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ILovePhilosophy.com • View topic - Buddism/Christianity/Islam/Judaism/Hinduism/Animism/Other
I was born is a Christian household.
I believed in the Christian god when I was younger.
I had doubts about the Christian god when I was younger but still had reasonable faith.
My faith began to diminish after the age of 14 and now at 19 I believe in no God.
It started with doubting.
They came my period of examining the beliefs for validity.
Then came my rejection of Christianity.
I am more of a free thinker as a result.
I don't believe in any religion and do not think that I will ever believe in another religion but am still interested at looking at other religions and their claim to truth.
So I did a little browsing about other religions, and decided that the least ridiculous of all of the religions seems to me to be Buddhism.
In Buddhism there is less emphasis on gods and more emphasis on what the religion considers to be right.
In Buddhism the ideas are presented in a less forceful manner than in the other religions.
Buddhism does not try to trick people into a belief that god will punish them if they do not believe in god.
Buddhists think their religion is correct like all of the other religions but there is less appeal to supernatural beings and more appeal to what I think most would consider to be common sense.
There is less of the divine worship sort of thing and more teachings.
One can either choose to take what the Buddhists claim to be religion or not take it.
I still prefer to be a free thinker but I just wanted to point out the difference that I see between Buddhism and the other religions.
Any comments? Something you want to add?
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Perhaps the most important part of being a "free-thinker" is remaining open to possibilities...
I could lay out a similar development in my life.
In my teenage years I drifted from my Christian upbringing, lured as I was by the promise of science and the absurdity of certain religious propositions.
I was obsessed with Socrates and Descartes and Nietzsche, all of whom call for, well, something like what you describe.
But years later, after reaching an atheistic or skeptical peak at around age 23 or so, I gradually turned away from the Greek tradition and back to the Jewish, or more precisely Christian teaching...
I'm only 27 now but my faith has only grown in the interim.
So, at the risk of sounding ostentatious let me just say that there is perhaps more to the Biblical tradition than what you currently find yourself reeling against...
The Bible is a rich text, and not to discount your maturity but I doubt that you've reached the bottom of it.
I sure as hell have not.
(And I imagine the same holds, in regards to profundity, with Buddhist, Hindu and Islamic Scriptures...)
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R--
Well good for you!
If I may, I'd like to recommend two books that helped me enlarge my perspective on my Christian background.
In "Living Buddha, Living Christ", Thich Nhat Hanh, a Zen Buddhist monk, discusses affinities of Buddhist and Christian ideals.
In "Going Home", he focuses on fundamental concepts that still divide the two religions--such as rebirth vs.
Eternal life, God vs.
Nirvana, and so on.
But, Nhat Hanh finds common ground on a deeper level.
For example, he goes on to note that Jesus meditated and that God is equivalent to nirvana.
Nhat Hahn has written many other books and I found him to be the most helpful guide in the practice of meditation.
"First there is a mountain then there is no mountain then there is."
"Time makes ancient truth uncouth"
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Quote: : Buddhists think their religion is correct like all of the other religions but there is less appeal to supernatural beings and more appeal to what I think most would consider to be common sense.
There is less of the divine worship sort of thing and more teachings.
Common sense great, but why do you need all the ritual and religious trappings?
They're distractions and red herrings.
And Buddhism still relies on divine revelation which is anti-common sense and anti-reason.
There are only two reasonable positions on the existence of God: deism and atheism, under an agnostic umbrella.
Here is Thomas Paine's profound passage on the Word Of God:
“It is only in the CREATION that all our ideas and conceptions of a Word of God can unite.
The Creation speaketh an universal language....
It is an ever-existing original, which every man can read.
It cannot be forged;
It cannot be counterfeited;
It cannot be lost;
It cannot be altered;
It cannot be suppressed.
It does not depend upon the will of man whether it shall be published or not;
It publishes itself from one end of the earth to the other.
It preaches to all nations and to all worlds;
And this Word of God reveals to man all that is necessary for man to know of God.”
For more see:
“The truth is hard to swallow when you're choking on your pride.”— Did I say that , James Michael.
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The Paineful Quote: : Quote: : Buddhists think their religion is correct like all of the other religions but there is less appeal to supernatural beings and more appeal to what I think most would consider to be common sense.
There is less of the divine worship sort of thing and more teachings.
Common sense great, but why do you need all the ritual and religious trappings?
They're distractions and red herrings.
And Buddhism still relies on divine revelation which is anti-common sense and anti-reason.
There are only two reasonable positions on the existence of God: deism and atheism, under an agnostic umbrella.
Here is Thomas Paine's profound passage on the Word Of God:
“It is only in the CREATION that all our ideas and conceptions of a Word of God can unite.
The Creation speaketh an universal language....
It is an ever-existing original, which every man can read.
It cannot be forged;
It cannot be counterfeited;
It cannot be lost;
It cannot be altered;
It cannot be suppressed.
It does not depend upon the will of man whether it shall be published or not;
It publishes itself from one end of the earth to the other.
It preaches to all nations and to all worlds;
And this Word of God reveals to man all that is necessary for man to know of God.”
For more see:
I think that being a human means having times to think rationally and times to be irrational.
I think one of the main reasons people adopt rituals and religious beliefs or trappings is so that they can be exactly what you said "trapt." They want something to fall back on that they can just believe without always doubting.
They want to be “trapt” or under the trance of a certain mode of thought.
Complete skepticism, although I find it to be a very easily defended logical position is undoubtedly quite a painful position for most people to maintain for an extended period of time.
It means that you are in world that you think could not exist.
So people turn back to their more primitive feelings rather than always maintaining the position of doubt.
Probably because people a physiologically incapable of looking a the world through the eyes of a skeptic for every moment of their lives.
So although these trappings are indeed illogical this does not mean that they can not benefit the majority of humans who seem quite illogical at times.
These trappings tend to be more of a therapy from the abuse that being a complete skeptic can inflict on ones mind.
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Felix Quote: : R--
Well good for you!
If I may, I'd like to recommend two books that helped me enlarge my perspective on my Christian background.
In "Living Buddha, Living Christ", Thich Nhat Hanh, a Zen Buddhist monk, discusses affinities of Buddhist and Christian ideals.
In "Going Home", he focuses on fundamental concepts that still divide the two religions--such as rebirth vs.
Eternal life, God vs.
Nirvana, and so on.
But, Nhat Hanh finds common ground on a deeper level.
For example, he goes on to note that Jesus meditated and that God is equivalent to nirvana.
Nhat Hahn has written many other books and I found him to be the most helpful guide in the practice of meditation.
Thanks for the book suggestions I might look into that.
I've tried meditation before but found it to be difficult but want to give it another shoot sometime.
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