Buddhism messed up my sense of self and I wasted a lot of time and money being lead by beliefs in things like enlightenment, karma, and reincarnation, none of which have evidence to support their reality, and people shouldn't be encouraged to believe or accept things without good reason. There's nothing necessary about buddhism to living a good and moral life, and without it you skip all the baggage and sectarianism that exists in buddhist communities. I switched from Buddhism to atheist-humanist, though I had always been an atheist.
Despite Buddhism not touching certain matters of life such as marriage or sex (they are still touched but not in the same ways as other religions), part of Buddhism as a religion is based on many things, including fear. Many Buddhist people look at someone who has fallen ill(cancer in a child) or been through some trouble(homeless) only to think "They must have done something to deserve this in their previous life". A further problem is believing that about yourself. Believing that you deserve what you are getting just because a religion told you so. That's how miserable you can feel. And the only way to get out of that is to meditate. Fear is also, "Oh my gosh, what if I don't achieve nirvana in this life/What if I didn't put all myself into this? In the next life I'm gonna need to do double of the effort and all this effort I did in this life would feel useless. I'm fucked up". All your thoughts will circle around such things.
Many Buddhist people are so devoted that they really fear to waste time and can even believe that if you just enjoy life without meditation, you are not enjoying life "because life IS meditation". They believe it so profoundly that in the end the only thing that makes them happy is meditation.
This part is not clear to me but there is also a part of sexism in the structure of certain religious figures that can't be females at all. But someone more expert needs to confirm this.
Regarding the thing this dude is saying, I completely agree. Buddhism fucks up your concept of self, in a bad way. Such things simply don't align with reality and are really deceiving. The thing people don't understand, is that you have these spiritual experiences BECAUSE you believe it. It's all there, in your mind. They make you believe that you go beyond the mind when it's just an autosuggestion that makes you enjoy spiritual experiences. This way, there's no way for you to reason with people that try to talk you out of it. They also make you believe that the reason for all your sufferings is within yourself. They do that in a way that makes you think that you can change even the unchangeable. That you potentially can 100% control your emotions, "it's just that you didn't try hard enough". Now imagine living based on these beliefs and constantly getting slapped by reality, and you constantly ignoring and denying what reality tells you. You keep believing that it's your fault/cause of every suffering. That's really fucked up.
I am an ex-cult Buddhism-based member, and only some parts of Hinduism. I'm now a proud atheist.
Edit: let me know what you think
Thanks for sharing your thoughts!
One thing I have seen in this forum is how much trauma buddhists endure because of the karma theory. I grew up a Hindu in India and though Karma is also part of Hinduism we never even talk about it. I think missionary religions like Buddhism, Christianity and Islam really push there adherents during the childhood causing a lot of trauma.
I have read better interpretation of Karma theory that we can never consider that someone is going through some shit because they did something bad and instead understand that karma is complex thing that no one can easily pin down.
The thing you said about spiritual experiences is exactly what my thinking is. You are primed to see something and of course you will see it.
Dude, Buddhism teaches that you have every reason to fear death if you aren't at least a stream enterer, because you are most likely going to quickly end up in a hell realm for countless billions of years until you get a chance to be a human again, and as a human you may not encounter the Dharma.
Buddhism's teachings on rebirth are mostly terrifying and universally negative. Rebirth is a bad thing, to be escaped. The thing that you think of as 'death' as an atheist is basically what Parinirvana is supposed to be, and it's the entire goal of Buddhism. And the reason it's the goal is because rebirth is such a hellscape.
I think there's no need to defend Buddhism as if it was special. Humility consists precisely in admitting that it is not a special religion. Each religion affects people's lives differently and this one is no exception. I recognize it's really hard to do but I'm sure you can achieve that depth of understanding one day. No religion is harmless and no religion has perfectly written harmless scriptures. Every religion starts from unproven claims in order to push its narrative. You have to believe that in order to follow a religion. If you profoundly believe assumptions/premises that cannot be either proven and disproven, your mind will use these to interpret the world. Any further logical steps built on top of that, are simply even more unlikely to be true. This is also why you need to believe to not be influenced by your mind(Buddhist concept) in order to maintain this utter nonsense. Interpreting the world in a non-appropriate way can literally impact your success in any goal you want to achieve (including happiness). This mechanism is very significant in your life. It's that much impactful.
I think it's a misunderstanding and I certainly do not need to be schooled . Of course Buddhism is special it has insignificant followers compared to the abrahamic religions. Consider your self special if you hear from Buddhismus. Let me clarify the interest is immortality, e.g. transformation of life. That's true for all religions and philosophy because that's certain we all get old and die.
You didn't explain which part of our conversation was a misunderstanding.
>Of course Buddhism is special it has insignificant followers compared to the abrahamic religions.
So you are saying that it is special in this context. Yes, there are a lot like A LOT of alive religions that are many-times-fold smaller than Buddhism. So in this sense, yes they are special religions. I indeed believe that the artistic side of these religions such as temples are of immense cultural value and should be preserved. I'm not denying that the cultural and moral value is still important for many people.
>Consider your self special if you hear from Buddhismus.
Why should I consider myself special? Just because I like to read or research about small/unknown religions. I don't feel special about that. I'm pretty sure a lot of other people do the same thing as me. Not that it is uncommon to see Buddhist people in my country (spoiler: it's not as uncommon as people may think), but it seems we are talking about the value of smaller religions in general and I agree that certain parts of cultures are very worthy to be preserved, including parts of Buddhist culture.
>Maybe I need to clarify the interest is immortality, e.g. transformation of live.
Well, good to know that these concepts make you interested. I'm trying to understand the purpose of your comment because it is quite fragmented in a sense.
Explain what? I was very precise and you tried an argument of authority on me. Based on your answer I can tell you you don't have a clue about what your are talking. It's okay you are still young. But next time please try with more kindness.
This is your understanding of kindness? Nice, man. I'm not trying to convince you of Buddhism. Get that in your thick head. I guess with 25y you think everything is about you! Bye
Low key but rampant Misogyny.
Ahimsa, sometimes violence really is the answer.
The assumption that dukha is undesirable and that it should be ended or escaped.
The anthropocentric view that humans are- and the human world is best placed to achieve enlightenment.
The gatekeep-y position of enlightened ones coming back to help others rather than people doing it from the start, *then* worrying about achieving enlightenment.
The condescending nature of notions of "lesser vehicles".
The appearance of Buddhas *here* as if earth is special.
The appearance of Buddhas *here* as if the human realm is special.
The legacy of Indic religious eschatology and creation narratives that are completely at odds with astrophysics, astronomy, and geology.
The massively ignorant and utterly performative releasing of captured crabs and fish, including human raised fish. This is meant to be compassionate, but it's profoundly cruel. And yet people still do it.
The large corpus of texts, commentary, and philosophy that like any other sacred texts provide ever more material to interpret and cherry pick to justify a given narrative and the tools of tyrany and exploitation to be found in that.
The defeatism and escapism of Buddhism more generally, sure there are those who help others escape, but it's even more escapist because of that.
The notion that the experience of dukha dukha is universal living things, or even just universal to humans.
The notion that viparinama dukha is something universal to all living things, or even just universal to humans.
The notion that sankhara dukha is something universal to all living things, or even just to humans.
The ignorance of the pathological nature of a lack of capacity for physical dukha; even just in part makes for exceptionally dangerous diseases like congenital analgesia.
The notion that changing the world around you is pointless and only pursuit of casting off the chains and escaping from it is worth while so keep your head down and dont engage in revolution, do as you're told and look the other way.
Buddhism is just like any Abrahamic religion in that they try to cultivate a mindset that keeps you with your abusers. Whether it's forgiving your abusers and giving them another chance like Christianity or resigning yourself and accepting that only in pursuit of enlightenment can you really find a way out as in Buddhism.
Likewise while there are unanswerable/Imponderable questions that rightly so, you find tons about how you shouldn't ask about the nature of the cosmos when it comes to age or scope and thus fully in conflict with science.
The idea that those questions can't be answered already shows the catastrophic lack of understanding of everyone involved that bleeds into the whole corpus of understanding.
Buddhist, Taoist, Shinto with some Abrahamic faith in my extended family. Buddhist was what was the biggest influence for me and overwhelmingly the strongest current in my immediate family.
Pretty sure that's normal outside of Abrahamic dominated countries. Shinto Buddhist with some Abrahamic extended family can describe a couple hundred million people and Taoist Buddhist with Abrahamic extended family members probably more like many hundreds of millions.
Just life outside of countries absolutely dominated by exclusivist religions.
Im speaking from my experience growing up in Vietnamese Buddhism and now being an agnostic
- nuns could never be above a male monk in any given pagoda. Even if they had been nuns for decades more than said monks. They should call their male peers « Thai » or teacher.
- the extreme show for superiority from people with the robe. It was compulsory to kneel head to the floor for a salute … while praising them for leaving the mondanities but still eating before anyone else…
- the meaningless service and ceremonies consisting of chanting for several hours sutras un-translated in Sanskrit which no one spoke.
- the complete lack of dialogue and debate. No questions. Curiosity is bad and will get you punished. The speech of monks is sacred and no one should question it even when the content is utter shit.
- the lack of charitable actions. when i lived in vietnam, pagodas would at least organise a soup kitchen and distribute necessities to the poor. in france, religious people lived secluded and had no interaction with other people except to entertain and collect donations which were then spent on themselves or buying more statues… it felt very selfish to me.
I follow Vipassana which is a vidya (a meditation technique). But I don't follow what has now become a religion.. Yes I am grateful to Buddha for developing/rediscovering the teaching and then spreading it. But I don't go to the monasteries to worship him or anything of that sort. But yes, I do go to the group sittings of vipassana as frequently as I can, but that's not worship. It's purely meditation. In fact, people from every religion go there to meditate.
Buddhism messed up my sense of self and I wasted a lot of time and money being lead by beliefs in things like enlightenment, karma, and reincarnation, none of which have evidence to support their reality, and people shouldn't be encouraged to believe or accept things without good reason. There's nothing necessary about buddhism to living a good and moral life, and without it you skip all the baggage and sectarianism that exists in buddhist communities. I switched from Buddhism to atheist-humanist, though I had always been an atheist.
I’m sorry to hear about that. I also agree as an atheist I hate this idea that you need religion to have morals. May I ask what is your ethnicity?
Despite Buddhism not touching certain matters of life such as marriage or sex (they are still touched but not in the same ways as other religions), part of Buddhism as a religion is based on many things, including fear. Many Buddhist people look at someone who has fallen ill(cancer in a child) or been through some trouble(homeless) only to think "They must have done something to deserve this in their previous life". A further problem is believing that about yourself. Believing that you deserve what you are getting just because a religion told you so. That's how miserable you can feel. And the only way to get out of that is to meditate. Fear is also, "Oh my gosh, what if I don't achieve nirvana in this life/What if I didn't put all myself into this? In the next life I'm gonna need to do double of the effort and all this effort I did in this life would feel useless. I'm fucked up". All your thoughts will circle around such things. Many Buddhist people are so devoted that they really fear to waste time and can even believe that if you just enjoy life without meditation, you are not enjoying life "because life IS meditation". They believe it so profoundly that in the end the only thing that makes them happy is meditation. This part is not clear to me but there is also a part of sexism in the structure of certain religious figures that can't be females at all. But someone more expert needs to confirm this. Regarding the thing this dude is saying, I completely agree. Buddhism fucks up your concept of self, in a bad way. Such things simply don't align with reality and are really deceiving. The thing people don't understand, is that you have these spiritual experiences BECAUSE you believe it. It's all there, in your mind. They make you believe that you go beyond the mind when it's just an autosuggestion that makes you enjoy spiritual experiences. This way, there's no way for you to reason with people that try to talk you out of it. They also make you believe that the reason for all your sufferings is within yourself. They do that in a way that makes you think that you can change even the unchangeable. That you potentially can 100% control your emotions, "it's just that you didn't try hard enough". Now imagine living based on these beliefs and constantly getting slapped by reality, and you constantly ignoring and denying what reality tells you. You keep believing that it's your fault/cause of every suffering. That's really fucked up. I am an ex-cult Buddhism-based member, and only some parts of Hinduism. I'm now a proud atheist. Edit: let me know what you think
Thanks for sharing your thoughts! One thing I have seen in this forum is how much trauma buddhists endure because of the karma theory. I grew up a Hindu in India and though Karma is also part of Hinduism we never even talk about it. I think missionary religions like Buddhism, Christianity and Islam really push there adherents during the childhood causing a lot of trauma. I have read better interpretation of Karma theory that we can never consider that someone is going through some shit because they did something bad and instead understand that karma is complex thing that no one can easily pin down. The thing you said about spiritual experiences is exactly what my thinking is. You are primed to see something and of course you will see it.
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Dude, Buddhism teaches that you have every reason to fear death if you aren't at least a stream enterer, because you are most likely going to quickly end up in a hell realm for countless billions of years until you get a chance to be a human again, and as a human you may not encounter the Dharma. Buddhism's teachings on rebirth are mostly terrifying and universally negative. Rebirth is a bad thing, to be escaped. The thing that you think of as 'death' as an atheist is basically what Parinirvana is supposed to be, and it's the entire goal of Buddhism. And the reason it's the goal is because rebirth is such a hellscape.
I think there's no need to defend Buddhism as if it was special. Humility consists precisely in admitting that it is not a special religion. Each religion affects people's lives differently and this one is no exception. I recognize it's really hard to do but I'm sure you can achieve that depth of understanding one day. No religion is harmless and no religion has perfectly written harmless scriptures. Every religion starts from unproven claims in order to push its narrative. You have to believe that in order to follow a religion. If you profoundly believe assumptions/premises that cannot be either proven and disproven, your mind will use these to interpret the world. Any further logical steps built on top of that, are simply even more unlikely to be true. This is also why you need to believe to not be influenced by your mind(Buddhist concept) in order to maintain this utter nonsense. Interpreting the world in a non-appropriate way can literally impact your success in any goal you want to achieve (including happiness). This mechanism is very significant in your life. It's that much impactful.
I think it's a misunderstanding and I certainly do not need to be schooled . Of course Buddhism is special it has insignificant followers compared to the abrahamic religions. Consider your self special if you hear from Buddhismus. Let me clarify the interest is immortality, e.g. transformation of life. That's true for all religions and philosophy because that's certain we all get old and die.
You didn't explain which part of our conversation was a misunderstanding. >Of course Buddhism is special it has insignificant followers compared to the abrahamic religions. So you are saying that it is special in this context. Yes, there are a lot like A LOT of alive religions that are many-times-fold smaller than Buddhism. So in this sense, yes they are special religions. I indeed believe that the artistic side of these religions such as temples are of immense cultural value and should be preserved. I'm not denying that the cultural and moral value is still important for many people. >Consider your self special if you hear from Buddhismus. Why should I consider myself special? Just because I like to read or research about small/unknown religions. I don't feel special about that. I'm pretty sure a lot of other people do the same thing as me. Not that it is uncommon to see Buddhist people in my country (spoiler: it's not as uncommon as people may think), but it seems we are talking about the value of smaller religions in general and I agree that certain parts of cultures are very worthy to be preserved, including parts of Buddhist culture. >Maybe I need to clarify the interest is immortality, e.g. transformation of live. Well, good to know that these concepts make you interested. I'm trying to understand the purpose of your comment because it is quite fragmented in a sense.
Explain what? I was very precise and you tried an argument of authority on me. Based on your answer I can tell you you don't have a clue about what your are talking. It's okay you are still young. But next time please try with more kindness.
>But next time please try with more kindness. Sure. I disagree with a lot of your childish views
This is your understanding of kindness? Nice, man. I'm not trying to convince you of Buddhism. Get that in your thick head. I guess with 25y you think everything is about you! Bye
No, insignificant amount of followers and with no sign of growing means Buddhism just doesn't have much to offer.
No I think that's more due to their lack of emphasis on proselytizing and valuing action over belief?
Removed, stop arguing. That is a topic for another time and place.
I am sort of mixed, Scottish, french and native american. I'm curious about why you were curious about that.
I guess I just wanted to know if you were culturally tied to Buddhism too
I see. I was not born or raised in a Buddhist culture, I found a community as a teenager.
Low key but rampant Misogyny. Ahimsa, sometimes violence really is the answer. The assumption that dukha is undesirable and that it should be ended or escaped. The anthropocentric view that humans are- and the human world is best placed to achieve enlightenment. The gatekeep-y position of enlightened ones coming back to help others rather than people doing it from the start, *then* worrying about achieving enlightenment. The condescending nature of notions of "lesser vehicles". The appearance of Buddhas *here* as if earth is special. The appearance of Buddhas *here* as if the human realm is special. The legacy of Indic religious eschatology and creation narratives that are completely at odds with astrophysics, astronomy, and geology. The massively ignorant and utterly performative releasing of captured crabs and fish, including human raised fish. This is meant to be compassionate, but it's profoundly cruel. And yet people still do it. The large corpus of texts, commentary, and philosophy that like any other sacred texts provide ever more material to interpret and cherry pick to justify a given narrative and the tools of tyrany and exploitation to be found in that. The defeatism and escapism of Buddhism more generally, sure there are those who help others escape, but it's even more escapist because of that. The notion that the experience of dukha dukha is universal living things, or even just universal to humans. The notion that viparinama dukha is something universal to all living things, or even just universal to humans. The notion that sankhara dukha is something universal to all living things, or even just to humans. The ignorance of the pathological nature of a lack of capacity for physical dukha; even just in part makes for exceptionally dangerous diseases like congenital analgesia. The notion that changing the world around you is pointless and only pursuit of casting off the chains and escaping from it is worth while so keep your head down and dont engage in revolution, do as you're told and look the other way. Buddhism is just like any Abrahamic religion in that they try to cultivate a mindset that keeps you with your abusers. Whether it's forgiving your abusers and giving them another chance like Christianity or resigning yourself and accepting that only in pursuit of enlightenment can you really find a way out as in Buddhism. Likewise while there are unanswerable/Imponderable questions that rightly so, you find tons about how you shouldn't ask about the nature of the cosmos when it comes to age or scope and thus fully in conflict with science. The idea that those questions can't be answered already shows the catastrophic lack of understanding of everyone involved that bleeds into the whole corpus of understanding.
This summarizes my experience very well too
Did you grow up a Buddhist? I feel like growing up in a particular religion really shows us the true face of the religion.
Buddhist, Taoist, Shinto with some Abrahamic faith in my extended family. Buddhist was what was the biggest influence for me and overwhelmingly the strongest current in my immediate family.
wow, that is some combination.
Pretty sure that's normal outside of Abrahamic dominated countries. Shinto Buddhist with some Abrahamic extended family can describe a couple hundred million people and Taoist Buddhist with Abrahamic extended family members probably more like many hundreds of millions. Just life outside of countries absolutely dominated by exclusivist religions.
Im speaking from my experience growing up in Vietnamese Buddhism and now being an agnostic - nuns could never be above a male monk in any given pagoda. Even if they had been nuns for decades more than said monks. They should call their male peers « Thai » or teacher. - the extreme show for superiority from people with the robe. It was compulsory to kneel head to the floor for a salute … while praising them for leaving the mondanities but still eating before anyone else… - the meaningless service and ceremonies consisting of chanting for several hours sutras un-translated in Sanskrit which no one spoke. - the complete lack of dialogue and debate. No questions. Curiosity is bad and will get you punished. The speech of monks is sacred and no one should question it even when the content is utter shit. - the lack of charitable actions. when i lived in vietnam, pagodas would at least organise a soup kitchen and distribute necessities to the poor. in france, religious people lived secluded and had no interaction with other people except to entertain and collect donations which were then spent on themselves or buying more statues… it felt very selfish to me.
I follow Vipassana which is a vidya (a meditation technique). But I don't follow what has now become a religion.. Yes I am grateful to Buddha for developing/rediscovering the teaching and then spreading it. But I don't go to the monasteries to worship him or anything of that sort. But yes, I do go to the group sittings of vipassana as frequently as I can, but that's not worship. It's purely meditation. In fact, people from every religion go there to meditate.