All this makes no sense without accepting that something remains after death from the living beings. Thus, it is not only me who disagrees with the concept of anatman but Buddhism itself does so.
It looks to me that perhaps Buddhism initially denies the theory of atman to conter Brahamans but later it introduced its version.
Have a look at this- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhist_cosmology
lastly, as far as i am concerned, I learned the religions by unknowingly adopting their practices and read about those later. As i am more inclined towards emprical parts of the religions, so i am more into Santmat, rather than conventional Hinduisim. The other reason is that being very old religion, the origial litrature of Hinduisim is not available anymore. what we have now is merely commentries and commentries on commemtries and so on. On the other hand, Santmats are relatively new , merely one or two centuries old, thus they bound to have less impurities.
This is a misrepresentation of me. I never said that it shakes the foundation of the person to functoin properly or had anything to do with asceticism. The concept of no-self is central to Buddhism, but it need not lead to these results AT ALL. If you engage in the practices the process of realization of anatman coincides with the effects of meditation and there is no reason to disrupt everyday living.
I am not criticizing Buddhism for having anatman, I am saying it is a facet. I said this in a context where it was relevent, but not as a problem with Buddhism, but rather a problem with Prismatic’s other ideas.
I tried, but I cannot leave your points unanswered. I am learning from this debate, so let’s continue.
Do you have an evidential reference for this?
How do we know the degree to which the subconscious mind is, or is not involved in these mental processes?
In the way that you’ve described them, the summary of these elements/points is a pre-cognitive, autonomic response to fear. I just don’t believe that human-beings possess a feature like this. You’ll need to evidence this thoroughly.
It is not equating. I would argue that the subconscious mind is aware, necessarily… It may not have the same nature and degree of consciousness or awareness applied to the conscious mind, but cognition is certainly an aspect of how it operates. That’s why it is called the “sub” conscious mind, because it is a different, but active layer of the mind.
Claiming this is not enough. Because of the nature of the claim, it needs to be supported by evidence that covers the entire claim; not just parts or aspects of the claim. It needs to get to the point where we don’t have infer that you’re correct, what you say needs to be demonstrated almost unequivocally. Personally, I don’t believe you can do this, but I don’t mind being proven wrong.
Hm, did you read any of the article I linked re unconscious cognition? What you claim is not entirely concordant with what I’ve read or been taught about the subconscious mind. Its like you’re adapting the subconscious to suit what you’re claiming, rather than considering the holistic picture. Effectively, you’re reducing it. If you read the link I posted, you’ll see that the subconscious is much more expansive and relative to cognition than you’ve described it here.
I didn’t argue that the people who, through pattern recognition and agenticity, formulated ideas of supernatural beings, were right in doing so. My point is that they actually did this. Which I don’t really think you can dispute (re your previous points 7. and 8.). Due to the fundamental nature of the psychology (see here for a refresh) involved in this process, it is reasonable to posit that pattern recognition and agenticity are fundamental causes of religious belief. Your claim that subconscious fear is more essential than this is debatable, we need not necessarily agree, because fear precedes these functions in terms of biological series. We don’t know for certain that this is how the mind processes these thoughts/emotions.
As I’ve stated above, because of the nature and degree of the claim, you need to rigorously demonstrate this.
I don’t know what this means? It seems colloquial, reference please.
But believing in religions necessarily requires conscious cognition. Conceptualisations, idealisations and “experiences” of religion are formed through conscious knowledge pertaining to a particular religion (whichever the person is dedicated to). That undoubtedly requires the conscious mind. If this process soothes the subconscious fear of death, it does so because the information relating to the religion is being relayed to the subconscious mind, from the conscious mind. I don’t doubt that there are subconscious elements in religion, but we cannot claim that belief in religions has no features related to the conscious mind or stick an arbitrary “%” on the degree to which it does. And again, if you’re claiming that the subconscious mind is more dominant than the conscious mind in religious belief, you need to evidence that claim.
“Is The Buddhist ‘No-Self’ Doctrine Compatible With Pursuing Nirvana?”
Katie Javanaud asks whether there is a contradiction at the heart of Buddhism.
I have my own rendition of this. It is embedded in the manner in which I intertwine “I” in my own understanding of the “self” as an existential contraption rooted in dasein. At least with respect to the world of value judgments. There is no solid Me here. Let alone a soul. “I” am far more elusive, illusory, ever situated.
In The Experience of Nothingness Michael Novak once speculated that…
I recognize that I put structure into my world…There is no ‘real’ world out there, given, intact, full of significance. Consciousness is constituted by random, virtually infinite barrages of experience; these experiences are indistinguishably ‘inner’ and ‘outer’…Structure is put into experience by culture and self, and may also be pulled out again…The experience of nothingness is an experience beyond the limits of reason…it is terrifying. It makes all attempts at speaking of purpose, goals, aims, meaning, importance, conformity, harmony, unity----it makes all such attempts seem doubtful and spurious.
I see religion in general and Buddhism in particular as an attempt to rein that in. An attempt to funnel this barrage of experience coming at us from all directions along a path that sustains at least some measure of equilibrium and equanimity. Both on this side of the grave and beyond.
But: my aim is always to bring abstract conjecture like this out into the world. For example almost a quarter of the population of Hong Kong are Buddhists. How then might they be inclined to respond to the political upheavals unfolding there: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Hong_Kong_protests
How might they explain the manner in which they grapple with the “self” in contexts of this sort? And then the part where Buddhism ends and Taoism and Confucianism begin. Not to mention all of the “local” narratives.
The bottom line remains the same: that throughout human history there have been hundreds and hundreds of “spiritual” paths taken by men and women in which, one way or another ,“I” and “we” and “they” forge historical and cultural communities grappling with all of the vast and varied factors that go into the creation of any particular sense of identity.
What I tend to focus on is the tendency to believe rather than in what is believed itself. The wanting to anchor “I” to something more substantial than an essentially meaningless world ending in oblivion.
The Brahmins did exploit and abuse their position with exclusivity to the knowledge of the Vedas. However the principles of the atman is core to the Vedas of Hinduism.
It is reported Guatama tried the majority of the existing methods of spiritual practices from the existing Gurus of Hinduism but did not find ‘enlightenment’ in them until he discovered his enlightenment based on the core principles of 4NT, 8FP, annica [avidya], anatta [anatman], dependent origination, two-truths theory and others.
The principle of anatman or anatta is a core principle of Buddhism that pervades throughout all the core doctrines of Buddhism-proper. As such the core principle of anatta [non-self] has to be an imperative part of Buddhism-proper. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatta
However the two-truths theory do not deny the empirical-I-self [the living person] but it deny on the transcendent-I-self [atman].
I believe Buddhism-proper when introduced was too advance for the majority masses during Guatama’s time then and even now to a degree.
As such, Buddhism-proper then has to be compromised and diluted for the masses. This is why the masses of Buddhists prayed to idols and statutes of a Buddha and prayed with joss-sticks, make offerings in prayers and other superficial practices.
It is said, the dharma wheel of Buddhism made three turns, i.e. Theravada, Mahayana and Vajrayana. In each turn the core principles of Buddhism-proper are dressed in various forms to suit the believers during those specific times.
This is where all the fanciful stuffs of rebirth, hell, heaven, cosmology, even a personal god like Christianity, from the Pure Land sects. The Mahayanas are the most fanciful.
But throughout the three turns of the Dharma Wheel, the core principles of Buddhism-proper remained intact.
With advancement in communication, translations, the internet, new technology, the more expert Buddhists are now clearing the cobwebs of old to reveal more of the core principles, the effective practices of Buddhism proper.
With the advancement of the internet and information technology, the concept of Sangha will be obsolete in the future.
The Dalai Lama has even conceded “Buddhist truths” to Science;
[code]“If scientific analysis were conclusively to demonstrate certain claims in Buddhism to be false, then we must accept the findings of science and abandon those claims.”
― Dalai Lama XIV, The Universe in a Single Atom: The Convergence of Science and Spirituality[/code]
But is it not likely Science will shake any of the core principles. Those which may be affected are the fringe fanciful stuffs which may be intended to be allegorical but some claim them to be real truths.
As I mentioned the fanciful stuffs were are compromised to suit the masses.
From your link above;
The picture of the world presented in Buddhist cosmological descriptions cannot be taken as a literal description of the shape of the universe. It is inconsistent, and cannot be made consistent, with astronomical data that were already known in ancient India.
The cosmology has also been interpreted in a symbolical or allegorical sense (for Mahayana teaching see Ten spiritual realms).
Noted ‘Santmat’ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sant_Mat
Its root meaning is “one who knows(is) the truth” or “one who has experienced (merged into) Ultimate Reality.”
The above is very basic to Hinduism [general] i.e. where the atman merged into Brahman which the opposite of Buddhism-proper where there is no atman and no Brahman.
In principle, anatman [anicca, non-self] cannot be excluded from Buddhism-proper else the rest of its doctrines would not make sense.
I noted all your points above, but it is getting a bit tedious to response to them individually when I have to provide information rather than refute counter arguments.
It is easier when we were dealing with the tip of the iceberg, but when we dig deeper into the iceberg, it would be too tedious for me to dig while you are not digging but rather sit on the tip waiting for answers.
I believe what I explain below will cover the substance of all the above points.
One point to note,
we started roughly with differentiating the subconscious from the conscious and unconscious from the conscious.
However as we dig deeper, we need to be more precise.
If you look at the human brain, there are three distinguishable parts to it in relation to evolutionary hierarchy, i.e. the lower brain, the mid brain, and the higher brain.
Within the higher brain we have the equivalent of the mammalian brain, the primate brain and the human brain.
I have argued the concept of cognition is more relevant to the human brain [neo-cortex]. The primal and other mammals, animals may have some level of cognition but they are not significant to our point in relation to religions and human activities.
Cognition can be conscious or subconscious but it happened only within the higher brain not the lower brain.
What is to be differentiated from cognition are instincts, autonomic and other responses which are not be regarded as ‘cognitive’.
These non-cognitive responses are triggered subconscious and they can also be triggered consciously. E.g. an actor [or anyone] can consciously trigger a real anger response, a sad or other emotional responses.
The fear of death is triggered subconsciously i.e. non-cognitively and it can also be triggered consciously but this is suppressed.
In general the default root cause of religion is the subconscious fear of death, not a cognitive fear of death.
It is the subconscious fear of death that generate the program of pattern-recognition, which is a subconscious cognitive process in the higher brain leading to agencity and thus religion.
I have demonstrated with argument where the subconscious non-cognitive fear of death precedes pattern recognition in the case of one believing in a theistic-religions.
Here is another point.
In the case of non-theistic religion, the believer is triggered by subconscious non-cognitive fear of death which trigger the faculty of reason to decide a non-theistic religion [e.g. Buddhism] is the most rational religion to adopt. There is no pattern-recognition to a agency god.
In the case of deism, the reasoned-God, he believer is triggered by subconscious non-cognitive fear of death which trigger the faculty of reason to decide the reasoned-God, not an agent as personal God, it most rational. There is no pattern-recognition to a agency god.
In the case of agnosticism, the 50/50 believer is triggered by subconscious non-cognitive fear of death which triggered the faculty of reason to decide sit on the fence. There is no pattern-recognition to a agency god, maybe a bit.
In all cases, the non-cognitive instinctual subconscious fear of death is the root cause.
If you disagree, you can try to present an argument in logical steps why your views prevail over mine.
If I missed out any point you think is critical, let me know.
Oh, I should have added. I did raise the issue of Prismatic perhaps not wanting to face the no-self facet of Buddhism, since he was denying its presence. But I think the threat of no-self in Buddhism is primarily experienced when one comes at the tradition via books and isolated practice. Not if one participates in the tradition through a temple or center where one is in contact with masters. Westerners often think they can just hop into traditions not their own and pick and choose, whereas long term empirical work and experience has led to holistic approaches, such as that in the various Buddhist traditions.
Westerners are very modular - one can see this foolishness in the dangerous way we approach genetic modification - and think you can just pull out pieces and rearrange pieces, despite our knowledge of how complex systems - for example, ecological ones - do not function like cars and other machines. And this plays out in the way Westerners dabble in spiritual practices. Oh, I’ll just do that part. I’ll just believe this part.
In my previous post, amongst other points, I reasonably asked you to provide substantive evidence for what you’re claiming. Instead, you’ve just reasserted your position, with ever more increasing certainty - whilst not providing the necessary evidence to actually validate the claim.
However, no matter how much you insist, your claims (just like any claim) require validation. Until you provide the evidence, I don’t see a convincing reason to accept that: “The subconscious fear of death is the root cause of all religions.” You are making a huge claim(s). Therefore the onus is upon you to substantiate them. It is only correct that I ask you to provide evidence, and I believe that you would do the same if I were making a sweeping, absolute claim. I also suspect that if I failed to provide substantive evidence, you would infer that there isn’t any, which would be reasonable.
So as much as I like your iceberg analogy. The reason it applies is because you’re making factual, sweeping, absolute claims. I am waiting for answers (evidence), but I suspect that the iceberg will melt before I get them.
From my perspective all of my points were critical. I suspected that was the reason that you didn’t deal with them, and that your claim of “tedious” was just an excuse. The link that I posted regarding unconscious cognition, is critical to what you’re arguing about the subconscious/unconscious mind, but strangely for you, you just ignored it.
For example when you say things like “What is to be differentiated from cognition are instincts, autonomic and other responses which are not be regarded as ‘cognitive’. These non-cognitive responses are triggered subconscious and they can also be triggered consciously. E.g. an actor [or anyone] can consciously trigger a real anger response, a sad or other emotional responses.” you need to reference things like this, otherwise they just seem nonsensical. Like your trying to sell me snake oil. Where did you get this idea from? It has been argued that human-beings don’t have instincts url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instinct[/url].
No. IMV, you have “demonstrated” that the fear of death precedes pattern recognition in terms of biological series. Like the way 1 precedes 2 numerically. That’s all, you have not demonstrated that these two aspects of the human psyche act in the same series, in terms of how they are cognized in the mind - pattern recognition also has subconscious elements.
In terms of pattern recognition and agenticity, I specifically referred to theistic and polytheistic religions. However, pattern recognition is not only relevant to religious or supernatural beliefs. People apply agency to all sorts of things that don’t involve beliefs (like luck), it is fundamental to human beings.
This is very wrong, but I’m not going to unpack it. Not for free .
…Maybe a bit. I like that.
This has not been demonstrated.
I’m not trying to “prevail”. Also, someone with your amount of pride, should be careful they wish for.
This is the central problem. Sometimes he will assert how much he has studied issue X or some other self-evaluation and present this as if it is evidence in addition to the repetition of the position. That someone could confuse a self-evaluation of one’s ability/knowledge with a supporting argument is really beyond the pale. And to reassert an argument instead of responding to points made is an act of philosophical rudeness. You worked and it was not respected. This puts you in the position of working again or seeming to give up.
Note I have given my fundamental argument, presented many times.
Obviously I will repeat them unless you have an effective counter argument or prove my premises are wrong.
So far you have not proven any of my premises are wrong.
You insisted KT point re pattern recognition is the primary cause of all religion.
Note the term ‘recognition’ from ‘cognition’.
I have argued ‘cognition’ is process of the higher brain.
The fear of death is from the primal brain which precedes the higher brain.
Therefore the primary cause of religions is the subconscious fear of death while pattern recognition [agenticity] in this case is secondary.
Tedious is not the main excuse.
I do not want to waste hours to explain and repeat what I had already stated in the previous posts and due to your ignorance of even basic points accuse me of pushing ‘snake oil’, e.g.
“an actor [or anyone] can consciously trigger a real anger response, a sad or other emotional responses.”
This is so basic and for me to explain and is a waste of my time, more so when you accuse me of selling snake oil when what we are doing are serious objective issues.
Suggest you read up Neuro-Linguistic Programming.
Human don’t have instincts?
To insist on that would be crazy?
At best we can can look at ‘instincts’ from another perspective, not rejecting the concept.
You are ignorant of the term ‘recognition’ which originate from ‘cognition’ which is the function of the higher mind.
You should not confused ‘pattern recognition’ with merely ‘pattern.’
Any two similar things together forms a pattern which is a common and fundamental thing in reality.
Note this is ‘pattern recognition’
In psychology and cognitive neuroscience, pattern recognition describes a cognitive process that matches information from a stimulus with information retrieved from memory. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pattern_r … psychology
The pattern recognition contented here is; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apophenia
Apophenia (/æpoʊˈfiːniə/) is the tendency to mistakenly perceive connections and meaning between unrelated things.
I think this the the critical point you missed;
The subconscious fear of death is supported by ‘pattern recognition’ and other instincts, thus precedes these instincts.
As relevant to topic, the powerful forces from the subconscious fear of death drove the mind to mistakenly perceive connections and meaning between unrelated things, which led to ‘agencity’ thus to the idea of God as the ultimate agent. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apophenia … nticity%22
Note the above point.
The topic is pattern recognition and religion not otherwise.
In other cases, all other activities [non-sexual] that have an indication of pattern recognition, they are reducible to the subconscious fear of death.
Pattern recognition of food is due to getting food driven by the fear of death to avoid death then to live.
Think deeper.
Reflect deeper.
I have presented my argument and given a ton of examples but you could not recognize them. Where is your pattern recognition gone?
You have not countered my argument other than not agreeing to the sequences but you provided no counter argument to support your point.
If you want demonstration from your own experiences I can provide that.
Try this, pinch your nose and hold your breathe as long as possible, even if you feel uncomfortable, try holding your breathe much longer. A normal person can last 4 minutes before being knocked out unconscious.
At the extreme of your capability to hold to a longer time, your body will be desperate and you will squirm and experience terrible pains to force you to breathe.
That is the subconscious reaction of your subconscious mind from the subconscious fear of death response to ensure you breathe. There is no pattern recognition in this case.
In the case of the fear of death itself the subconscious fear of death response trigger terrible reactions which is not made conscious [like that of the holding breath example] but exude indirectly as Angst. To relieve this Angst, the instinct of pattern recognition jumped into agenticity with the wrong conclusion of a god as an ultimate agent. Even this pattern recognition end up with a falsehood, it works thus the majority are theists.
Note the case of the rope-in-the-shade mistaken for a snakes. It is the subconscious fear of death [fundamental] that trigger the pattern-recognition instinct [module] to jump to the wrong conclusion the rope-in-the-shade is a snake and the person react and run away.
I am only wishing I don’t have to waste so much time due to your narrow database and wasting my time to explain with so many examples to get through to you only to be accused as snake oil.
I am not going to waste hours of my time on what you think is merely ‘snake oil’.
At this point, I will not go deeper and there is still a lot of depth to dig.
I will just stick to the superficial points.
I suggest you counter my argument and demonstrate where my premises are false and why they are not in the right sequence. In this case, you have to present your right sequence, i.e. pattern recognition is the basis of all religions and justify for it.
At this point, I will not go deeper and there is still a lot of depth to dig.
I will just stick to the superficial points.
I suggest you counter my argument and demonstrate where my premises are false and why they are not in the right sequence. In this case, you have to present your right sequence, i.e. pattern recognition is the basis of all religions and justify for it.
This is another reassertion of your points, with misinterpreted or misrepresented views on what I’ve stated.
I believe that pattern recognition and attributing agency is a primary cause of religious belief, but I didn’t claim that it is the cause of all religions.
You have still not provided the evidence which substantiates your claim “the subconscious fear of death is the root cause of all religions.” At this point, I don’t think that you are going to.
instaed of going to address point by point, i will take the core issue only; anatman
The most common mistake about understanding religions what is done is that we try to see them in isolation and try to draw meaning purrely what we read. That is not the right way to understand what they are saying. Religions, especially the ancient ones, do not deal merely in spirituality but are equaly concerned about the daily life of the people, for a simple reason that their promoters knew that if the routine life of the folks were not calm and peacefull, they cannot be taught about spirituality. Thus, every religion has two parts, one for folks and other one for scholars. Religions realized that their duty is not offering mere spirituality but a complete lifestyle for the masses.
The place of Buddhism and Jainism is the same in Hinduism what is of Christianity in Abrahamic religions. Chirstianity took away all the complexity of Judism and made it very simple for the followers so that a layman can clearly understand and follow the same. Buddhism and Jainism tried to do the same and were quite successful in their attempt too. These are corrective/complementary religions within the broad canvas of Hinduism. The third in this caregory is Sikkhism which stands somewhere between both of these and conventional Hinduism in ideology.
if you go through the Buddhisht cosmolgy throughly, you will find that the details of the habitants of the higher spiritual planes are also mentioned like, what is thier forms, qualities and lifespans. Only a fool will go in such a detail if something does not remain after death and goes there. And, if one is suposed not to take all that detail literally, why one is supposed to take the concept of anatman literally?
And lastly but most importantly( especially for me) reason is that if an ordinary person like me can draw a conclusion of having atman from my limited efforts and experiences, i cannot accept that a commited person like Buddha, who spent almost his whole life in finding answers, would not be aware of the reality.
That is the meaning of word Sant, and that is not what santmant stands for. Santmat meants the opinion/way of the saints..
In the past some centuries, there has been many enlightened saints in India, who presented their own version of reality and how to attain that. The most prominant one is Saint Kabir, whose timeline is around 15th century. Ther are many after him too. All these saints founded their orgnizations which are called Dera in local language like, Dera Saccha Sauda, Dera Sahib bandgi, Dera Vyas etc. TThese deras say more or less the same thing. The difference between conventional Hinduism and these are that these focus more on meditation. They go in details, which is missing( or perhaps lost) in Conventional Hinduism beacuse of the time lapsed. These schools talk about 14 planes(Chakras) instead of nine which are mentioned in Hinduism. They do not criticize Hinduism but say it is incomplete. Final destination is even beyond.
The reason i find these schools more interesting is that unlike Hinduism, in person litratures of the promoters of all these schools are still available so there is no chance of someone corrupting and misinterpreting.
Also, you seemed surprised by the proposition that human-beings don’t have instincts. Have you never read about that?
You’re taking “snake oil” comment out of context It was not intended to offend you. It was in relation to a particular point and I gave an explanation for it.
If that’s all you’ve taken away from what I’ve stated then I too perceive that I am wasting my time.
Yes, I am surprised in the first instance on the claim human-beings don’t have instincts.
In which particular section of your link it is stated?
On 2nd thought, I agree, one can bypass the concept of instincts by presenting those neural impulses from a different perspective.
Example I can state a diamond gem is soft, if view from the electron perspective and I have an electron based laser.
However, no psychologists and other scientists would in their right mind at the present, will accept ‘there are is ‘absolutely’ no instincts in human being’.
I believe there is a big difference between what is Christianity to Judaism from what is Buddhism to Hinduism.
In ‘Judaism to Christianity’ there is no paradigmatic change in the idea of God except the moral standards are changed significantly from where God was very violent to suit the times to a God who was a pacifist, i.e. ‘love all - even enemies’.
In ‘Hinduism to Buddhism’ there is a 180% turn from theism, atman and Brahman of Hinduism to non-theism, anatman and alaya-vijnana of Buddhism.
alaya-vijnana is not equivalent to Brahman of Hinduism.
alaya-vijnana refer to ‘store-consciousness.’ learnreligions.com/alaya-vi … ess-449659
This idea is only claimed by the yogacara school but not others who claim there is ‘nothing’.
The overriding idea is that of Sunyata, the idea of ‘emptiness’ and even emptiness of emptiness.
In this case, there is nothing for the Buddhist to cling to [no possibility of attachment] while interacting in reality in the Now.
In terms of core-principles, Hinduism and Buddhism are on the opposite end of each other.
I mentioned earlier, the fanciful stuffs are to be taken allegorically and not in the real sense.
The cosmology has also been interpreted in a symbolical or allegorical sense (for Mahayana teaching see Ten spiritual realms).
The picture of the world presented in Buddhist cosmological descriptions cannot be taken as a literal description of the shape of the universe. It is inconsistent, and cannot be made consistent, with astronomical data that were already known in ancient India.
As mentioned above;
The overriding idea is that of Sunyata, the idea of ‘emptiness’ and even emptiness of emptiness.
In the case of Buddhism, there is no atman and no Brahaman. In this case there is nothing for the Buddhist to cling to [no possibility of attachment] while interacting in reality in the Now.
The idea of anatman is viewed literally as a negative but not taken realistically. Since anatman is in the negative, there is no essence in it to be positive and be real.
Note I have discussed at length with Fanman in the previous posts, why the mind reaches for ‘something’ [God in religion] rather than ‘nothing’ is due to one’s internal psychology.
The main purpose of Buddhism-proper is to manage and deal with this terrible internal psychology starting with the Buddha Story [a myth].
I have already provided plenty of evidences and explanation.
I am going to waste time explaining again and again.
However, I am very interested in your argument,
Fanman: “I believe that pattern recognition and attributing agency is a primary cause of [some] religious belief”
If you can present your argument with sequential premises, that would be great.
Note: I have updated my previous post re the snake oil comment.
Not sequentially, I don’t know what the sequential premises are cognitively. I have searched, but I didn’t find anything substantive. In short, what I believe is that data (including fear), is relayed dynamically between the conscious and subconscious mind, consisting of a variety of sensory information. Then, based upon both the conscious and subconscious cognition of the data, things are interpreted, like agency etc. I don’t believe there is a strict sequential series in terms of cognition, but I could be wrong.
Re humans not having instincts, the section of the link which discusses this is “history”. It won’t take you long to read the whole article though.
.