Dharmic religions

[Otto Kretschmer]

What's your opinion on Dharmic religions i.e. Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism?

I personally like them more than Abrahamic religions since they are more tolerant and don't have the same "who doesn't believe in me goes to hell" approach.

A nice introduction to Buddhism:

 

Edited January 26 by Otto Kretschmer

[Peterkin]

Every society developed the religion that reflects its mores and lifestyle. Every deity represents an aspect of the rulership or cultural values of its society. What they all have in common is the human love of ritual:  ceremonial display, hallowed places in which the community celebrates or mourns its significant events. Hindu rituals are very picturesque, and seem to me more life-affirming than the Abrahamic ones, even while the ultimate desire is supposed to be for non-being. I'm not that familiar with the intricacies of Judaism and Islam, but Christianity is a death-cult: it venerates sacrifice, obedience, self-denial in the service of eternal life... Feasting and fasting - it seems to me all organized religions have an internal contradiction. Like humans.     

[tomgwyther]

If been reading Buddhist ideas for a few decades. the good thing about it is that it's not really a religion; anymore than Stoicism is a religion.
Along with it moral ideas, it also promotes a more scientific-method approach to life.

[dimreepr]

On 10/14/2024 at 2:24 PM, tomgwyther said:

If been reading Buddhist ideas for a few decades. the good thing about it is that it's not really a religion; anymore than Stoicism is a religion.
Along with it moral ideas, it also promotes a more scientific-method approach to life.

No it doesn't, it just doesn't invoke a god as punishment for those who stray from the prevailing moral attitude, instead it provides karma as a brake to the potential of humans towards nihilism.

Besides, most religion's are just another philosophical POV. 

[Night FM]

On 1/26/2024 at 6:41 AM, Peterkin said:

Christianity is a death-cult: it venerates sacrifice, obedience, self-denial in the service of eternal life... Feasting and fasting - it seems to me all organized religions have an internal contradiction. Like humans.     

I'm not sure why you have decided on that POV, but most if not all sects are heretical in some way or another. I would personally argue that true Christianity recognizes that certain human behaviors lead to suffering, and doesn't advocate good behavior solely as a means to get a reward (e.x. eternal life). Anyone can make a sect and call it "Christian", but that doesn't mean that it is, and sects often pander to whatever market they can profit from even if it contradicts source texts and so-forth. As an example, if someone interprets Christianity or the Bible as just a legalistic set of rules to obey, often without even regard for context, this is heretical and contradicts both Christ and Paul in the New Testament.

But this will just end up being a "no-true Scotsman fallacy" and I can't prove it.

Edited October 19 by Night FM

[Peterkin]

47 minutes ago, Night FM said:

But this will just end up being a "no-true Scotsman fallacy" and I can't prove it.

I'm glad you realize this.

However, your largely irrelevant paragraph about heresies doesn't get anywhere near the core beliefs of Christianity, either as it's chronicled by the apostles, or as it was adapted for Roman consumption by Paul. Not even as it was institutionalized by the Roman Catholic church and later the major Protestant branches. The central icon of all of these variants is the gruesome death of Jesus, which is deemed necessary to the redemption of all earthlings born of women and thus tainted by original sin, which was disobedience. The whole point of Christianity is guilt and the only way to expiate guilt is sacrifice - that's a carry-over from the OT.   

[dimreepr]

On 1/26/2024 at 12:41 PM, Peterkin said:

I'm not that familiar with the intricacies of Judaism and Islam, but Christianity is a death-cult: it venerates sacrifice, obedience, self-denial in the service of eternal life... Feasting and fasting - it seems to me all organized religions have an internal contradiction. Like humans.     

The contradictions come later, they all start off with a reasonable philosophical approach to a contented life, when the understanding of that philosophy is churned in the generational washing machine or the silver plate is polished of the base metal, it's very human to assume this generation is smarter than the last; their phone's couldn't leave the house... 🙄

[Peterkin]

55 minutes ago, dimreepr said:

The contradictions come later, they all start off with a reasonable philosophical approach to a contented life,

I don't read that either in the Bible or the Koran. I don't know exactly where Judaism 'started off' - you can see the formation of an organized cult with Moses and Aaron in the desert, but the Hebrews already had their own god back in Abraham's time. The stories prior to that are nebulous and not specific to Jehovah or the tribes of Israel. Islam starts off with Muhammad in a cave and there is nothing contented about it - except death. This is roughly the same situation with Christianity.   

[dimreepr]

15 minutes ago, Peterkin said:

I don't read that either in the Bible or the Koran. I don't know exactly where Judaism 'started off' - you can see the formation of an organized cult with Moses and Aaron in the desert, but the Hebrews already had their own god back in Abraham's time. The stories prior to that are nebulous and not specific to Jehovah or the tribes of Israel. Islam starts off with Muhammad in a cave and there is nothing contented about it - except death. This is roughly the same situation with Christianity.   

Much like 'cold comfort farm' is the same as 'sense and sensibility'... you've missed the point...

[Peterkin]

3 hours ago, dimreepr said:

Much like 'cold comfort farm' is the same as 'sense and sensibility'... you've missed the point...

Yes, all of them, such as they may have been. I wish you could make your points in a language  other Tamarian, so that I could translate it. 

Edited October 19 by Peterkin

[dimreepr]

20 hours ago, Peterkin said:

Yes, all of them, such as they may have been. I wish you could make your points in a language  other Tamarian, so that I could translate it. 

But that is my point, we can't directly translate however close the language seems to be, we have to interpret the meaning through the lense of human nature...

[Peterkin]

4 hours ago, dimreepr said:

But that is my point, we can't directly translate however close the language seems to be, we have to interpret the meaning through the lense of human nature...

I wish people did that with religious tenets.  Save a whole lot of money given to churches  - and stones! Every time I see a cathedral, I'm flabbergasted by the number of stones workmen had to quarry, transport, cut, place, mortar and carve to put one of those Disney concoctions in place. Plus save a whole lot of trouble fomented by prelates.

"The lens of human nature...." I wonder what that is when it's not being a metaphor.

Edited October 20 by Peterkin

[Night FM]

On 10/18/2024 at 9:26 PM, Peterkin said:

I'm glad you realize this.

However, your largely irrelevant paragraph about heresies doesn't get anywhere near the core beliefs of Christianity, either as it's chronicled by the apostles, or as it was adapted for Roman consumption by Paul. Not even as it was institutionalized by the Roman Catholic church and later the major Protestant branches.

Much of that, both Catholic and Protestant, is heretical and not based on source texts, such as the Bible. Source texts and their interpretations get corrupted over the ages for various reasons (e.x. a desire to profit from it by making it mass-marketable, and omitting the parts that aren't easy to sell to the "fast food" demographic). It would be a mistake to simply cite what is perceived as "mainstream" pretend that it is an authority for the entirety of Christianity.

On 10/18/2024 at 9:26 PM, Peterkin said:

The central icon of all of these variants is the gruesome death of Jesus, which is deemed necessary to the redemption of all earthlings born of women

If Jesus is the son of God, then it would be silly to conflate the death of Jesus with the death of another. His death obviously carried great symbolic meaning.

On 10/18/2024 at 9:26 PM, Peterkin said:

and thus tainted by original sin, which was disobedience.

No, the original sin was specifically acquiring the knowledge of good and evil. It had little to do with arbitrary "disobedience" without regard for what its actual consequences were or who was the source of that authority. Just as disobedience in the name of God is promoted in the Bible (e.x. Daniel disobeyed the King and was thrown into the lion's den for continuing to pray to God even when the law forbid it).

On 10/18/2024 at 9:26 PM, Peterkin said:

 

The whole point of Christianity is guilt and the only way to expiate guilt is sacrifice - that's a carry-over from the OT.   

I'm not sure what you mean by "guilt". If you mean a person merely feeling "embarrassed" because someone criticizes them (whether the criticism is even valid or not), then that isn't genuine "remorse" or repentance to begin with.

But as far as humans having things to feel genuinely "guilty" for doing, I am sure that everyone does. Just as there is much evidence that mankind is born with a sinful nature, given that natural and biological impulses play a role in many of the destructive behaviors that humans do (e.x. rape, murder, etc).

So you're assuming that people having reasons to have a guilty conscience is necessarily something "bad" to begin with. Maybe you just want people to be free to do any destructive behavior they want to without guilt for anything they do. I'm not sure.

Edited October 20 by Night FM

[dimreepr]

19 hours ago, Peterkin said:

I wish people did that with religious tenets.  Save a whole lot of money given to churches  - and stones! Every time I see a cathedral, I'm flabbergasted by the number of stones workmen had to quarry, transport, cut, place, mortar and carve to put one of those Disney concoctions in place. Plus save a whole lot of trouble fomented by prelates.

"The lens of human nature...." I wonder what that is when it's not being a metaphor.

Text is a particularly bad means of comunication, it's insidious, in that it both freezes meaning (left to be picked over by...) and is bereft of a complete set of data (with which to fully understand, let alone properly interpret; 'that' humans meaning... 

[Peterkin]

38 minutes ago, dimreepr said:

Text is a particularly bad means of comunication

Worked pretty well so far.

[dimreepr]

16 minutes ago, Peterkin said:

Worked pretty well so far.

Perhaps Will can explian my meaning:

At least watch the first 5 minutes, but it's worth 50 minutes of anyone's time...

[Peterkin]

8 hours ago, dimreepr said:

Perhaps Will can explian my meaning:

Only I couldn't go to London to be in his presence; I was smeared in time place by watching him on the internet. When I'm reading a book (text), I'm in the same room with that book, and I understand its meaning quite clearly (unless it's economics or metaphysics).

I don't see the connection of religions or their central themes.

 

[Night FM]

On 1/26/2024 at 6:28 AM, Otto Kretschmer said:

What's your opinion on Dharmic religions i.e. Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism?

I personally like them more than Abrahamic religions since they are more tolerant and don't have the same "who doesn't believe in me goes to hell" approach.

A nice introduction to Buddhism:

 

I don't have a full grasp of them, but my view is that they essentially acknowledge the equivalent of a God or supreme being or principle of the cosmos, even if they don't say they do outright. (I'm probably thinking of Buddhism in specific). I'm also aware that there are polytheistic sects, but the more intellectual variants seem to reject the polytheistic pantheons and acknowledge a monotheistic God or equivalent.

To me, this is similar to how the more enlightened Greek and Roman philosophers rejected the popular pantheon of deities and acknowledged a monotheistic God or some equivalent.

[Peterkin]

1 hour ago, Night FM said:

I don't have a full grasp of them, but my view is that they essentially acknowledge the equivalent of a God or supreme being or principle of the cosmos, even if they don't say they do outright.

You don't understand what they're saying, but you understand what they're not saying as being sorta like what you wanted them to say. Check.

[dimreepr]

13 hours ago, Peterkin said:

Only I couldn't go to London to be in his presence; I was smeared in time place by watching him on the internet. When I'm reading a book (text), I'm in the same room with that book, and I understand its meaning quite clearly (unless it's economics or metaphysics).

I don't see the connection of religions or their central themes.

 

I'm not using him as a direct meaning of my point; besides you don't seem to understand his point, and parallax is the word that links, most strongly, to my meaning.

Every generation creates a different parallax, a different view of the text, the more generations the more obtuse the angle...

It doesn't mean it's unreadable or un-understandable, but like everything that drives language and effective communication, it takes a relatable moment/experience for knowledge to be taught...

[Peterkin]

1 hour ago, dimreepr said:

I'm not using him as a direct meaning of my point; besides you don't seem to understand his point, and parallax is the word that links, most strongly, to my meaning.

Every generation creates a different parallax, a different view of the text, the more generations the more obtuse the angle...

It doesn't mean it's unreadable or un-understandable, but like everything that drives language and effective communication, it takes a relatable moment/experience for knowledge to be taught...

Oh! Well, that's completely different from anything.

[dimreepr]

34 minutes ago, Peterkin said:

Oh! Well, that's completely different from anything.

If you say so...