Wise Words

Depends on the sect of Buddhism. Some worship Buddha like a god, others revere him as a wise man and teacher.

You two guys are making my brain tingle with knowledge and excitement.

If youre interested then i found a version of the diamond sutra, which is explained well for us western white folks. In youtube, diamond Sutra 101. I just like the way he talks and makes me actually understand some of it

source on gif? :)

i just got back and i'd just like to thank for an amazing night!
cheers mate!

most don't. he even told his followers that they shouldn't worship him

No, it's not.

Ever heard of atheism, monotheism, and polytheism? They're all different subsets of religion.

Atheism isn't a religion. It is the beliefe that a god/deity does not exist. You can follow teachings of a religion without believing in a higher power. they are separate.

No, atheism isn't like a SECT that is DIFFERENT from religion.

If it were, then there wouldn't be a term "irreligious". Atheism simply defines the lack of a belief in a God, such as in Buddhism.

Irreligious means that you don't religiously follow a religion, which is a very broad term.

and then you have agnostics

Agnostic is just a description of one's belief adding on that they do not know there belief is true for sure, but they still believe it. You can have an agnostic theist or an agnostic atheist, one says that there is no way humans could know if there is a divine being, but he believes in it anyway. The other ones says the same, but doesn't believe in it. The opposite of agnostic is gnostic, which says they know that there is/isn't a divine being.
.

i know what agnostics are, im just pointing out that you have many different beliefs upto and including agnostics

Slight correction, atheism isn't the belief that there is no god, it's the disbelief in god.

Subtle, but major difference.
What you described is a negative position of belief. (Anti-theism). It's own claim.
While atheism is a neutral position of disbelief. A response to another claim.

Wouldn't that be closer to agnosticism? I thought I was describing weak-atheism

Gnostic is latin for all-knowing
A is latin for without

So agnosticism is just admitting that you don't know everything / not everything can be known. A lot of people, wrongly in my opinion, needlessly use it in a religious sense.

A = without
Theism = belief in god
So people who identify themselves as agnostic can be correctly identified as atheist (since by admitting to not knowing, they're inherently without belief in god, or atheistic.)

Anti = against or opposite of
Theism = belief in god
While a person who describes himself as atheist, but tells you for sure that there is no such thing as god, as a positive claim, is really an anti-theist.

It all gets very confusing on a philosophical levels. Every anti-theist is an atheist by definition. But not every atheist is an anti-theist.

Similarly, a christian who tells you for sure that there is a god, would be a gnostic Christian. Although one can not really be gnostic (all knowing.)

I believe you are correct. Let me just put this here though reddit.com/r/atheism/faq#Howcanatheistssayforsuretheresnogod
I'm a bit too tired to hold up a conversation, so I hope this can continue it for me. Possibly incorrect information, didn't consider that when first reading it.

If by semantics, you mean, not being an ignorant moron like yourself, then thanks.

oh you so funny

I don't get why people thumb you down. It's true. The most widespread kind of Buddhism is an atheist religion. They have no God, so it's neither monotheism or polytheism.

Buddhism is a form of atheism?

Not at all. They have a doctrine that they follow, and a belief in supernatural things such as reincarnation. Some sects of it believe Buddha to be a deity or incarnation, but most see him just as a wise man. This second one is more accurate, since Buddha asked people not to worship him. But it has nothing to do with atheism.

It's an atheistic religion.

You could say that, but in the end it's not much better than religion. Buddhist countries are still building extremely expensive buildings and altars, leaving the population more poor

indeed most of buddhist people(including me) consider buddhism more as a guide to a better way of life.ofcourse there is also alot of stories about demons and gods but most of these are either symbolism or derived from old religions and adobted into buddhism and they are generally considered not necessary part of the buddhist way.

It's almost a religion. They don't have a deity, but they act as religions (Christianity for example) should act

Christians worship weekly (Sunday)...

You know, when people actually did do exactly what the bible says, there ended up being a lot of holy wars, public burnings, and other senseless murder.

All things must adapt to survive, religion is no exception.

dude i hate religion and the bible..im saying most moronic christians beleive in something because their parents did, and they nothing about why or how it came to be

But why hate religion? Is it wrong for them to want something in the way of comfort, even in the worst of times?
Religion has become increasingly abstract, and while some still are so serious they'd kill over it, its adapting has made it so people, in general, don't kill over it.

Religion isn't to be hated, or even scoffed. Not until you can prove that deities don't exist, which is, with current technology, impossible.

in this day and age it is willful ignorance and that is just pathetic

Wow you're acting like a total cunt about this aren't you.
But it's okay i guess, it makse you look really cool :3

nah i just have opinions

My captcha to thumb you up was doubles =o Also, "fuck yeah Legend of Zelda"

bitch, now you have 3 characters format numbers, so you can only get trips

Tell me where you live

I live in Penang, Malaysia. Malaysia is a Muslim country however the city i am in has a strong Chinese majority.

tell me more

malaysia in some parts can be an amazing country if the muslims there dont try to fuck you over. they burned down three catholic churches because a teenager said the word "allah"

not joking google it

There are always extremists in every country. Try not to take heed of them. In Malaysia, these kind of stuff is mostly due to politics. Most Muslims aren't like that. I myself have never met any Muslim like those even though I've been living here all my life.

Gif related, it's mfw people talk about Malaysia

Yeah, you are right

But In every religion you always have some extremist. E.X. the recent Christian extremist Sihk temple shooting in america. My neighbors are muslim royalty and they are so kind and understanding to other religions its bad-ass.

Instantly thought of this

Poof.

That's profound. Thank you!

"I love Buddhists"
How can you possibly think he was bad-mouthing them?

Technically speaking, some of it can be proven wrong. However, unlike other religion which most likely will yell to the world:

"THEY'RE LYING!!!" or "YOU SATAN BASTARD!!!!" or "poor misery soul......." etc.

.......we'll just change our belief and accept the one which are proven to be the right one at time =P

yeah, karma and rebirth are not at all illogical,unempirical and contrary to Ockham's razor

Compared to some religions that isn't too crazy... and I said ideas and philosophy :)

There’s absolutely no logical nor empirical reason to believe that there’s life after death. There’s absolutely no reason to believe that there’s a cycle of birth and rebirth. But Buddhist believe there is one. Why? Because Buddha said so.

But that’s the case with all religions. It’s not about reason. It’s about faith. The more ridiculous the thing you believe, the closer you are to salvation. You’re a really good Christian if you believe snakes talked. You’re a really good Buddhist if you believe an elephan, a tiger, and a “vatu kurulla” were good friends, a long time ago (I can’t really remember this story).

So I will talk about something that I think Buddhism needs to answer and yet hasn’t answered. If there’s a god, whatever you do that he doesn’t like will send you to hell and whatever you do that he likes will send you to heaven. But when there’s no god, as in Buddhism, who or what decides what’s wrong and what’s right? How can you say that killing a person or an animal is bad Karma? If it IS wrong, is killing a person is equally wrong for you and me, or is it more wrong for me and less wrong for you? There’s no god to decide this. Then there must be a mechanism for this. If minus values are bad Karma and plus values are good Karma, and if there’s an act called X which has a Karma value of Z, there must be a mechanism to decide what Z is; to decide whether Z is greater or lesser than 0 or Z=0. No such mechanism is presented in Buddhism.

Take away the afterlife rebirth thing, and that karma (sadly) doesnt exist as they tell you, and that apparently (of what ive heard) even they dont like gay people or black people.. then i think its fine. But there is a cycle of life, a continuous cycle, and Karma encourages good behavior which can improve your life. And they dont threaten with hell.

Also, i have a great rule for the whole karma thing: Bullshit and assholery = bad karma. Stuff we consider nice etc = good karma. I think its as easy as that.

Be good to a person, dont expect a thank you, but the person may be kind to you as well = more happiness. Be a dick to a person, and the person will hate you, and maybe punch you in the face = sadness

Exactly

Except like the concept of rebirth and karma which is what the whole damn religion is based on?

who says karma is cosmic. somebody calls you a twat and you punch him in he face. instant karma

I thought karma was hindu...

Buddha copied it

Well both concepts you just stated would be impossible to prove or disprove.

I don't think there's any way for science to tell if reincarnation is possible. That doesn't mean it's not true; it just means it could or couldn't be.

If we're going by the scientific definition of proving something to be false, then you cant disprove it, allowing both karma and rebirth to continue.

Unfalsifiable hypotheses...

"It’s not superstition, it’s practically Newtonian. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Leonard pretends to be a friend and acts like a two-faced bitch, therefore he is reborn as a banana slug. It’s actually a very elegant system. You know, what goes around comes around." -Raj from Big Bang Theory.
If its on the show, its gotta be right(:

except newton was proven wrong a hundred years ago

*buddhists

Went to a small Cambodian-Buddhist temple for school last year and I've gotta say, those monks are some seriously exemplary human-beings. Their entire lives are dictated by schedule and the bare minimum; pretty impressive if you ask me.

Some of them are allowed to use cell phones, which is kind of funny.
Pic related: chillin' Buddha designed by one of the head monks.

I think the whole 'God allowing evil and free choice' is somewhere in the bible. That God decided that all people could chose for themselves. But Hell, now thats a dick move. Even people who never heard of Christianity would go to hell according to him

You need to learn more about the religion before you post something that can easily be argued against. Not getting into a religious argument here, just saying.

I'm gonna go ahead and refute your point, but i ain't starting an argument or anything...

Whatever, i don't care either.

just sayin'.

No, I was just saying I don't want to get into a long debate. :P

U mad?

Anon, I love you.

Sacred Geometry is amazing.
I could talk about spiritual ascension all day. The levels of consciousness. Dimensions. There's just so much to discuss surrounding this topic.

<--- mrw your comment makes sense.
You sir, have just one 10 Internets.
You have solved my religious dilemma. (I have been questioning my faith recently. You just gave me an answer.)
I am a Catholic, and I support the post above.

Why isn't everyone one the internet this cool?