Religion
- Thread starter Satyr
- Start date
samcdkey said:
- Don't harm others unnecessecarily (generally incurrs the wrath of the group)
Harm includes:
Verbal abuse
Physical abuse
Mental abuse
Restriction of personal freedom
- Don't take others "property" (always incurrs the wrath of the stealee).
Property includes:
Wives/Husbands
Land
Horses
iPods
- Help others when practical (Always gains the favor of the individual and the group)
I think this is all we need to know (and all we did know in prehistory, since these are evolved instincts for a group-living species) to form a nice society.
Evrything else can be derived as arbitrary secondary "morals" from this. Yes?
The Devil Inside said:
Not quite, c.f.
Attavagga
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/kn/dhp/dhp.12.than.html
157
If you hold yourself dear then guard, guard yourself well.
The wise person would stay awake, nursing himself
in any of the three watches of the night,
the three stages of life.
158
First he'd settle himself
in what is correct,
only then teach others.
He wouldn't stain his name: he is wise.
159
If you'd mold yourself
the way you teach others, then, well-trained,
go ahead & tame — for, as they say,
what's hard to tame is you yourself.
160
Your own self is your own mainstay,
for who else could your mainstay be?
With you yourself well-trained
you obtain the mainstay, hard to obtain.
161
The evil he himself has done
— self-born, self-created —
grinds down the dullard,
as a diamond, a precious stone.
162
When overspread by extreme vice —
like a sal tree by a vine —
you do to yourself
what an enemy would wish.
163
They're easy to do —
things of no good & no use to yourself.
What's truly useful & good
is truly harder than hard to do.
164
The teaching of those who live the Dhamma,
worthy ones, noble: whoever maligns it
— a dullard, inspired by evil view —
bears fruit for his own destruction, like the fruiting of the bamboo.
165
Evil is done by oneself. By oneself is one defiled.
Evil is left undone by oneself. By oneself is one cleansed.
Purity & impurity are one's own doing.
No one purifies another. No other purifies one.
166
Don't sacrifice your own welfare for that of another,
no matter how great.
Realizing your own true welfare, be intent on just that.
--- Ron.
read:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhism
most notably:
Nirvana is the extinguishment of all desire; it is the realisation that the Self does not exist, and that human desires are empty. An enlightened Buddhist is able to act in this world with complete detachment (without desire), and their actions have no karma. A Buddhist who has attained Nirvana has escaped the world of cause-and-effect (they are free from the cycle of birth and rebirth). Nirvana is neither positive nor negative. It is just the truth. The realisation of Nirvana is a happy experience (but not the sensation of joy). The happiness of Nirvana is the true joy of having realised the ultimate truth; the bliss of escaping the endless chain of cause-and-effect. Nirvana is fully realised at death, but can be experienced before death. There are four stages in the Buddhist life:
* 1. The “Stream-Entrant” (novice) only catches a glimpse of Nirvana in the teaching of the Buddha.
* 2. The “Once-Returner” is destined to be reborn into this physical world once more before experiencing full Nirvana.
* 3. The “Never-Returner” has an even deeper knowledge of Nirvana and is assured that they will not be reborn.
* 4. The “Worthy-One” (Arhat) is completely pure and free from desire. That person has experienced Nirvana and will know it fully at death, when all matter, sensations, perceptions, mental formations, and consciousness will disappear forever.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhism
most notably:
Nirvana is the extinguishment of all desire; it is the realisation that the Self does not exist, and that human desires are empty. An enlightened Buddhist is able to act in this world with complete detachment (without desire), and their actions have no karma. A Buddhist who has attained Nirvana has escaped the world of cause-and-effect (they are free from the cycle of birth and rebirth). Nirvana is neither positive nor negative. It is just the truth. The realisation of Nirvana is a happy experience (but not the sensation of joy). The happiness of Nirvana is the true joy of having realised the ultimate truth; the bliss of escaping the endless chain of cause-and-effect. Nirvana is fully realised at death, but can be experienced before death. There are four stages in the Buddhist life:
* 1. The “Stream-Entrant” (novice) only catches a glimpse of Nirvana in the teaching of the Buddha.
* 2. The “Once-Returner” is destined to be reborn into this physical world once more before experiencing full Nirvana.
* 3. The “Never-Returner” has an even deeper knowledge of Nirvana and is assured that they will not be reborn.
* 4. The “Worthy-One” (Arhat) is completely pure and free from desire. That person has experienced Nirvana and will know it fully at death, when all matter, sensations, perceptions, mental formations, and consciousness will disappear forever.
I’m just wondering how much all this “extinguishing of self” is possible.
It appears like just another attempt to escape life’s miseries, associated with self.
An overcoming of self for selfish reasons, so to speak.
For me existence condemns one, if you could call it that, to self or to the pursuit of self.
We are forever trying to Be - a Becoming. We are never self or complete but a process.
I am what I strive to be.
Sometimes this Becoming manifests itself with a desire to cease, a Freudian death-wish, where one wants to stop Becoming and simply Be.
To Be is to Be complete and inert and stable and timeless (therefore also spaceless – no dimensions, no matter).
The definition of stopping Becoming is death, but here it is insinuated that consciousness persists even after one ceases - the notion of the living-dead, vampirism, the eternal but yet still conscious - paradise, nirvana.
This is a mental trick. The mind is attracted to the completion, the finality, the end of suffering implied but it still wants to keep consciousness.
The attempt is made to seperate suffering - Need - from Life. But life is a manifestation of this Need. It is Need animated and made conscious.
A God is devised - that which is complete yet still wants and needs and creates: oxymoron.
Consciousness is a tool for survival. Its only purpose is to facilitate Becoming, by seeking total fulfillment- and it loses it once a completion is assumed.
Life is never totally fulfilled or else it becomes obsolete. Life is forever in Need.
The perfect, the inert, the complete has no need for consciousness (it has no need for anything), it is and has all that it Needs- Need ceases and along with it Suffering.
Consciousness being the product of universal flux, of temporality, and interpreting it as suffering, becomes obsolete once life/suffering ceases or are rendered complete.
The fulfilled requires no self-awareness. There is nothing to become aware of. Self is whole.
The end of suffering is the end of living.
Consciousness is inexorably linked to suffering and life.
Life is an oxymoron when it ceases changing and suffering. It is meaningless as a concept.
So, God must be illogical and unreasoned. He must be believed.
It’s one of those mind games humans play with themselves where they preserve what they value and avoid what they fear.
It is sometimes referred to as compartmentalization.
Victims of tragedy have been documented doing this. The victim ceases remembering the disturbing memory and hides it in its subconscious. It retains all other memories.
In the same manner a religious mind still retains its ability to reason even when creating this pocket of unreason within its psyche, so as to protect itself from the disturbing and unwanted. Selective reasoning.
It would take the hypocrisy of a religion to accomplish this mental acrobatic feat. No logic required, just blind faith guided by hope and fear.
Hope and fear being the bondages of life - the self wanting completion.
“I fear nothing, I hope for nothing; I am free” – Kazantzakis.
Freedom being the abandonment of all Need and Hope and therefore of all that binds one to Self and Life.
I am truly free when I am affected and controlled and guided by nothing.
Impossible as all absolutes are but only possible in degree.
Freedom, also being another term for power.
The powerful is indifferent to what cannot affect it or it has no need of.
The absurdity of life.
One becomes most aware and worthy of living when one loses all interest in it.
The indifference clause.
The ancient Greeks expressed it best with their comedy-tragedy dichotomy.
Dionysus and Apollo dancing in the void.
It appears like just another attempt to escape life’s miseries, associated with self.
An overcoming of self for selfish reasons, so to speak.
For me existence condemns one, if you could call it that, to self or to the pursuit of self.
We are forever trying to Be - a Becoming. We are never self or complete but a process.
I am what I strive to be.
Sometimes this Becoming manifests itself with a desire to cease, a Freudian death-wish, where one wants to stop Becoming and simply Be.
To Be is to Be complete and inert and stable and timeless (therefore also spaceless – no dimensions, no matter).
The definition of stopping Becoming is death, but here it is insinuated that consciousness persists even after one ceases - the notion of the living-dead, vampirism, the eternal but yet still conscious - paradise, nirvana.
This is a mental trick. The mind is attracted to the completion, the finality, the end of suffering implied but it still wants to keep consciousness.
The attempt is made to seperate suffering - Need - from Life. But life is a manifestation of this Need. It is Need animated and made conscious.
A God is devised - that which is complete yet still wants and needs and creates: oxymoron.
Consciousness is a tool for survival. Its only purpose is to facilitate Becoming, by seeking total fulfillment- and it loses it once a completion is assumed.
Life is never totally fulfilled or else it becomes obsolete. Life is forever in Need.
The perfect, the inert, the complete has no need for consciousness (it has no need for anything), it is and has all that it Needs- Need ceases and along with it Suffering.
Consciousness being the product of universal flux, of temporality, and interpreting it as suffering, becomes obsolete once life/suffering ceases or are rendered complete.
The fulfilled requires no self-awareness. There is nothing to become aware of. Self is whole.
The end of suffering is the end of living.
Consciousness is inexorably linked to suffering and life.
Life is an oxymoron when it ceases changing and suffering. It is meaningless as a concept.
So, God must be illogical and unreasoned. He must be believed.
It’s one of those mind games humans play with themselves where they preserve what they value and avoid what they fear.
It is sometimes referred to as compartmentalization.
Victims of tragedy have been documented doing this. The victim ceases remembering the disturbing memory and hides it in its subconscious. It retains all other memories.
In the same manner a religious mind still retains its ability to reason even when creating this pocket of unreason within its psyche, so as to protect itself from the disturbing and unwanted. Selective reasoning.
It would take the hypocrisy of a religion to accomplish this mental acrobatic feat. No logic required, just blind faith guided by hope and fear.
Hope and fear being the bondages of life - the self wanting completion.
“I fear nothing, I hope for nothing; I am free” – Kazantzakis.
Freedom being the abandonment of all Need and Hope and therefore of all that binds one to Self and Life.
I am truly free when I am affected and controlled and guided by nothing.
Impossible as all absolutes are but only possible in degree.
Freedom, also being another term for power.
The powerful is indifferent to what cannot affect it or it has no need of.
The absurdity of life.
One becomes most aware and worthy of living when one loses all interest in it.
The indifference clause.
The ancient Greeks expressed it best with their comedy-tragedy dichotomy.
Dionysus and Apollo dancing in the void.
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The devil,
Yet the desire to be selfless is itself a desire. And the satisfaction that comes when selflessness is achieved is an act of self. Whatever action a person takes it is on behalf of the self. In this repect the goals of Buddhism are unachievable simply because we are self-directing individuals.
Yet the desire to be selfless is itself a desire. And the satisfaction that comes when selflessness is achieved is an act of self. Whatever action a person takes it is on behalf of the self. In this repect the goals of Buddhism are unachievable simply because we are self-directing individuals.
superluminal said:
What happens when you get into the realm of personalities of different statuses - that is do you conceed that there are different morals for different persons in society .
For example a solider may kill a thousand enemies in war and get a medallion for bravery. But then he kills his next door neighbour and goes to jail.
In other words regardless of what you draw up as morals, there must be a central notion that they hinge on, and from that central point it is possible to determine the proper instances of application
the desire to do so, yes.Cris said:
the point of buddhism is to achieve such a thing without striving to attain it.
it just is.
i do agree, however, that the "goals" of buddhism are unachievable by someone who attempts to complete them.
an actual buddhist wouldnt try, it would just happen. a rare thing, i think.
superluminal said:
i.e. do not commit violence/oppression
i.e. do not compete for mates or resources
i.e. selfless altruism
I disagree.
Look at the entire history of mankind. Tell me one period when you think the above existed and where.
Besides mates, resources and security, human beings fight for territory.
This is instinctive and is reflected by behaviours in the animal kingdom.
An additional quality is the ability to adapt the environment for greater comfort. This ability places more demands on the resources and more stress on security (since some resources are not only limited but also available only in some parts; alternately, if humans make something they want to use it regardless of the effect on others or on the environment, if it makes their individual life better).
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The Devil Inside said:
What on earth would distinguish a practicing buddhist from a non-practicing buddhist?
It could help if you could quote some authoratative buddhist references for these claims.
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Satyr said:
That is not at odds with Buddhism. How much all this “extinguishing of self” is possible, that would be a typical theme upon which to meditate.
Dukkha is the central theme, to the extent that there is one.
If you prefer the pain, go ahead, try it. The choice is yours; just don't expect a diligent Buddhist to help you toward that end.
It is poor sport to argue with a Buddhist. If doctrines appear to contradict they say "Yes, they appear to contradict but that is the best we can do with words; you have to see for yourself."
Buddhism embraces the notion of the imponderable, realisation beyond reason, beyond rational comprehension, approachable indirectly perhaps, but not by ordinary means. This is especially a characteristic of the Zen version.
--- Ron.
samcdkey said:
Those would be the result of intentionally doing harm to others, which only religion condones.
So, in your opinion, taking someones wife or husband is the same as competing for mates? Ridiculous. Your confusing competition with exploitation.
That was never mentioned, you're putting words in his mouth.
Unfortunately, religion and other failed ideologies have not allowed that to occur.
Religious group think. Do you think fighting is ultimately necessary or is that your religion speaking again?
So is compassion, caring and nurturing. Funny, you don't see animals trying to control one another with religion or kill each other over their beliefs? Is that also instinctive?
Those are mere challenges to be worked out by rational humans. However, as someone already pointed out, religion makes people selfish.
Ok.samcdkey said:
Horribly wrong.
Even worse.
I'll let you figure it out.
(Q) said:
Thank you (Q). He gave away the answers sam.
1) Because, in a large group (thousands to millions) some individual will always take advantage of the ease of exploiting others.samcdkey said:
2) This is about conflict between tribes. A totally different subject.
3) No. Morality is an adaptive result of a species "learning" how to live effectively with each other in a small group.
samcdkey said:
Supe also anwered those questions very effectively.
In addition, defence is required for other reasons then just against people, although currently that is one of the primary reasons.
Religious rituals and cultures put aside, people and nations would be able to work together. Sadly though, there are far too many years of religious conflict to simply just wipe the slate clean at this time. And with the advent of multiculturalism, that conflict will continue.
If morality is the result of education from parents, who taught them, and so on...?