Religion Vs. Philisophy

Not really trying to put anyone down either, but when it happens to me I'm happy to return the same vibe. Just trying to make a point that there are so many different paths to take, and narrow-mindedness towards Buddhism is rather irritating to say the least. I definitely have studied aspects of Zen and Buddhism for years and definitely respect it, and have meditated on and off for years. But this attitude that it's a unique and better religion than others, so much so that it's not even a religion at all, is false and just churning up the same BS that Catholics do.

Anyway, to stay on topic...

I don't think Philosophy is greater than Religion or vice versa. I'll just leave it at that.

 

Buddhism though does appear to offer some kind of religion without the Divine. So for people who want that it's probably one of the few options, as most religions have some concept of spirit.

But to get back to the original point of this thread - I think what's happened is that some people have extracted meditation techniques from Buddhism, and more or less reject the rest of it. To a traditional Buddhist, I don't know how that would seem. Probably, they wouldn't recognize this as Buddhism, but I cant say for sure.

It's good in my opinion to look into various paths etc, but really to make any progress, most people end up having to follow a particular path. The danger is that otherwise it can all get a bit amorphous.

 

It can be a quite refreshing antidote to the uptight, hard driving Western approach of getting unhealthily attached to almost everything, and wanting to control everything. In the USA this can be traced back to the Protestant work ethic brought over by the Puritans to Massachusetts.

When these sharply contrasting mindsets are applied to everyday life, they are being used as philosophies of life, even though they have religious origins. Not everyone is even aware of those origins.

I have an old friend who is naturally Zen, in the pop culture sense of the word. She never studied it or aspired to be that way; it's just the way her brain is wired, probably from birth. I've always had great respect and admiration for her serenity. I've found that this mindset is something that can be emulated over time, with varying degrees of success. Some people would simply call it maturity.

 

Atheists is of course a gathering term (one would almost think he asked a trick question :-D). Just because most atheists seem to have far less or no use for the term spirit doesn't mean they don't have spiritual experiences or when they have them reject them (they might define them differently).
Like theists, atheists appear to be just like humans (jk), they come in all forms. To say no atheist does this or can experience that seems always a slightly incorrect generalisation. .. After all, an atheist CAN acknowledge spirits just as easily. Just seem to depend on the person.

 

Imho a completely pointless and unfortunate fallacy. I recently noticed it was tried by a certain someone to project it on others that they were steeping down to someone's level I think here it would actually apply (kind of ironic). You're better than that man. Keep it constructive

To nitpick: the assertion is false, the attitude is not (unfortunately)

Its not about what's greater i think. It's this pointless versus bullshit that makes people go there. I can't emerge myself in religion without automatically getting philosophical thoughts and associations. They may be separate concepts but that doesn't mean the two are or have to be seperated in reality.

 

Guess I shouldn't have worded it as vs. but my opinion is also that they build off each other. Where to draw the line between them? Religion is an organization of a philosophy, perhaps.

 

Technically, no i don't think an atheist by definition would be able to acknowledge spirits, or Spirit.

 

Not a deity or divine/godly spirit obviously. Otherwise they wouldn't be atheist But really, why can't other atheists have more use for the concept in humans according to you?

 

They can't have more use for the concept as long as they are atheists. Spirit is seen as a hallucination of some sort, and is dismissed as ultimately being anything that's of substance.

 

Spirit to me is akin to Consciousness, and is a non-personal something that functions through a human being or any other being or even object. But as long as one thinks that Consciousness originates in the brain, then Spirit will seen to be a hallucination in the brain.

I think various religious figures became very in touch with Spirit, and expressed it as their own philosophy. It was good for its time, but it seems like as we move forward into the Age of Aquarius that it will be about embracing all unique spiritual paths that will potentially unite as a single sort of Cosmic Religion. Even Einstein suggested this in regards to Religion and the future. Aquarius is about humanity as a whole more than most signs, and respecting each unique path in a global way.

 

I think it's fairly difficult for an atheist who maintains the world can be understood rationally to include immaterial spirits into their worldview, but there are atheists such as Schopenhauer who view the world as irrational and I see no issue with spirits being included with a view like that. It's difficult for me to really comprehend personally but so is this idea of spirit that we (or at least some) can know but not know.

 

You're probably right that I'm generalizing things.(I think on a forum like this you have to generalize to some extent) The thing is though, that I don't see how a person could have a spiritual experience, and not recognize it as such. I'd be interested to know how you think they might define such an experience differently. Also how they might get that exp in the first place.

For all I know, there could be atheists who believe in spirit or even spirits. I can't say I've ever encountered one. But they may be out there.
Anyway, it's not only atheists who say there is no spirit - as we've seen, at least some Buddhists also take that view.

 

That is true, but there are two points I was trying to make---first, that it is understood as, or experienced as reincarnation of the individual soul (but as you pointed out and I quoted---some of this is of people who have not reached a higher understanding, but also I think it depends on the sect as well---such as various shinran sects. One's egoless soul does not go to a Buddist hell for example. It is a fate one falls into after death for sins committed in the physical world, and suffered at an individual level.) The second point was directed more at others in the thread---that rebirth is still a metaphysical process of the coming together of the right conditions.

Good point---and of course objectivism is more of a Western concept than Eastern to begin with, but it amounts to a kind of idealist objectivism, because the concept of anatta rejects the subjective self.

This could be a matter of different interpretations, or simply semantics---or a zen koan ;-). My understanding is that the physical is temporal and illusion, and the void is emptiness and also illusion (attachment to the void leads to nihilism, attachment to existence leads to physical attachment). The absolute, which is Buddha Mind, or One Mind, transcends both. It is both existence and void, yet it is neither. I would therefore say it would be beyond the physical. It is also below the veil of existence, beyond physical comprehension---it is the absolute, and described as the absolute.

It is this subjective thought that gives rise to the illusion of the physical.

Two monks were looking at a flag blowing in the wind. One argued that the wind was moving the flag, while the other argued that the flag was moving the wind. The Master overheard them and said, it is your mind that is moving.

 

I was really interested in the wave/particle duality discussion. If mountain valley wolf and bedlam would resume please...thank you.

 

Hinduism did not exist in Japan or China so it would not be like Christianity here in the US which appeared and then interacted with an original Native Jewish tradition...

I'M JOKING!

Buddhism evolved as a reaction or rebellion to Hinduism (As you already know) and it is heavily influenced by Hinduism just as Christianity is heavily influenced by Judaism, and they are all influenced by older indigenous beliefs, which was then carried around the world as these religions migrated (Except that Jesus wrote the Bible, he just let the Jews use the older part first... Ok, that aint right---Lord, please forgive me for making fun of the Christians and their Bible; and please feed the starving pygmies in New Guinea...) (...Ok seriously---I'm just joking, no one get offended now.)

HOWEVER, I also think that if you introduce a concept of rebirth into any culture, that it is natural for it to be interpreted by the masses as a rebirth of the individual soul, even if that is not the intent, because, after all, we are all only human with human desires, with an inherent need to avoid death.

Actually Shinto does not focus on ancestor worship, which is very interesting because there is an undeniable connection to Taoism through some older Ural Altaic Shamanic root. I believe the ancestor worship could have been imported from China along with Buddhism. Chinese folk Taoism was clearly intertwined with Buddhist beliefs at a certain level of understanding and practice.

 

It was the wind though that made the flag move. Not the mind of the monks (not saying their minds didn't move but they didn't impact the movement of the flag)

 

I don't want to hijack the thread, but let me add one more point, …well, then I’ll show how it fits into the thread:

This example of the experiment undermines the whole argument that the conscious observation is not necessary. This is because a wave striking a screen represents, in the end, decoherence, because the waves are absorbed by the atoms of the screen, meaning that at that moment, positions are determined and a probability wave collapse occurs. If we argue that the particle detectors are causing a wave collapse through decoherence simply because they are detecting particles, then we cannot then say that the screen is detecting a wave despite the same kind of decoherence. I believe that it was Neils Bohr that said something to the effect that the atoms in the screen, and in the human, and in the particle detectors are all the same--atoms.

This version of the experiment also has the drawback that you are unable to see if the wave pattern is still generated when the screen is up, or if there are still particles when the screen is down. In other words this version does not present the true paradox, and allows a more Newtonian assumption on wave/particle duality.

If we measure the particles going through the slits, or measure them after the slits (as in the Wheeler Delayed Observation Experiment), and then allow them to hit the screen, we get an interference pattern when no measurement is taken, and a reflection of the slits when a measurement is taken. In this manner the argument for decoherence becomes more valid.

However the experiment I mentioned with the random measurements demonstrates that just measuring the particles does not result in a decoherence that causes the wave to collapse into a particle stream. You asked if I have a link---unfortunately I do not. What I have is an abstract of the paper that documented the experiment, and unfortunately that is sitting in a box buried in the storage room in my basement (I lost my office temporarily when several step kids simultaneously moved home temporarily. Some of my stuff got buried in the storage room and subsequently buried. One of these days I will dig that stuff out.) I have seen reference to that experiment online, once or twice over the years----but over the last 3 or 4 years I have been looking for it online, but haven't been able to find anything. There is an awful lot of stuff out there on these experiments and I really don't have time to go through pages and pages of links. Though I do find it strange that there is not a lot of stuff on it----but not surprising. On that blog you posted---did you see all the comments applauding him on solving the problem? I only skimmed over them, but the materialist dogma surrounding scientific research is very strong.

If someone can find a link I would be very appreciative. If someone finds links, abstracts, or papers to a bona fide experiment that debunks my conclusions, I would also be appreciative.

I have been researching this experiment for quite a few years now. In the course of that I have come to know two quantum physicists who I use to confirm my conclusions, and verify things, and get input from. While they agree with what I have to say, and are actually excited by it, they want me to get their permission first before I quote them and so forth. One of them is still thinking about whether he wants to even have his name in my books, even in footnotes----though I have yet to share any of my actual book with him. The dogma within scientific circles is so strong, that it could be career suicide to speak out in metaphysical terms.

The first one, Dr, James Cohen, who heads up research at... I'm just joking, I would not publicly state their names without their permission.


NOW, WHAT DOES THIS HAVE TO DO WITH THE TOPIC OF THIS THREAD?

As I said early on, this thread relates to the Post Modern crisis which is largely a struggle to find meaning in the face of an increasingly nihilistic and fabricated/manufactured culture. Most critical is the fact that our culture has no Unifying Myth (or Unifying Truth if you will). Cultures do not survive long without one, and the signs of cultural decay are everywhere. But we cannot go back and try to revive the truths of the past---not as a culture.

It is also disingenuous to try to manufacture meaning by stripping our traditions of the past from their cultural and spiritual context and then try to create new meaning from that---for example, we are simply creating a parody of traditions if we take Native American motifs such as a buffalo skull and an eagle fetish, stick it into a Buddhist altar with a statue of Kali on the side, and a catholic rosary for luck, and then create our own rituals before this---that just isn’t right.

Religions are philosophical. Philosophy was traditionally religious. But using philosophy to extract religious motifs to create new traditions is simply a Post Modern parody. However, in this thread I have come to realize the value of Buddhism to an atheist. Therefore, if an atheist were to meditate and contemplate attachment to physical existence—that makes a lot of sense. If an atheist were to sit and pray to a Buddhist altar using Christian ritual just as his Christian parents did---then I would suggest at the very least that he explore his motives and understandings.

But there is a strong need to rediscover meaning on a cultural wide level. In response to Modern Nihilism and an increasingly global perspective, the meaning has to come from a rational, non-religious, and empirically verifiable source. I believe that philosophy coming to terms with Einstein’s theories of relativity and quantum mechanics, and then quantum mechanical experiments such as this may provide this birth of new meaning (along with other areas of science that are now considered fringe elements---not the real crazy pseudo-science, but experiments that are breaking down the current dogmatic paradigms, such as those I referred to at MIT).

Whether or not mind can be shown to create reality is a big step in this. The noted physicist, Brian Greene wrote that understanding the Double Slit Experiment would be one of the greatest achievements of our time. Now, to add to this, the Zeno Effect has gone from theory to empirical validation.

Does this mean the end of atheism, if it is shown that mind plays a big role in shaping reality? The increased globalization requires that whatever philosophy guides our culture into the future it must necessarily be one of multiplicity.

Everyone must have their own path through life. I also believe that there must be a renewed focus on subjectivism, and an existential appreciation of the individual. Atheism is one such individual path. Granted, an atheist may have to reexamine his materialist assumptions, but in this thread we have seen how Buddhism could be applied as a pseudo-theology, or a philosophy for such atheists. I am only just now, because of this thread, beginning to look at Buddhism in this light of a new role in resolving the Post-Modern crisis

 

Love it when we can share our (very different) viewpoints and thoughts and expand on those of others without shitting on them!