in Buddhism it is said that with suffering comes wisdom.

which, coincidentally, is a shitty way to get it.

>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:

Strangely enough, I was in a situation yesterday where I was holding travel bags, and due to the distribution of open space in the elevator, standing face away from the door was the most pragmatic option. I did feel weird for a moment, but then I felt like it was an opportunity to detach myself from my ego, like the Buddha (note: I know very little about Buddhism, so this may or may not be accurate). I embraced my break with culture norms, stood calmly and confidently, and it gave my a mild feeling of satisfaction.
I may try it again next time I'm in an elevator. Elevator Zen.


You know whats fun, go stand in the corner of the elevator with your face to the corner, like your in time out or something. People don't know how to react. Or, my dad would try to hold a very awkward conversation with his briefcase. Elevators, the greatest place for forced awkwardness!

Strangely enough, I was in a situation yesterday where I was holding travel bags, and due to the distribution of open space in the elevator, standing face away from the door was the most pragmatic option. I did feel weird for a moment, but then I felt like it was an opportunity to detach myself from my ego, like the Buddha (note: I know very little about Buddhism, so this may or may not be accurate). I embraced my break with culture norms, stood calmly and confidently, and it gave my a mild feeling of satisfaction.

I may try it again next time I'm in an elevator. Elevator Zen.

@kceaton1

I wholly agree that I detest these once atheists that have literally taken what is normally a balanced "naught" position as to God(s) existence barring evidence and instead these anti-theists ditch that stance and deem that not only is all religion a wash, but any God is as well. They're very "militant" in nature and seem to draw in those that are less secure about their own opinions; kind of like the Westboro Baptists. Unfortunately, they are also very pro-active, boisterous, and vitriolic in nature--worse of all they call themselves atheists still, giving the rest of us a bad rap.

And they're everywhere. The only place that I can go and say anything about Christianity without being ridiculed is a Christian forum. This goes from the obvious places like atheist forums, to a place like this, to even the comments section on CNN.com. Antitheists seem to outnumber thoughtful atheists at least 100-1.

Some of them though are just plain tired of the charades they have had to play with men they worked with, people they once respected--but, those same people might as well put their workmate, friend, and neighbors into brutal conditions for a simple principle held: atheism. It's happened before, not as ruthless as it may have been in the earlier centuries, but black listing someone in a community can happen. I've seen it happen innumerable times first hand! I can't blame some for their outrage and pointed damnation they hold for others; it was created by those that may complain that the volume and acidity of their words may be too strong--or too true.

Some have been mistreated, and some are just on the hate bandwagon because they are angry, insecure people who scapegoat religion for the evil in the world. Much like an anarchist blames all the evil in the world on governments.

Of course religion has it's share of idiots as well. They are almost always the fundamentalists, like the Westboro clan. Papa (George H. W.) Bush once said that atheists should have no rights in the U.S.--if he had his way--they would not be citizens nor would they be patriots. Because, this is a nation "under God"--atleast after that was added. Maybe Papa Bush didn't know that historical part. Religion also has a grand stand in politics and the media. That is yet another thing that must be remembered is that when an anti-theist does speak it will outrage the religious; but, atheists, anti-theists (even Jews, Muslims, Hindu, Buddhism, etc...), endure the endless exposure and should be expected to remain quiet... Fox News is the epitome of which I speak as it is nothing more than a pulpit for the rich, white, Christian, American, white collar worker.

Stupidity, of course, is not exclusive to any particular group of people, but is common to all of them.

But, there is one more consideration that HAS to be mentioned. As this point gets me to go after religious people all the time. If this makes me anti-theist, because I voiced a concern over what is being said--then anti-theism is far more wide-spread and has NOTHING to do with atheism. I do think this may be a common misconception from just my general experiences on the messageboards, here and elsewhere.

The problem is: Science!

This is especially true for all of the fundamental type religions. They all have a huge laundry list of minor science flaws to HUGE science flaws. Fundamentalism Christianity in the U.S. tends to take the lead in this war of fact versus opinion. There are plenty of fully qualified scientists out there that are religious, but ones that tend to go against the full body of evidence and scientific community to prove a religious claim tend to be "not fully qualified". They tend to use full scientific data and factual evidence to create a new theor...I mean hypothesis (many will try to use "theory", but their reason for their arrival at the new understanding tends to have no basis) and inject a very large amount of opinion, sprinkled with some facts. One such example is the red-shift video provided above by @shinyblurry .

The video I posted does have a basis, the phenomena was legitimately observed:

http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0606294

Obviously it isn't conclusive, but it definitely has merit and should be explored rather than dismissed. I would really like to know the difference between something like this and the pure speculation accepted as fact in big bang cosmology, such as the existence of dark matter and dark energy. They are little more than fudge factors, as well as cosmic inflation, to account for the glaring holes that don't fit observation. That isn't science, but you excuse it because..?

Science can become a VERY heated area of topic when it comes to religion. This begins when a religion: tries to debunk a theory or a part of it, to commandeer a theory and direct a new conclusion to fit an already preconceived destination which has not been peer-reviewed or tested, repeating scientific theories in religious pamphlets or media while purposefully undermining the theory by not presenting in full and correct context or actually printing falsehoods, lying about the nature of scientific testing, repetitiously incorrectly stating current stances on various theories (like radio-carbon dating, etc...), attempts by any churches through the state to eliminate the teaching of branches of science--especially ones that have been tested so much that have attained the rank of THEORY (Evolution, etc...), again the use of lying in media against science--this has reached every facet of media-large and small.

Here's the problem with the so called theory of evolution. What Darwin observed was microevolution, not macroevolution. He observed that species will adapt to their environments. That is scientific fact, and a great discovery. What he did from there is speculate that because species adapt to their environments, that those adaptations would lead to new species, and therefore, that all life has a common ancestor. Since it wasn't something that could be observed, what was supposed to prove his theory would be evidence from the fossil record. There was only one problem with that:

innumerable transitional forms must have existed but why do we not find them embedded in countless numbers in the crust of the earth? ..why is not every geological formation and every stratum full of such intermediate links?

Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely graduated organic chain, and this perhaps is the greatest objection which can be urged against my theory.

Charles Darwin
Origin of the Species

The total lack of transitional fossils was a complete embarrassment to Darwin. The excuse made was that because the record was so poor, more time was needed to unearth the fossils. Here we are 150 years later, and those transitional forms have failed to materialize. The fossil record is composed mainly of gaps. It also defies all the predictions of gradualism. All the major body types appeared suddenly in the Cambrian explosion without any discernable evolutionary history, and they appeared highly diversified. All the major phyla, classes, orders etc were there at the beginning. Species appear suddenly in stasis and leave just as suddenly. Macroevolution is not science, it has never been observed nor can it be tested. It is a just-so story which does not fit observation.

Christians don't have a problem with science, they have a problem with what isn't science. Macroevolution was a giant leap made by Darwin for which there was no evidence, and the fossil record does not match the predictions of the theory. Because of this, evolutionists have moved away from the fossil record and have used other lines of evidences to prove macroevolution, like common genetics in our DNA. The problem with that is, common genetics also indicates a common designer, and is better indicated by it actually, because of the mosaic pattern we observe in the genome.

I'm sure there are more. History has been a great use to show us what religion WILL do to science, even though all that is being shown is the truth. It truly is a dangerous weapon. If you can't except truth what hope do we have for you. Yes you can be a good person, but somehow you're flawed, unable to except reality.

Historically the church supported scientific inquiry. Science got its start in Christian Europe, and many of the greatest scientists were devout Christians.

When I was a believer (no matter what @shinyblurry says I was; I was Mormon and shiny seems to believe that his religious path is of course a T3 hard-line; were as Mormons just get the basic 56k dial-up...) I FELT the presence of God, or more accurately The Holy Ghost. I had no problem believing in everything science told me when I was religious. I knew it was the truth and I knew that God would not want me to ignore the grand insights into the workings of his masterpiece. I could feel in my soul, the first year I had physics, that something profound had just happened. I had found something I had been searching for my whole life. I felt connected to everything. I began to dismiss those that were religious around me and disliked evolution--to me evolution was so simple and yet such a wondrous way to create the most complex of things from literally the simplest. A literal masterpiece. So I do know that some can believe all that science says, but it's very hard in Christianity.

There are two kingdoms in this world, the kingdom of darkness and the Kingdom of Heaven, and they are both supernatural kingdoms. You can get a supernatural experience in a false religion, but it is just a corrupt copy of the real thing. Were you feeling a burning sensation in your chest? What you were feeling wasn't the Holy Spirit, or the presence of God, but the false spirit that pervades the mormon church. The presence of God is something that goes beyond feelings and sensations. This is how people get duped into false religions, because they get a spiritual experience from a false spirit.

I grew up secular, and when I became a Christian I was more than willing to accept the conclusions of science. I had believed them all my life because they had been taught to me as factual. I was even willing to intergrate them into my faith. It was only after investigating these things that I found, to my shock, that there wasn't any actual evidence for these things, and that they were neither testable or observerd. I changed my mind based on my investigation of the facts and not because of any religious duty. I would still believe it if I thought there was convincing evidence, but it isn't there.

Since you're scientifically minded, let me give you a challenge. You appear to be quite confident that evolution is proven true, so if that is the case, see if you can refute the arguments in this book:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0890510628/ref=olp_product_details?ie=UTF8&me=&seller=

So I hope I made a point with this. Anti-theism comes from quite a few directions. The most usual and common sight is that you'll see between someone defending scientific theories, while the less common will be those that have been directly burned by the religious community they most likely once belonged to. The last is of course what was brought up in earlier posts: atheists who turn into anti-theists. They tend to be the kind that will assert that religion is evil no matter how small or insignificant it may play a role in someones life.

It's because they have no idea how much of western civilization is built upon Christian principles and philosophy. What they need to do is educate themselves:

http://www.amazon.com/Book-that-Made-Your-World/dp/1595553223

In the end most atheists boil down to this:

Stephen speaking to a religious friend...
“I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.”

~Stephen Roberts

Thought I'd throw in one more bit about the anti-theism comments above, like @GeeSussFreeK 's.

I wholly agree that I detest these once atheists that have literally taken what is normally a balanced "naught" position as to God(s) existence barring evidence and instead these anti-theists ditch that stance and deem that not only is all religion a wash, but any God is as well. They're very "militant" in nature and seem to draw in those that are less secure about their own opinions; kind of like the Westboro Baptists. Unfortunately, they are also very pro-active, boisterous, and vitriolic in nature--worse of all they call themselves atheists still, giving the rest of us a bad rap.

Some of them though are just plain tired of the charades they have had to play with men they worked with, people they once respected--but, those same people might as well put their workmate, friend, and neighbors into brutal conditions for a simple principle held: atheism. It's happened before, not as ruthless as it may have been in the earlier centuries, but black listing someone in a community can happen. I've seen it happen innumerable times first hand! I can't blame some for their outrage and pointed damnation they hold for others; it was created by those that may complain that the volume and acidity of their words may be too strong--or too true.

Of course religion has it's share of idiots as well. They are almost always the fundamentalists, like the Westboro clan. Papa (George H. W.) Bush once said that atheists should have no rights in the U.S.--if he had his way--they would not be citizens nor would they be patriots. Because, this is a nation "under God"--atleast after that was added. Maybe Papa Bush didn't know that historical part. Religion also has a grand stand in politics and the media. That is yet another thing that must be remembered is that when an anti-theist does speak it will outrage the religious; but, atheists, anti-theists (even Jews, Muslims, Hindu, Buddhism, etc...), endure the endless exposure and should be expected to remain quiet... Fox News is the epitome of which I speak as it is nothing more than a pulpit for the rich, white, Christian, American, white collar worker.

But, there is one more consideration that HAS to be mentioned. As this point gets me to go after religious people all the time. If this makes me anti-theist, because I voiced a concern over what is being said--then anti-theism is far more wide-spread and has NOTHING to do with atheism. I do think this may be a common misconception from just my general experiences on the messageboards, here and elsewhere.

The problem is: Science!

This is especially true for all of the fundamental type religions. They all have a huge laundry list of minor science flaws to HUGE science flaws. Fundamentalism Christianity in the U.S. tends to take the lead in this war of fact versus opinion. There are plenty of fully qualified scientists out there that are religious, but ones that tend to go against the full body of evidence and scientific community to prove a religious claim tend to be "not fully qualified". They tend to use full scientific data and factual evidence to create a new theor...I mean hypothesis (many will try to use "theory", but their reason for their arrival at the new understanding tends to have no basis) and inject a very large amount of opinion, sprinkled with some facts. One such example is the red-shift video provided above by @shinyblurry .

Science can become a VERY heated area of topic when it comes to religion. This begins when a religion: tries to debunk a theory or a part of it, to commandeer a theory and direct a new conclusion to fit an already preconceived destination which has not been peer-reviewed or tested, repeating scientific theories in religious pamphlets or media while purposefully undermining the theory by not presenting in full and correct context or actually printing falsehoods, lying about the nature of scientific testing, repetitiously incorrectly stating current stances on various theories (like radio-carbon dating, etc...), attempts by any churches through the state to eliminate the teaching of branches of science--especially ones that have been tested so much that have attained the rank of THEORY (Evolution, etc...), again the use of lying in media against science--this has reached every facet of media-large and small.

I'm sure there are more. History has been a great use to show us what religion WILL do to science, even though all that is being shown is the truth. It truly is a dangerous weapon. If you can't except truth what hope do we have for you. Yes you can be a good person, but somehow you're flawed, unable to except reality.

When I was a believer (no matter what @shinyblurry says I was; I was Mormon and shiny seems to believe that his religious path is of course a T3 hard-line; were as Mormons just get the basic 56k dial-up...) I FELT the presence of God, or more accurately The Holy Ghost. I had no problem believing in everything science told me when I was religious. I knew it was the truth and I knew that God would not want me to ignore the grand insights into the workings of his masterpiece. I could feel in my soul, the first year I had physics, that something profound had just happened. I had found something I had been searching for my whole life. I felt connected to everything. I began to dismiss those that were religious around me and disliked evolution--to me evolution was so simple and yet such a wondrous way to create the most complex of things from literally the simplest. A literal masterpiece. So I do know that some can believe all that science says, but it's very hard in Christianity.

So I hope I made a point with this. Anti-theism comes from quite a few directions. The most usual and common sight is that you'll see between someone defending scientific theories, while the less common will be those that have been directly burned by the religious community they most likely once belonged to. The last is of course what was brought up in earlier posts: atheists who turn into anti-theists. They tend to be the kind that will assert that religion is evil no matter how small or insignificant it may play a role in someones life.

In the end most atheists boil down to this:

Stephen speaking to a religious friend...
“I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.”

~Stephen Roberts

/long

>> ^SDGundamX:

>> ^jwray:
Faith is synonymous with lack of critical thinking. Faith is a problem no matter how benign some of its practitioners currently are because they can more easily be misled by clergy, politicians, and hucksters.
I disagree with this statement. What you are referring to is blind faith--faith without question. Faith is actually much more diverse than that. You also seem to be assuming that all people who are religious are blindly faithful. Certainly some are. But are the majority of them? I don't believe so, though I don't have any statistics to back that up. I base my belief on my (admittedly anecdotal) experiences talking with people from all of the five major religions (Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism). I have found many people to be critical of their own religion. Are they critical enough? Perhaps not, which is why I value the anti-theist movement for forcing people to think more about the issues (even if I disagree with the anti-theists' ultimate goals).
I'm curious, @jwray, if someone were to be critical of their religion (as an organization and force in the world) but found their own personal faith to be beneficial to their lives (and not causing any sort of harm in the world) would you demand that they give it up?


Lots of people mix faith with reason in their worldviews, but the reason is reason and the faith is faith. Faith is by definition to believe things for which there is no evidence or contradictory evidence. Reason is to require evidence. They are utterly contradictory concepts.

>> ^jwray:

Faith is synonymous with lack of critical thinking. Faith is a problem no matter how benign some of its practitioners currently are because they can more easily be misled by clergy, politicians, and hucksters.

I disagree with this statement. What you are referring to is blind faith--faith without question. Faith is actually much more diverse than that. You also seem to be assuming that all people who are religious are blindly faithful. Certainly some are. But are the majority of them? I don't believe so, though I don't have any statistics to back that up. I base my belief on my (admittedly anecdotal) experiences talking with people from all of the five major religions (Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism). I have found many people to be critical of their own religion. Are they critical enough? Perhaps not, which is why I value the anti-theist movement for forcing people to think more about the issues (even if I disagree with the anti-theists' ultimate goals).

I'm curious, @jwray, if someone were to be critical of their religion (as an organization and force in the world) but found their own personal faith to be beneficial to their lives (and not causing any sort of harm in the world) would you demand that they give it up?

hrmm... much anger, i sense

iirc, the word atheism comes from greek and means 'without god(s)'

as a sidenote, what does this mean for those religions whose core tenets don't include a god or pantheon of gods, ie daoism, buddhism, confucianism?

is greta angry with them? she scares me - lol

That's your retort? That religions don't have hearts?

When I say heart above, I mean the core idea, the central thesis, the essence, the main thing. In all religions, it is rotten.

Sure, Christianity gets some things right, so does Buddhism, so does Islam, but the core of their philosophical interpretation of the world is false and misleading.
>> ^VoodooV:

>> ^gwiz665:
I disagree. Religions themselves are at their heart rotten, but religious people are not necessarily. People in power are not always rotten at the core either.
>> ^VoodooV:
Maybe they are at the political bureaucratic level @gwiz665 but that's more of a statement about people in power than it is about religion.
There are plenty of people out there who believe in a god but do not suspend rational thought. These people are not rotten. Members of most churches at the local level are not rotten. The problem is the rotten leaders, not the religions.
Remove the bureaucratic power structure from religion and I guarantee you'll see massive change for the better. But it's not religion that is rotten, it's the rotten people who run it.


religions don't have hearts, people do. You might as well say all gov't is bad because a few corrupt people get in power.

My thoughts:

I've struggled with depression for much of my life, I think I'll probably be struggling with it for most of the rest of it but a few things have made the struggle somewhat easier, mostly this notion of living in the now. Be aware of where your minds eye is wandering, attempt to always bring it back to your present moment. When you live in the past or future you're not really living at all, life just sort of blurs past in front of you as you contemplate your failings or worry about your future. Generally this idea of mindfulness, which has origins in Buddhism, helps me a lot.

Related to that is also learning to detach yourself from your emotions, simply identify them and just understand that they are transitory. I actually picked that up from the SciFi masterpiece, Dune. I read it at a very stressful point in my life and the litany against fear really stuck with me. I really believe fear, above any other emotion, is the most destructive to our ability to think critically and hence live a meaningful existence. Despite being from a fictional religion I think those words contain more truth, at least for me, than anything else I've ever stumbled upon. This idea was reinforced, strangely, by Day[9] of SC2 fame when he replied to a question about how he is so happy.

So our personal philosophies are patchworks of ideas cut from the strangest sources. I'm not a buddhist or a Bene Gesserit, but none the less there are grains of truth in each, as I believe there is some truth in what this video describes. So while I'm not dismissing mainstream medicine when it comes to treating mental illness, but I also think our conscious thoughts are as much a sympton as a cause. When I am in control of my thoughts and emotions I am a happier more productive person, and for that I have to thank not my Dr, but Frank Herbert, Buddhism and Sean Plott (among others).

Anyway, there is a small glimpse into my brain mr anonymous internet stranger.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'Oryoki Oriyoki Zen Buddha Buddhism Three Bowls Sesshin Retreat' to 'Oryoki, Oriyoki, Zen, Buddha, Buddhism, Three Bowls, Sesshin Retreat' - edited by eric3579

>> ^lucky760:

Surprising you consider that the ~3rd largest religion on Earth (behind Christianity and Islam, with between 500 million to 1.5 billion) could just "fit" under some other religion's category. Buddhism is by itself its own category. I guess you're right that any variety of Buddhist is covered by your options... except for Buddhists, obviously.
It's rather incredible and slightly insulting that you (or anyone) would assume most Buddhists follow some mishmash of Buddhism and another belief system.

I don't think it's a mishmash, exactly. It's just that, unlike most other major religions, Buddhism doesn't conflict with other beliefs. Of the handful of Buddhists I've known, 1 was Christian and the rest were atheists. "Pure" Buddhism is atheistic, as I understand it, so if I listed it separately would that not introduce a conflict?

What I'm now thinking is my big mistake was explicitly listing atheism. Atheism is only a position on the existence of God, not on religion, and there are religions that do not have gods.

That being said, no slight was meant toward Buddhism or Buddhists. I just made a poor decision when I set the poll up. I should have taken a little longer to consider the options.

@lucky760

When I started reading your post I thought it was going to be about Hinduism (which, according to Wikipedia at least, is more or less on equal terms with Buddhism).

I think I understand why the poll is this way: it seems "Western"-oriented, in that the Abrahamic monotheisms are often represented as the leading triad, while the "oriental" religions are lumped together. I think the poll would look very different if it were on an Indian site, for example.

That being said, the lack of Pastafarianism is unforgivable, arrRRR! May His noodly appendages smite you down with tomato sauce stains!

>> ^xxovercastxx:

>> ^lucky760:
Buddhism has been noticeably excluded.

Putting it in its own category would be very tricky. If Buddhism was its own option, what would a Christian Buddhist select? How about an atheist Buddhist?
I hoped that any variety of Buddhist would fit into one of the above categories and that it might actually be better to not list it specifically exactly for that reason.
If we were able to put a lot more poll options I might have tried to accommodate it with specific entries, but with only 5 I felt this was the best setup.


Surprising you consider that the ~3rd largest religion on Earth (behind Christianity and Islam, with between 500 million to 1.5 billion) could just "fit" under some other religion's category. Buddhism is by itself its own category. I guess you're right that any variety of Buddhist is covered by your options... except for Buddhists, obviously.

It's rather incredible and slightly insulting that you (or anyone) would assume most Buddhists follow some mishmash of Buddhism and another belief system.

In any case, it's a valid point that we should allow for more poll options. We just didn't want people to go nuts with it. Perhaps we will up it to a maximum of eight instead of five.

[edit]
Polls now support a maximum of 8 vote choices.

>> ^lucky760:

Buddhism has been noticeably excluded.


Putting it in its own category would be very tricky. If Buddhism was its own option, what would a Christian Buddhist select? How about an atheist Buddhist?

I hoped that any variety of Buddhist would fit into one of the above categories and that it might actually be better to not list it specifically exactly for that reason.

If we were able to put a lot more poll options I might have tried to accommodate it with specific entries, but with only 5 I felt this was the best setup.