I don't get Buddhism

Here’s this guy who, to the best of my knowledge, like me, does not believe in either God, an afterlife or objective morality.

Obviously, in regard to sustaining some measure of comfort and consolation, there are clear advantages to believing in a religion, the religion, my religion. It’s a source of enlightenment on this side of the grave. It’s a way in which to fall back on the right thing to do and the wrong thing to do. It’s a way in which to imagine immortality and salvation as real things.

On the other hand, for those who do not believe in these things, much depends on their actual set of circumstances here and now. It’s always a whole lot easier being an atheist when, for example, you are young and healthy, when your life is bursting at the seams with satisfaction and fulfilment, when all the boundless misery that others might be wallowing in, is, simply, fortuitously not a part of your own life here and now.

So, maybe KT is just not in the market for a way in which to embrace objective morality, immortality and salvation. Maybe his life allows him to push that stuff further back in his mind.

Here, everyone, as an individual, has their own “situation” from which to think about all of this.

But to the extent that objective morality might interest him in a world where conflicted morality precipitates enormous amounts of human pain and suffering, or the promise of immortality and salvation eases the fears embedded in his own close encounter with oblivion, there are any number of folks out there who would welcome him into the fold. He could live as they do for however long it takes to decide if it is right for him. And then move on to the next denomination.

Again, though, it all depends on how his situation is different from mine. The part that, in my view, is profoundly embedded in dasein.

The fundamental idea being that God and objective morality are fabricated to produce comfort and consolation.

Many ideas are fundamental only to the extent that some can convince themselves of that in their head.

Still, common sense would seem to indicate that feeling comforted and consoled is preferable to feeling disheartened and demoralized. And, when it comes to feeling grounded morally in a world that reconfigures into immortality and salvation, what comes closer than God and religion?

But they are fabricated only to the extent that someone is able to establish that in fact God and the afterlife do not exist.

And if you think that’s me, well, that certainly wouldn’t surprise me.

The logic here is bizarre.

For example, this statement clearly states that immortality and salvation are not real:

Yet he feels free to say it because he doesn’t claim to have “established that in fact God and the afterlife do not exist”?

I mean, that’s ass backward. He’s in no position to say that those are not real things.

So why say it with certainty? Why say it and later claim gaps in knowledge and uncertainty?

As I noted to you above…

Now, the thing that all of us share in common here is this: that when it comes to immortality and salvation all we have is our capacity to imagine them as real.

And that if you can think yourself into believing in a God, the God, my God, they become all the more real in your head. And that this need be as far as you go in demonstrating that they are real.

Which then brings me back [once again] to figuring out how exactly God and religion function in your own life in connecting the dots between objective morality here and now and whatever you imagine behaving in accordance with that inclines you to believe about “I” there and then.

Other than that being a Communist is a no-no.

A great way to not even take a stand yourself or to respond to any points made.

IOW we should know that you won’t really respond to what we or anyone writes. Sure, I do at least. I pretty much post to save them time.

This ladies and gentlemen is what proud cluelessness looks like.

It’s par for the course for someone who has never admitted he regretted saying anything here or admitted that his approach in any particular instance was rude or a poor way to go about achieving his claimed goals. In fact your inability to recognize yourself- which is a pretty good summing of the situation up- in what anyone ever says about you fits with never being willing to notice you every did anything problematic. No surprises.

Note to others: a man who is fractured and fragmented, who does not have a clear sense of an i, has never once, here, acknowledged a single contradiction in his posts or that he did in fact misrepresent another person’s point. It’s amazing how cocksure this broken shatter self is about himself.

Sounds like a personal problem to me.

Get help. :laughing:

How is this not an expression of certainty about “all we have”?

And also an expression of certainty about what some people are thinking?
:confusion-scratchheadblue:

Isn’t it all we have? Or are you aware of someone who has been able to demonstrate that in fact immortality and salvation are real things and not just something some believe are real in their heads?

Again, I often note the gap between what I believe is true or think I know about these things here and now and all that can be known about them.

My certainty here is more your rendition of it than mine.

Please. My focus here is always less on what others think and more on their capacity to demonstrate to me that all rational men and women are obligated to think the same. And I would never argue that others are obligated to think about these things as I do.

I would not even argue that I am.

Oh. It hasn’t been demonstrated to someone’s satisfaction, therefore it does not exist.

In spite of references to a gap, the posts are peppered with certainty.

The threads dealing with the “psychology of objectivism” are all about what objectivists think.

The threads dealing with religion are all about what religious people think.

This is called shifting the onus. You have made the claim that it is only in their heads, period. But now he suddenly, when he points out your claim, must demonstrate the opposite,w hen in fact you bear the onus for you own claims.

[/quote]
What he quoted would be taken as certainty by anyone. No qualitification, it address when ‘we all’ share in common. If you didn’t mean it, then take responsibility for your poor communication. Don’t blame him for reading statements of certainty and noticing it.

So, anyway, Buddhism…
I thought this article had a few interesting points…
theatlantic.com/internation … ce/548120/

I liked the question about why Buddhism needs to improve on nature.

I think it also extends one of the points Felix made from a practitioner of one the strands of Buddhism.

It is also well known that constant rumination is one of the main symptoms of depression. What we need is to gain freedom from the mental chain reactions that rumination endlessly perpetuates. One should learn to let thoughts arise and be freed to go as soon as they arise, instead of letting them invade one’s mind. In the freshness of the present moment, the past is gone, the future is not yet born, and if one remains in pure mindfulness and freedom, potentially disturbing thoughts arise and go without leaving a trace.

My experience confirms this. Mindful meditation can free one from depressing obsession. I think iambiguous is stuck in such an obsessive pattern. It wouldn’t surprise me if many here on ILP suffer from unhappy obsessive thinking and could benefit from the practice of mindfulness.

I have a different approach which is more expressive, getting underneath the ruminations to the emotions that are being avoided by the ruminations and/or driving them. If I express these emotions - in sound as much as possible with few or no words except for the occasional outburst (sometimes a realization of something with a lot of emotional charge) - this also ends the rumination. More to my taste as a process, though I also meditate, but even there not quite in the mindfulness way. And I agree that rumination can be a real problem. I noticed that part of the interview also and thought it applied as you mention below. It can certainly be part of feeling fractured and fragmented.

Huh?

If someone is not satisfied that Gautama Buddha aka Siddhattha Gotama aka Siddhārtha Gautama did really exist, then he did not exist?

If someone is not satisfied that Buddhists believe in reincarnation and Nirvana, then Buddhists do not believe in these things?

Or: if someone is not satisfied that Buddhists have demonstrated the actual existence of reincarnation and Nirvana…?

That is the distinction that I make. In the either/or world [relating to Buddhism or Christianity or any other religious faith], there are any number of facts that can be established. Established such that those not satisfied with them don’t make them go away.

Again, choose a context and a set of behaviors in which religious or moral or political values are likely to come into conflict. We can discuss our own moral philosophies and you can note all of these certainties of mine that seem to suggest something to you about the gap between things I either deem certain or uncertain.

Think about what?

I gave you some feedback about your posts and posting style.

Do whatever you want with it.

So, do you ‘go to mindfullness’ also when you are under stress, or is in primarily a regular practice with sessions, like an hour in the morning. And then you notice this practice seeps into your daily being mindful. Or some other possibility?

I practice mindfulness daily. And a lose it daily. Stressors can be cues to return to it.

Not entirely sure what your point is.

But, as always, I am noting the clear distinction between anything that anyone believes to be true in their head and their capacity to demonstrate that all rational people are obligated to believe it in turn.

The difference between believing in your head that Donald Trump is president of the United States and believing in your head that he is doing a fantastic job in leading the nation against the coronavirus outbreak.

What both liberals and conservatives believe in their head about him being the president would seem to be within our capacity to demonstrate objectively. But what of the job he is doing in rallying the country around beating back the virus?

Unless, again, this is some “technical” point you are making relating to epistemology or a “category error”.