Then, clearly, Xain, Buddhism is the truth.
What do you want from us?
Glosshoppa,
Be like water.
The video says you can be what you want. That’s one of the things people here said here when you first showed up. Apparently you want to be the guy who keeps asking the same questions and deflecting the answers.
The video says you can be what you want. That’s one of the things people here said here when you first showed up. Apparently you want to be the guy who keeps asking the same questions and deflecting the answers.The view isn't saying that it's saying there is no "what you want" there is no core you and that our minds are afraid of being without thinking or sense perception. Did you see the whole thing?
Another thing is that I don’t want to be right and don’t want Buddhism to be “it” but I have nothing to counter their claims. That’s why I said Buddhism is different from other religions and you can’t lump them with the rest.
Like in regards to no self, how you aren’t a separate and atomized individual existing in the world but the result of everything else in existence. The way I can phrase it is that you aren’t a video game character that was made and then thrust into some universe. Rather it’s as though reality is like clay and your “form” is just a molding of the clay, but you mistake that for being an entity when really it’s just a different form of what is already there.
The view isn’t saying that it’s saying there is no “what you want” there is no core you and that our minds are afraid of being without thinking or sense perception. Did you see the whole thing?I did see the whole thing? I can't tell what you're saying it's saying or not saying here.
I don’t want to be right and don’t want Buddhism to be “it” but I have nothing to counter their claims.This is objectively false.
An honest sentence would be,
I don’t want to be right and don’t want Buddhism to be “it” but even though I have been presented with many facts that could counter these claims, I cannot be convinced by them.
Billions of people on earth are unconvinced by Buddhism, yet ARE convinced by the arguments in other religions and philosophies.
Therefore, counters exist, and we have shown you many of these. YOU simply don’t believe them.
If you have even the tiniest bit of respect for anyone who has spent time discussing this with you, you will at least admit this. Just basic human respect.
You haven’t really mentioned anything that argues against the logic of them. Sure they have commonalities with the unconditional love and such. But when you get down to it there is a reason it is different from other religions. I know they aren’t closely examined because they don’t cause the problems that Christianity did or Islam, but that’s the problem. It’s not that I cannot be convinced by arguments against them, it’s that the arguments against them don’t address the claims being made or don’t understand them.
It was like the long paragraph I posted in another thread about the world being perfect or that everything is “necessary and perfect”, no one really addressed the claims being made and the same happens with Buddhism. All they can call it is nonsense but if I give them a christian claim they can pick it apart.
...the arguments against them don’t address the claims being made or don’t understand them.(I realize we are outside the realm of logic here, but...)
The sort of direct, or parallel, counter-arguments you claim to seek don’t exist. Why? Because the only claims you would accept would be from within Buddhism, and no system of thought rejects its own claims.
As for “the world being perfect or that everything is necessary and perfect,” we have provided proof that this isn’t so.
In human experience, the world sure as hell isn’t “perfect.” There is suffering and pain and starvation and war and natural disaster. (If even one person has experienced these things, then “perfection” is disproved.)
In Christian theology, God created a perfect world that became “fallen” as soon as Adam ate from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.
According to science, the world isn’t “perfect” anything – not even “perfectly” round.
Specifically, who can prove it isn’t according to Buddhist understandings of these terms? No one.
One also could not counter the claim of an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent Triune God from within Roman Catholicism, for the same reason.
Or, what about this dude…
This was Marshall Applewhite. He proclaimed himself “Jesus, Son of God.” His followers were so convinced of the veracity of his claims, 39 of them committed suicide in March 1997, expecting to meet up with a spaceship behind the Hale–Bopp Comet.
Most of us are pretty sure he was wrong. (Their bodies were left behind, sneakers and all. That’s one clue.) But can we prove Applewhite was wrong?
Well, you can send an email to rep@heavensgate.com and ask them, right now. Go ahead. I dare you. There are still members of Heavens Gate, 100% convinced that these claims are true, and they still respond if you write them. They will send you a DVD.
Xain: Every “truth” of Buddhism you can ponder can be countered. But you have to be willing to go outside Buddhism to counter them.
Are you willing to do that? Yes or no? If not, then you actually are not seeking the truth. You are only seeking to confirm what you already believe.
You decide.
And what of the arguments about how finding happiness is not in external things that we can’t control but already in us once we cleanse our delusions and falsehoods. Or how it’s about choosing freedom over falsehood and being trapped in a limited body that we view as separate and independent.
As I have said the logic that they use for their defense is far different than most religions which is why what you have put forth doesn’t work here.
As for the necessary and perfect line (which I linked the full paragraph in page 3) our “proof” against it (according to the guy on actualized.org) is only what we judge to be flaws or imperfections but in objective reality really aren’t so.
A lot of Western scientists believe that consciousness is a by-product of matter, even if they haven’t quite figured out how. But it is in fact the complete opposite – our body and the entire physical world are created by our mind, like a dream.https://kadampalife.org/2016/09/02/your-mind-is-empty-even-if-it-doesnt-feel-like-it/
your mind is empty! And by that I mean not that it is empty of thoughts, as it probably isn’t very often. What I mean is that your mind doesn’t exist from its own side, it is not real — it is mere imputation or projection or appearance of mind.
As I have said Buddhism cannot be lumped in with the rest.
I think I have told u this before, but I will try again. What we call mind does exist. Even if it is an appearance to us that it exists. That is not nothing. Also the physical (and existing) neurological correlates of recognizing our own mind, exist.
You say that our body and the entire physical world are created by our mind… No. Our mind interprets and comes up with our version of our world, based on the stimulus settings in which we exist. Whatever our body is (let’s say to some extraordinary entity that is capable of perceiving objective physical reality) it still exists.
Side note. I was thinking that only moderators could use blue type. And I noticed that various members have been using blue type, here and there. I’m not sure that is technically allowed. Is that right?
Side note. I was thinking that only moderators could use blue type. And I noticed that various members have been using blue type, here and there. I’m not sure that is technically allowed. Is that right?By "blue type," do you mean this?
Those are hotlinks. To URLs.
I don’t think we have any control of the color.
As I have said Buddhism cannot be lumped in with the rest.
You’re right, in that Buddhism isn’t strictly-speaking a “religion,” as it is non-theistic.
You’re wrong, in that Buddhism, as a philosophy, a way of interpreting the world, is not something that can be objectively proven true or false.
Xain: Suppose there IS a “something to counter” these Buddhist truths. Suppose there IS a way to actually disprove them. What sort of evidence would you require to be convinced of that?
As I have said before, links like these show that this is not like others. Especially since their experience seems to be powerful and the logic strong.
Im still being driven mad by an article that mentioned that if Buddhism was not true then we would be right to worry and that we should seek and cling to things (I can’t remember it well). But I scoured the net looking for it and can’t find it and it’s driving me mad because it was different from the rest and it seemed like proof.
@snowcity FYI
"Buddhism seems remarkably compatible with our scientifically oriented culture…
Recently, convergences between science and Buddhism have been explored …
…Eventually, and regretfully, I concluded that Buddhism is not much more rational than (religion)
… Buddhism’s moral and metaphysical worldview cannot easily be reconciled with science—or, more generally, with modern humanistic values.
…The trouble is, decades of research have shown meditation’s effects to be highly unreliable, as James Austin, a neurologist and Zen Buddhist, points out in Zen and Brain. Yes, it can reduce stress, but, as it turns out, no more so than simply sitting still does. Meditation can even exacerbate depression, anxiety, and other negative emotions in certain people.
The insights imputed to meditation are questionable, too. … Varela contended that anatta has also been corroborated by cognitive science, which has discovered that our perception of our minds as discrete, unified entities is an illusion foisted upon us by our clever brains. In fact, all that cognitive science has revealed is that the mind is an emergent phenomenon, which is difficult to explain or predict in terms of its parts; few scientists would equate the property of emergence with nonexistence, as anatta does.
Much more dubious is Buddhism’s claim that perceiving yourself as in some sense unreal will make you happier and more compassionate….
…Science, unlike religion, seeks truth regardless of how it makes us feel. Buddhism raises radical questions about our inner and outer reality, but it is finally not radical enough to accommodate science’s disturbing perspective. The remaining question is whether any form of spirituality can."
Side note issue. I guess you are right. They are hotlinks and they come up blue automatically. Yeah I have been clicking on most, there are just more than usual.