As a religious individual(/s), I totally agree with this. Except for my religion. Mine is totally right. Everyone else's is crazy and wrong, but mine is correct.
Buddhism isn't really a religion, the way I understand it, it's not trying to sell anything like religions do, it's more of a philosophical system, with psychological exercises and disciplines that to this day have proven to be of profound positive mental health impact.
Then people went and built statues of Siddhartha Gautama, which he supposedly had asked not to happen. Then there's the "fat Buddha" from China, who was actually someone who lived almost two millennia after, and is known there as "Budai".
Those statues and idols have nothing to do with what Buddhism originally proposes, in a nutshell: there is suffering in this world and life, how can we be free of suffering?
There is a mysticism aspect that falls under the umbrella of Buddhism, too. Like if one is enlightened sufficiently, they can ascend to another life form after death, otherwise it's reincarnation to try again. I think there's more to it than that, but honestly haven't delved too much into it because the philosophy is where the useful stuff is.
And ironically, an aspect of enlightenment is accepting that suffering is a part of life so that you don't suffer more being upset that you have some suffering. Getting that one was like a switch for me and life has generally been much happier. Things don't "ruin my day" anymore.
Buddhism is a religion, just not in the Abrahamic sense. Like the three Abrahamic religions there is more and less philosophical interpretations that feel less religion like, taoism for instance. Also it's not as proselytizing as the other main religions.
However it remains a supernatural interpretation of the working of the universe with an implied morality and subjugation to the tenets of that system.
Just as Christianity is not a unified church, and is divided into Orthodox, Protestants, Catholics, evangelists, Baptists, and the bazillion of other denominations, Buddhism is very different ranging from extreme practices of Shingon sect, to a very practical philosophy of Dogen's Zen Buddhism.
Buddhism is many things, and religion as well.
I don’t know that Jesus asked for a church to be founded either, or left behind any guidance on how to organize it or run it properly. If SG specifically said “don’t do this” then wow that’s even worse that they did. But it seems like much the same deal all around.
In the sermon on the mount Jesus talked about resolving disputes by "taking it to the church" (literally "assembly" of believers) so there was some concept of church during his ministry. Church means "assembly" (of people) though, the greek word really bears no resemblance to the modern idea of church as a building with a carpark.
I feel that's probably among the genuine sayings of Jesus because later editors have declined to inject verses supporting bishops and elders which was surely tempting to do.
His noodleness is the one true savior! Ramen!
🙏
Praise Bob!
Heathen! Praise Joe!
Gods are mythical creatures,
Religious stories are fables,
Beliefs are opinions
Ignorance is bliss
Something can be untrue without being a lie. Generally we like to say that for something to be a lie requires an intent to deceive. If I tell you “the next bus is coming at 3:30pm” and it arrives at 3:32, was I lying? No, the bus was just late.
Anyway, most of these religions are very old and it’s hard to say we know anything about the mindset of the people who started them. Having said that, Scientology is not so old and based on Hubbard’s other writings we could probably make a solid case that he was intending to deceive people. So I don’t mind if you call that one a lie!
I like your analogy. I am not a Christian, but I believe the majority of Christian writers had honest intentions and were working with the way the world seemed to be to them at the time.
Eg Paul telling women to be silent in the church assembly is harsh but makes a little more sense given he's created this mixed male/female religious meeting that didn't exist before. It's similar to telling all the new people to be quiet and sit still because they're new to this. His reasoning is that "Eve" is weak. But the very fact he's admitting all the women to his meetings in the first place shows he thought Christian belief was bringing men and women into a more equal space when previously there had been an even deeper division. And so on.
I'm not a myth! Could a myth type a comment on Lemmy?
Take that, atheists!
I am the Flying Spaghetti Monster (FSM). Bow before me, fools
Hindu lore is pretty sick. Any story that involves an individual named "The Destroyer" is pretty ducking sick.
Some delusions can bring comfort for life. Its not all bad.
A population trained to believe without critically thinking is dangerous to everyone.
I can believe that.
Thats a fair point but eternalism is always harmful.
Just read the stories,(just don't take it seriously) they are like Avengers without any corporate bullshit. With my totally unbiased opinion some are more fun then others. (Polytheism>Animism>Monotheism). And their time line doesn't change just because Disney stock didn't rise.
I have faith that we are all going to to die.
Faith is belief without evidence, and I have evidence everyone who has lived so far has died and the rest of us have enough in common that would cause us to die for similar reasons as those already dead. I don't need faith to believe we're all going to die, faith would be needed to believe someone won't die because we have no convincing evidence for any immortals yet.
There’s actually a nuance here that religious people love to make much of. They would say that just because everyone who’s ever lived has died does not mean you know we all will. They would say you are just generalizing from the examples you have to all cases, which is fine but is inductive reasoning and therefore involves faith. They will say you cannot conclude deductively that we will all die, you can only reason inductively that you think we will, therefore you are operating in uncertainty and therefore you are exhibiting faith. Therefore science and religion are the same thing. (They’ll say).
This seems to be the latest favorite philosophical whipping post among religious people trying to find some basis in the modern world for their magic sky fairy beliefs. The funniest thing about it, to me anyway, is that it is an argument that boils down to “you’re just making shit up as much as we are!”
belief and faith are not the same thing. it's entirely possible that you meant what you said, but I'm guessing you didn't.
What a Buddhist thing to say.
I don't know if i completely agree with this. I agree with the fact that believing you're supposed to please a higher being for a positive outcome on an afterlife or that you should kill people of different religions not to be the best message, but there is plenty of wisdom in religions.
You have eastern religions, like Taoism, Hinduism and Buddhism that teach you about living in harmony with the universe and understanding the nature of suffering and how we are interconnected. Even Abrahamic religions teach you about loving your fellow humans and the importance of charity and kindness towards others.
Religions have lots of wisdom in them that's valuable even for non believers. You just can't let yourself get sucked into the bigotry, hate and imposing on other people's lives. Of course, you don't need religions to teach you about ethics and philosophy, but religions have been our earliest codifying of personal philosophy and ethics from our ancestors and they are more than simply myths. To disregard all their wisdom is throwing the baby out with the bath water.
The way I see it all religions are mythology, stories that cannot be proven yet stand as the foundation for civilization as we know it. They serve as the cornerstone for nearly everything and teach lessions that are objectively good. They also allow us to understand how we interact and perceive the world around us.
Bad news about the social construct of 'delusion'
whether a belief is a "delusion" or not has a lot more to do with whether it is socially convenient to those immediately surrounding you and a lot less to do with factual truth
Permanently Deleted
not my religion.
Your religion is not a lie?
no, its nice.
hone your memes (with gimp and gmic-qt. do not look closely. modifications cc0, original image all rights reserved.)
amen
amen
Atheism is a belief. Just sayin.
Calling atheism a belief is like calling bald a hair color. Or like saying 'not collecting stamps' is a hobby
You don't have to call it belief if that makes you uncomfortable.
It's a world view. And, like other world views, it has normal, functional people who buy into it, and nutty fanatics who buy into it. It has people who use power wisely, and people who use power dangerously, at the expense of others.
The concerning thing is that some people who hold atheism as a world view think this makes them immune to the dysfunctions of collective action, but that's far from true. But, of course, it's common to pick flaws in other world views and think your own shit doesn't stink.
Not collecting stamps, I like that.
It is a position you hold until a belief system provides sufficient evidence for you to form and hold a belief.
Gnostic atheism is a specific form which nobody actually holds to, which says that there positively is no god and this is known to be a fact. Any reasonable person would admit you can’t know this. And so virtually all atheists are agnostic atheists.
Being an agnostic atheist does not mean you are “on the fence” or “undecided” or “accepting of all beliefs equally.” It means you are intellectually honest that you cannot prove the non-existence of a god any more than you can prove there isn’t a planet in the universe where it rains lemonade. But until you have a firm reason to believe that some god exists, you’re going to proceed as if they don’t, because that’s the conclusion, however perpetually provisional, that best matches the evidence.
It's a non-belief.
Then it's a good thing belief isn't mentioned in the image.
