Aethist corner of Elakiri

[Aethist]

"A "true Buddhist"........, to me is someone who is open minded, unbiased and questions Nibbana at all depths he can before "buying" it

"Nibbana/ Nirvana" is still not scientifically proven, neither the "karma" and "reincarnation". Until they are proven scientifically, intelligent people in SL, will continue to consider themselves "not guilty" of their consequences, just like this lovely "Atheist" girl below .

so simply no point, the so called "Buddhists" in SL, including the late Soma thera, blaming other religions for their gradual rise. IMHO, although I do not give a "shyte" about ANY religion, if I were to chose one, for 1 million dollars , I would choose, either Christianity or Islam, so I can go to heaven straight after I die .

Now you see, why Christianity and Islam, the most populous religions of the world and "Mohammed" and "Jack" being the most popular names for babies . Furthermore, another reason, for the unpopularity in Buddhism, is because some consider it as preaching "sadness".

 

[GuneBhai]

Now you see, why Christianity and Islam, the most populous religions of the world and "Mohammed" and "Jack" being the most popular names for babies . Furthermore, another reason, for the unpopularity in Buddhism, is because some consider it as preaching "sadness".

In my opinion I think that if Buddhism didn't have let the Hindu belief system creep into it's core in SL we would not have a religion called Buddhism in SL.

this observation is valid to any given Buddhist country which ever either accepted hinduism, mahayanaism or any other compatible belief system into the Buddhist core.... (present day Thailand, present day Tibet.....) however IMO the key reason for the decline of Buddhist philosophy in India was due to the thoroughness and godless nature of the Buddhist philosophy.... generally majority of the populace would turn to a any divine assistance rather than their self competence in developing defenses against crisis.

However it is not optimistic to believe that more people in this world would turn to Buddhism or follow Buddha's philosophy in future with the increase of the general inelegance of the populace.

 

[djHiran]

"Nibbana/ Nirvana" is still not scientifically proven, neither the "karma" and "reincarnation". Until they are proven scientifically, intelligent people in SL, will continue to consider themselves "not guilty" of their consequences, just like this lovely "Atheist" girl below .

Proving Nibbana scientifically is not ever going to happen my friend! Nibbana is a personal experience. Think of it this way: When you see red color you cannot be sure if that's what someone else is seeing. If what he see is green according to your personal experience, he will still say what he see is red, because thats what he know as read! You fail to use your scientific apparatus to prove/disprove the existence of a red green discrepancy because you fail to find any physical law violated by hypothesizing the existence or non-existance of that condition.

Even proving the existence of consciousness must be very hard if not impossible. You might say it is there because you experience it. But that won't "prove" it scientifically.

Choosing Christianity or Islam if you had to merely for a 1 million dollars can very well be justified , and I take it as an expression of a personal preference. Firstly "believing in" Buddhism as a religion is not going to do any good for you. Secondly, yes Buddhism preach about something closely related to "sadness". If you translate "dhukka" into sadness it is just like saying "gandha" is "bad smell". Dhukka really contain both sadness and happiness in its core.

However if you try to meditate in the intended way you will discover a great deal of pleasure out of it. You do not have to be or become a so called Buddhist to try out that. One of my Muslim friends once wanted to try "Jehana" and I told him how to. He expressed the same pleasure I experience after practicing it. Yet he is still a good Muslim. I admit that Jehana and other higher states of consciousness do not come to you for free as a consequence of adhering to Buddhism. That is but because it has absolutely nothing to do with your religion or religious beliefs!

No need to say you cannot prove the existence of Jehana by scientific means, but only you can observe are the consequences of it. For example, a considerable shift in electric fields sourcing from brain is said to be observed. See for example : http://www.quantumconsciousness.org/EEGmeditation.htm

You must understand that I am not referring to Buddhism as a religion. I don't believe anything of no testable or experienceable consequence, and I do not prejudge anything. But, I try practicing meditation because of the great deal of pleasure i find out of it. To become scientifically inclined is not to just throw away all the religious hats but to rationally identify what is myth, what has testable consequences and what doesn't. In that sense I still am an atheist. But not an ignorant disbeliever, because I put everything into test

 

[ela_eluwa120]

Proving Nibbana scientifically is not ever going to happen my friend! Nibbana is a personal experience. Think of it this way: When you see red color you cannot be sure if that's what someone else is seeing. If what he see is green according to your personal experience, he will still say what he see is red, because thats what he know as read! You fail to use your scientific apparatus to prove/disprove the existence of a red green discrepancy because you fail to find any physical law violated by hypothesizing the existence or non-existance of that condition.

Labeling nibbana as a "personal experience" is not going to help. It can not be used as an evidence to prove Buddhism either. For one thing, one can use this same paragraph and replace the word "nibbana" with things like "union with Jesus", "knowing God", "union with God", "love of God", "Kaivalya" and so-on. Actually, one can argue that experiencing Santa Clause is a "personal experience", which can only be known by first person perspective, and there by conclude that Santa clause exists.

Why use "personal experience arguments" only when it comes to Nibbana?

Why not say like,

Proving union with Jesus scientifically is not ever going to happen my friend! Union with Jesus is a personal experience. Think of it this way: When you see red color you cannot be sure if that's what someone else is seeing. If what he see is green according to your personal experience, he will still say what he see is red, because thats what he know as read! You fail to use your scientific apparatus to prove/disprove the existence of a red green discrepancy because you fail to find any physical law violated by hypothesizing the existence or non-existance of that condition.

Is it because "union with Jesus" something that is not preached in your religion? Or is it because Christians are heathens (misadutuwo) as some Buddhist people believe?

 

[ela_eluwa120]

"Nibbana/ Nirvana" is still not scientifically proven, neither the "karma" and "reincarnation". Until they are proven scientifically, intelligent people in SL, will continue to consider themselves "not guilty" of their consequences, just like this lovely "Atheist" girl below .

so simply no point, the so called "Buddhists" in SL, including the late Soma thera, blaming other religions for their gradual rise. IMHO, although I do not give a "shyte" about ANY religion, if I were to chose one, for 1 million dollars , I would choose, either Christianity or Islam, so I can go to heaven straight after I die .

Now you see, why Christianity and Islam, the most populous religions of the world and "Mohammed" and "Jack" being the most popular names for babies . Furthermore, another reason, for the unpopularity in Buddhism, is because some consider it as preaching "sadness".

I don't agree with the last part of your post.
Popularity of any religion says nothing about the validity of a religion.

 

[Topophobia]

Are you an aethist? Are you tired of the bullshit preached by mainstream religions in SL? Then this place is for you

You are warmly welcome

I am atheist too.

 

[Topophobia]

Concerning metaphysical issues like consciousness, for me, it is hard to accept the notion that there is a non-physical substance (or a combination of non-physical entities) that is - an island of consciousness in human beings, well, in human body, to be precise. If our minds are things other than our brains, then we should expect to see mind in its intact form after removing the brain. Actually, if some thing like reincarnation to happen, our mind should be able to survive the death of the brain. However, this is not the case. A person's psychological life can be vastly affected by physical damage to the brain. This implies that consciousness is nothing *mental* after all. In addition, consider situations where we get hit badly and knocked unconscious in effect. In those situations, there are disruptions in the normal brain functioning. If mind is something other than the body, our mental life should be intact and we should not be *unconscious* after all. Nonetheless, that is not what really happens, in reality, we actually become unconscious when we are knocked down unconscious.

 

[djHiran]

Labeling nibbana as a "personal experience" is not going to help. It can not be used as an evidence to prove Buddhism either. For one thing, one can use this same paragraph and replace the word "nibbana" with things like "union with Jesus", "knowing God", "union with God", "love of God", "Kaivalya" and so-on. Actually, one can argue that experiencing Santa Clause is a "personal experience", which can only be known by first person perspective, and there by conclude that Santa clause exists.

Why use "personal experience arguments" only when it comes to Nibbana?

Why not say like,

You got me wrong my friend, "proving Buddhism" is not my task What I have stated is just that Nibbana cannot be proven once and for all (But I am not using my inability as an argument to justify Buddhism). If you really want to, you can verify for yourself the existence of Jehana with a fairly little effort. But even that is not going to help you. Because Jehana is not something unique to Buddhism. Buddha's path starts right after you attain that state of consciousness. Jehana preexisted even before Buddha. But I can promise you Jehana really is a strong state of consciousness You gotta experience it. It was a truly wonderful experience to me. I sometimes find myself using it as a helping tool for concentrating on difficult academic subjects

You cannot prove Newton's second law by experimenting it. You only can verify it. Buddhism too is an experiment about yourself, in a sense. You can verify yourself the validity or invalidity of it if you really want to, but you may not be able to establish a proof (If you can establish, it will be a triumph ). However, it is open to test.

I am NOT saying Buddhism is either the truth/has some degree of truth in it/is not the truth. But, if you are a believer or an active disbeliever you are wasting your time! Buddhism is not intended as a religion, at least as I see it (Remember : it is open to test).

Note however that I am not talking about "pop" Buddhism here.

 

[Topophobia]

Concerning atheism, I think the word "atheism" is a very confused (if not overused) term. Indeed, by reading some of the replies in this thread, I felt that some posters actually have confusions regarding usage of the word "atheism". (I am not an exception of this to be honest.)

Although I am not sure about the etymology of the term, I think that, in its strict sense, atheism denotes the disbelief in God or gods. In this sense, actually a Christian can be an atheist because Christians do not believe gods like ancient Egyptian gods, Horus to cite an example. In other words, we can say, Christians are atheists with respect to ancient Egyptian gods. Actually, under this interpretation of the term atheism, Jains and Buddhists are atheists too.

However, throughout the philosophical discourse, it seems that the usage of the term atheism has expanded to denotes many disbelieves. In this expanded sense, a Buddhist person can not be an atheist because according to this extended meaning of "atheism" one should reject reincarnation in order to be an atheist.

I don't prefer to identify me as an atheist because of this confusion when it comes to the usage of the word "atheism". I, instead, identify myself as a humanist.

 

[Randir]

I would like to add some idea here. Science is not 100% correct. Science you believe in today mostly will change in the future. Believing only things that make some sense according to the present science is not always wise because science itself is not 100% correct accurate and it is changeable.

Our science and technology is still primitive, which is absolutely not advanced enough to test insights of Buddhism.

If you are trying to prove Buddhism with the present science, it is like you are sending a grade 1 student for advanced level exam (maths, physics,chemistry subjects) and expecting island number 1 rank from him/her. Epic fail.

 

[ela_eluwa120]

You got me wrong my friend, "proving Buddhism" is not my task What I have stated is just that Nibbana cannot be proven once and for all (But I am not using my inability as an argument to justify Buddhism). If you really want to, you can verify for yourself the existence of Jehana with a fairly little effort. But even that is not going to help you. Because Jehana is not something unique to Buddhism. Buddha's path starts right after you attain that state of consciousness. Jehana preexisted even before Buddha. But I can promise you Jehana really is a strong state of consciousness You gotta experience it. It was a truly wonderful experience to me. I sometimes find myself using it as a helping tool for concentrating on difficult academic subjects

You cannot prove Newton's second law by experimenting it. You only can verify it. Buddhism too is an experiment about yourself, in a sense. You can verify yourself the validity or invalidity of it if you really want to, but you may not be able to establish a proof (If you can establish, it will be a triumph ). However, it is open to test.

I am NOT saying Buddhism is either the truth/has some degree of truth in it/is not the truth. But, if you are a believer or an active disbeliever you are wasting your time! Buddhism is not intended as a religion, at least as I see it (Remember : it is open to test).

Note however that I am not talking about "pop" Buddhism here.

I see. However, you appear rather hesitated when "Aethist" said ""Nibbana/ Nirvana" is still not scientifically proven". Didn't you? So, you are adopting Buddhist meditation as a means of comforting yourself, and as a means of improving your concentration. Not only you! But also your Muslim friend too. I am not going to speak against such practice. Nonetheless, the point is, that sort of practice is not imperative for everyone eh. If you are not arguing for nirvana, that is, if you are not trying to prove nirvana, and if you are merely expressing your satisfaction with your meditation practices, then it means you are simply giving your personal autobiography for us. However, your personal autobiography does not make any claims on us. On the other hand, if you are trying to prove nirvana, then you must give reasons. However, you already admitted that you can't do so.



By the way, if a devoted Christian ask you to do such and such religious practices to "verify" the union with Jesus, would you actually take his word? You may object and ask him prove that there is actually such thing called "union with Jesus". And what if he replies,

"If you really want to, you can verify for yourself the existence of union with Jesus with a fairly little effort."

Ergo, I do not think that those "do it and verify" type arguments are sound.
We can use the same argument for any religious practice actually. There is no need to specially focus on Buddhist practices while ignoring other religious practices.

 

[guru.G]

i dont know whetr im an atheist or not, i dont need to divide from others religion / color / land / language / or for any reason becz we all humans ,same materials we all have , most of all we are part of this nature , i really wanna give love to my man kind ,im really sick of this hates we all have bcz we are divided, , , we need to live by each other happiness not by each other mystery, no body needs money every body needs foods / place to live love and happy life ,this world is rich we all can make this place better place we can give every body a life, foods , but greasy people we are, money have greased our souls every ody thinks " i " need a happy life with full of rich things , and we think we can help poor if "Im" rich, but ask your self do poor people have to live like beggars??? what we call human rights ??? its not "I" ,,,not even "we as a little divided groups (religion/language/land or what ever) " its "WE" man kind! why we cant work for each other ?? ..if a religion divide us ,why is that religion for us "love we all need"

 

[Aethist]

So, you are adopting Buddhist meditation as a means of comforting yourself, and as a means of improving your concentration.

machan let me give you one advise for your own good . Don't just run your mouth to win over someone. Always talk from "facts" or just leave the argument, without getting creamed for "lying". "Meditation" is not a buddhist invention as it's all about simple to extensive human concentration (which is 100% scientific). Even to catch a bus you have to concentrate on the name boards among many buses and so I am sure did the pre-historic humans to catch their moving prey . So meditation is just a common sense thing for me

and if you are one of those people who go by the book, here's something for you,
"Some of the earliest references to "meditation" are found in the Bible, dating around 1400 BCE,[24][25] and in the Hindu Vedas from around the 15th century BCE"
source: wiki of course

 

[djHiran]

Ergo, I do not think that those "do it and verify" type arguments are sound.

If "do it and verify" type arguments are not sound to you, you are admitting that science is not sound too. A scientific theory differ from a myth only because it is testable. But one thing, scientific theory is not asking to "do it somehow and verify". It states something in addition: the recipe to prepare the dish.

I exclude Buddhism from religion, i.e. pure myth, only because that testability of explicitly stated recipe.

And I must state this: a good theory is good only because it is testable. Verifying it billion times is not going to prove it. Verification can only lead to increased confidence on it. On the other hand, verifying that one theory fails even once is going to disprove it completely. So I think "do it and verify" type arguments are the best we have in science. Ultimately that's how we cope with physical reality.

 

[ela_eluwa120]

If "do it and verify" type arguments are not sound to you, you are admitting that science is not sound too. A scientific theory differ from a myth only because it is testable. But one thing, scientific theory is not asking to "do it somehow and verify". It states something in addition: the recipe to prepare the dish.

I exclude Buddhism from religion, i.e. pure myth, only because that testability of explicitly stated recipe.

And I must state this: a good theory is good only because it is testable. Verifying it billion times is not going to prove it. Verification can only lead to increased confidence on it. On the other hand, verifying that one theory fails even once is going to disprove it completely. So I think "do it and verify" type arguments are the best we have in science. Ultimately that's how we cope with physical reality.

Actually, the "do it and verify" argument used by you in this context is quite different from the testing done and being done in science because science involves the third person perspective. The type of "do it and verify" argument you used is exclusively devoted to the first person perspective. So, when you were saying "verify" in that context, you really meant something different than when scientists are saying "verify". I was using the word "verify" in that sense in my previous post. Therefore, the quasi-inconsistency is in fact a merely verbal dispute.

Actually, traditions like Christianity, Islam, African religions too have "explicitly stated recipes" for things like union with Jesus and so-on. Some of them involve dancing, beating drums and some of them involve enduring extreme pain and so-on. Your argument can be used to justify any tradition that you now label as "religions, i.e. pure myth". Thus, although you believe that having explicitly stated recipes exclude Buddhism from other religions, it really does not.

 

[ela_eluwa120]

machan let me give you one advise for your own good . Don't just run your mouth to win over someone. Always talk from "facts" or just leave the argument, without getting creamed for "lying". "Meditation" is not a buddhist invention as it's all about simple to extensive human concentration (which is 100% scientific). Even to catch a bus you have to concentrate on the name boards among many buses and so I am sure did the pre-historic humans to catch their moving prey . So meditation is just a common sense thing for me

and if you are one of those people who go by the book, here's something for you,
"Some of the earliest references to "meditation" are found in the Bible, dating around 1400 BCE,[24][25] and in the Hindu Vedas from around the 15th century BCE"
source: wiki of course

I agree. Meditation is not peculiar to Buddhism. Jainism also has meditation.
But, I was not "running my mouth to win over someone". In the sentence you quoted, I was simply paraphrasing and summarizing him. Furthermore, this is not a game and hence there won't be a winner. I believe, we are simply sharing our ideas.

 

[djHiran]

Actually, the "do it and verify" argument used by you in this context is quite different from the testing done and being done in science because science involves the third person perspective. The type of "do it and verify" argument you used is exclusively devoted to the first person perspective. So, when you were saying "verify" in that context, you really meant something different than when scientists are saying "verify". I was using the word "verify" in that sense in my previous post. Therefore, the quasi-inconsistency is in fact a merely verbal dispute.

Actually, traditions like Christianity, Islam, African religions too have "explicitly stated recipes" for things like union with Jesus and so-on. Some of them involve dancing, beating drums and some of them involve enduring extreme pain and so-on. Your argument can be used to justify any tradition that you now label as "religions, i.e. pure myth". Thus, although you believe that having explicitly stated recipes exclude Buddhism from other religions, it really does not.

I agree that verifiability in Buddhism is to a great extent devoted to the first person perspective, mainly because I don't think it is possible to overcome emotional involvements when we are dealing with our own consciousness. However I implicitly assumed that we are talking about intersubjective verifiability. In Buddhism the steps are made explicit to an extent that it state things like "first do such thing this much, then you will observe such things happening...then do such thing and...", etc..etc. I don't know if those other practices explicitly state things like how much steps should you take in your dance if you are to achieve such state, and what will be the consequences you will observe so that you can make sure you arrived at a particular guide post, etc. If they do so, surely should they too be excluded from taking as mere religious beliefs.

 

[daredevill]

Hey check this out, it's about "Buddhism's reincarnation dimensions through Physics", might be a interesting read...

http://poerty-dawson.blogspot.com/2012/03/blog-post_19.html

 

[Topophobia]

By the way, if there is a mind, it should interact with the body. But, if mind is something other than the body, how such interaction, such commerce, actually happen? Body is a physical thing that has the same building blocks any unconscious entity has. On the other hand, mind is supposed to be something ontologically different from the stuff that made up the body. Any massage our sense organs receive from the external world is in the form of energy. Our eyes capture energy of light, for example. However, if the massages our eyes receive are somehow transmitted to consciousness, then where does that original light energy go? They should enter the mind, the consciousness, for us to have the experiences of things in the world, say, the redness of an apple for example. However, if our consciousness is something non-physical, then it means that the energy that enters into consciousness is somehow vanished. But, this is impossible for it violates fundamental physics, which says that energy can not be destroyed or created.

 

[djHiran]

By the way, if there is a mind, it should interact with the body. But, if mind is something other than the body, how such interaction, such commerce, actually happen? Body is a physical thing that has the same building blocks any unconscious entity has. On the other hand, mind is supposed to be something ontologically different from the stuff that made up the body. Any massage our sense organs receive from the external world is in the form of energy. Our eyes capture energy of light, for example. However, if the massages our eyes receive are somehow transmitted to consciousness, then where does that original light energy go? They should enter the mind, the consciousness, for us to have the experiences of things in the world, say, the redness of an apple for example. However, if our consciousness is something non-physical, then it means that the energy that enters into consciousness is somehow vanished. But, this is impossible for it violates fundamental physics, which says that energy can not be destroyed or created.

An interesting remark that indeed is. However the relation between information and energy should not be taken that simple. If perception is a physically reversible process, then it must be isentropic meaning that it does't involve an increase or decrease in entropy. In that case it can not involve "energy of original light entering the mind". On the other hand if you assume mind to be physical, then taking mind itself as a form of energy will be helpful.

I do not know much about what Christianity, Islam etc tell about "mind". For your information : In Buddhism it is described as a compound entity that is only partly physical.

However something interesting to think about might be "what is physical and what is not".