I don't get Buddhism

I prefer Shut Up 'n Play Yer Guitar.

I know: Let’s tie this to Buddhism!

How might the most enlightened of Buddhists react to it?

They might:

a] laugh
b] slap you in the face
c] start a new thread
d] all of the above
e] none of the above
f] other________________________

Okay, let’s tie this to reincarnation and Nirvana.

I mean, ultimately, that is the whole point of being enlightened, right?

…asked the endarkened man. The objectivist view of an anti-objectivist. “Ultimately” as if anyone can think the ultimate view of Nirvana or any other symbolic structure of religion.

Right, like with immortality itself on the line, and with hundreds and hundreds of different religious denominations all claiming to encompass the one true path to it, it’s not important to understand these things at least in the general vicinity of ultimately.

You do get the part, don’t you?

I get that you’re claiming that someone is making that claim. And you apparently think that whoever is making that claim in effect owns whichever religion you’re talking about at the moment …in this case Buddhism. Now that claim would make Buddhism and whatever other religion makes the claim mutually exclusive. It would also depend on the religion being absolutely true in an objective sense. I don’t think that’s the way religions are true. So to me the way you approach the subject is wrong in it’s basic assumptions. Therein lies my problem with your approach in a nutshell.

Huh?

Religions are either true in the manner in which they connect the dots between morality/enlightenment here and now and immortality/salvation there or then or they are not.

You are either in sync with the one true path or you are not.

And, if you think you are, you are either able to demonstrate this to others or you are not.

You will die, right? And you do think about what happens to you after you die, right? And you do think about choosing behaviors here and now that will enable you to embody that which you would most like your fate to be there and then, right?

You tell me: What assumptions could possibly be more basic in regard to religion down through the ages?

What are you saying, that the only important assumption about religion is that in regard to morality here and now and immortality there and then, all that matters is what you happen to think is true here and now in your head?

Indeed, ILP is often bursting at the seams with members who preach one or another “general description intellectual contraption” rendition of that.

And, even in regard to this, they, like you, invariably refuse to explore with me the manner in “I” here is but the embodiment of dasein out in a particular world historically, culturally and experientially.

Instead, their whole point is embedded in the belief itself. That’s the part that comforts and consoles them. Next to this, what they believe often pales in importance.

Or, sure, so it seems to me.

Those are your assumptions about religion based, I suppose, on your past religious orientation and your disillusionment with it. For you it’s about BELIEVING in a set of what? objective propositions. That’s one particular model of religion and it doesn’t fit all. Over and over you try to fit ways of being that don’t fit in that model like trying to fit Cinderella’s sister’s feet into her glass slipper. And people have pointed this out to you, but you refuse to learn.

Note to others:

Please explain to me how his point above is in any way applicable to the points I raised here:

He simply avoids responding to them at all.

In no way am I arguing that my “model of religion” here ever could [let alone should] fit all.

I am merely noting that given my assumptions about religion, I see no way in which to connect the dots between moral/enlightened behaviors here and now and immortality/salvation there and then.

And that if religious folks [of whatever denomination] do believe that they can and are connecting these dots, how do they go about demonstrating that their path is the one true path…with so much at stake!!

How are they not simply just insisting that the fact that they do believe it “in their head” need be as far as they go.

But that’s the beauty of religious faith. In order to sustain the comfort and consolation that it brings them all they have to do is to believe it!

They win and I lose to the extent that I cannot. I would never deny that.

Again you appeal to the voices in your head. Do you BELIEVE that they agree with you? Yes! Because they are rational like you are. Of course they are. Because they ARE you. It’s your fantasy after all. You have the COMFORT AND CONSOLATION of knowing that yours is the ONE WAY of achieving the dopamine rush you get from BELIEVING in your intellectual superiority to the religionist. You go boy! :dance:

However, Buddhist mindfulness meditation has been noted to confer benefits on secular, agnostic and atheistic practitioners with no belief in an afterlife. As avowed atheist Sam Harris holds, as I do, that there is “nothing irrational about seeking the states of mind that lie at the core of many religions. Compassion, awe, devotion, and feelings of oneness are surely among the most valuable experiences a person can have.” These forms of religion or spirituality don’t fit your model.

Note to others:

Please explain to me how his point [b]above[/b] is in any way applicable to the points I raised here:

How about it, one more chance? [-o<

Have the “others” you’re talking to explained it to you?

Nope, that’s just a silly gambit I use here.

Sort of like the one you use in not actually responding to points being raised.

Hell, even KT has been engaging in actual substantive exchanges with me of late.

Which, I’m afraid, makes you Curly again, my friend. :sunglasses:

Sorry not to be the straw-man you need to knock down to make your day. :wink:

I’ve always made substantive responses to him. What he actually means is I answered his questions, exactly as he wants. To him anything else is not substantive, including posts directly responding to his assertions and/or behavior. IOW focusing on concrete events in real life that are vastly better documentable that his abortion examples are, for example. Nor are posts that have to do with the subject substantive, unless they solve is pet issues, like conflicting goods, or at least attempt to solve them. IOW he objectifies he values. If a post does what he wants, it gets the objective label ‘substantive’. He functions as an objectivist, while assertion a non-objectivist position.

It should also be noted that, I have made what he calls substantive posts before,which he with regularity forgets. When I make these ‘substantive’ posts, he often does not respond to them, or makes unsupported assertions about them, picking tiny portions of my responses, but ignoring how my examples do not, in any way, confirm his conclusions.

Any response that has substance, according to his criteria, is used as an excuse to repeat things he has said thousands of times. Any post he considers lacking in substance is used as an excuse to do the same.

No one should be fooled into thinking that meeting his criteria leads to suddenly having a respectful conversatoin partner who responds to points made. And he will soon forget that you did this before, and will chastize you for not ever doing it, likely adding in a psychological analysis of this behavior on your part.

I think we have stronger Turing programs than this.

It seems to me that Iambiguous presents a game of “heads I win tails you lose”. I refuse to play.
I’m no authority on Buddhism or the doctrines he wishes to discuss: enlightenment, karma, reincarnation, Nirvana. Whatever my impressions of them, they are uncertain and agnostic and I recognize, subjective.
I don’t call myself a Buddhist. Yet, I practice Buddhist meditation and find it beneficial.
I think it’s a mistake to regard religious symbols as objective in the sense that science is. Religions insofar as they are true are true in a different way: that is, values that have been baked into us by 3.5 billion years of evolution.
Now, it seems to me, that Iambiguous, because his need for certainty is denied by reality, denies that there can be any meaning at all. However he got to this point, his mind is in a state of foreclosure.
Buddhism, I find, has much to offer anyone who is moderately open to it. It has fueled the philosophies of philosophers like Hume, Schopenhauer, the American transcendentalists, the European existentialists, and so many more.
Has Iambiguous checked them out and taken their views into consideration? If so, there’s no evidence of it in his fundamentalist model of religion. So, again, I say Iambiguous’ approach to Buddhism like his approach to others he calls " denominations" is stupid.

For that alone you’re your coming back as a dung beetle.

You know, if whatever makes reincarnation an actual thing for Buddhists is…real? [-o<

Quite the contrary. To the extent that Buddhists are able to think themselves into believing that enlightenment, karma, reincarnation and Nirvana are actually real things, they clearly win and “i” clearly lose.

Think about it…

They are able to sustain the comfort and the consolation of eschewing the self. No self, no fractured and fragmented pieces. At the same time, this No Self entity is still able to sustain the comfort and the consolation of thinking and feeling in an enlightened manner such that through karma they will not just tumble over into the abyss that is oblivion, but will be reincarnated…with the possibility even of reaching Nirvana.

Just don’t ask them to note examples of this…or to describe in some detail how it all actually unfolds.

Then the part where, as a Buddhist, someone walks me through their day. They note why they choose particular behaviors which “in their head” they link to what “in their head” they imagine their fate to be on the other side.

Wouldn’t that seem to be reasonable given all that is at stake?

And, again, given my own grim and ghastly conclusions here, how on earth do I win?!

If you’re telling the truth, it doesn’t prove that you’re not playing “heads I win tails you lose”. It just shows that you’re not conscious of the game you’re playing.