How is it one of the dumber things or how does it say a lot?
Well, I'd be hard pressed to prove the first point, as there are so many dumb ideas to have come from religion and it's hard to rank their dumbness on a qualitative scale, so you'll just have to accept that as my personal opinion.
As for how it says a lot... well... as I already mentioned... there are so many dumb ideas to have come from religion. You're not one of those people who believes that ALL religions are true, do you? You probably accept whatever dumb things are in Buddhism or Christianity because that's your background... but do you also believe that the world was formed from the body of the Ice Giant Ymir? do you also believe that all of humanity's problems come from body thetans trapped on Earth by galactic Emporer Xenu? do you also believe that through castration and mass suicide you, too can join Jesus on his spaceship as he flies by disguised by comet Hale-Bopp? do you also believe that Native Americans were originally an Israeli tribe banished to the Americas by God who turned their skin red as punishment? do you also believe that there is a kami (spirit) living inside the dirty sock on the floor next to me? this list is virtually endless I could go on for 15 pages...
no, i don't believe ALL religions are true. but i think MANY religions have truths embedded within them, both in their values system and in their mythology. to dismiss any and all beliefs as "stupid" is dismissive and misses the point. to carefully consider why people believe what they do and from where such beliefs spring (prevailing archetypes in the collective unconscious? some shared historical experience stored in our racial memory? semiotic expression of spiritual truths? the world's a wackier and more fucked up place than we give it credit for?) rather than tossing it aside because it differs from what you believe is a far better approach to my mind.
as for karma and reincarnation, i understand it's your personal opinion and entirely subjective and i'm not trying to pick a fight here...i'm asking genuinely why YOU, personally, believe them to be "stupid."
Because it's fantasy. Can you explain why it's dumb to think that the world is formed from the body of a deceased frost giant? We just take it for granted that it is, because Norse religion went out of fashion a long time ago. There is absolutely no evidence whatsoever that supports the idea of karma or reincarnation. It is complete and utter fabrication, imagined by man.
this makes the assumption that we all believe the Norse myths to be "stupid." i, for one, don't. it was their way of understanding the universe. i don't necessarily think every one of my beliefs about the way the universe works is going to hold up when the final Truth is revealed to me. i often imagine going to Heaven, looking out at everything and going "oh! THAT'S how that works! I was way off. Ah well, who wants another beer?" :tongue:
you're not only taking the stance that things need to be seen and proveable to be true and, thus, believed...but also that anything BEYOND those things is automatically stupid with no other explanation to back it up beyond "you can't prove it so it's not real so it's stupid." not the most enlightened position i've ever seen on the subject. :biggrin1:
How about this, why are there so many billions upon trillions more organisms living today than there were when the Earth was young? Where are all the extra people coming from? If we are all reborn then shouldn't the number of sentient beings remain constant?
well, that assumes that all of our incarnations are taking place on this planet or within the span of linear time so that we're reincarnating sequentially. the soul is free of such confines as time and space within the physical universe, so who's to say that i'm not living out another incarnation of my life right now, and that my next life won't be as someone or something else 200 years ago? as you point out, there's no way to prove or measure the spiritual, so it's all about belief...and our imaginations are powerful things indeed. but that doesn't mean the things we imagine aren't true. for me, that capacity goes hand in hand with the rational mind in the eternal quest for truth and wisdom.
the 4 nobles truth and 8 fold path dont make sense at all without karma and rebirth. the goal in buddism is to stop rebirths and attain nirvana
samsara is the circle of rebirth and nirvana the opposite
the first noble truth is that existence contains suffering
well that can be observed
the second truth is the cause of suffering is attachment
what we do with attachment produce positive and negative karma
that trap us in the circle of rebirths
the third truth is that attachment can be eliminate
and 4 truth is the method to do that is the 8fold path
how you can end suffering eliminating attachment in the context on only one life ? that dont make sense even if you eliminate attachment with that alone you cant end suffering in the present life
again iam not saying that rebirth and karma are true . Just explaining why dont make sense to practice the dharma if rebirth and karma isnt true
but the four noble truths are no less true within the span of one lifetime, yes? one can still follow the eightfold path within one incarnation, yes? i think what he's trying to say is that attachment can be eliminated and enlightenment to some extent can be attained within one life to pierce through the illusion of existence to the truth beyond.
it's the equivalent, as far as i can tell, of a Christian not believing in Heaven and Hell as physical places your soul GOES to or not believing in the absolute sancitity and necessity of the Sacraments towards the salvation of the soul. it's simply another viewpoint on the essential philosophy at the core of the faith.
yes, of course we don't know. That's the crutch all religious BS falls back on. The stuff that survives to the present day has been modified over and over again to the point where it can't be proven false. First everything in the Bible was literal truth, then certain parts were metaphor, then other parts were misinterpreted, then other parts were just unimportant in a modern context. The story keeps getting changed so that there's no way of ever proving it false.
well, what's more important? the essential philosophies and values at the core of these belief systems, or the costumes and props we as humans dress them up in to better understand them?
it's impossible to have any kind of actual debate or discussion with this kind of automatically dismissive attitude, where anything outside of your world view is immediately classified as "dumb." it's like trying to discuss evolution with a fundamentalist Christian. you're not going to get anywhere in it because they've already judged your argument before you've even made it.