Atheistic Buddhism

[Corgan Sow]

Hey guys, I want to share this brilliant post I got from a friend's blog:

Full text available at link (http://falling-stones.livejournal.com/42945.html).

Paticca Samuppada
The other day, someone asked me if I am a Buddhist. The reason I was asked is because Wesak Day is just around the corner.

I am a Buddhist by birth. <snip text> I admire the intellectual and logical approach that the Buddha encouraged, one that is not based on superstitions, hearsay, blind faith, emotions and that sort. The logic and rational way of the Buddha, the Middle Path, self-reliance and the idea that one is responsible for their own actions and fate and not relying on external force and blame fate, all appealed very much to me. And I thought that the Buddha said explicitly of the non-existence of the soul and a supreme being/creator all made a lot of sense to me.

However, I cannot consider myself a true Buddhist as I do not believe (yet) one key concept of Buddhism and that is the concept of Re-Birth.

I believe that this life is all we have and we make the most out of this life, not only for ourselves but also for other people and our environment. The purpose of my being on earth and doing good is so that I create good karmas which I hope will benefit myself in this life and other people, especially people I love. <snip text>

So one is tempted to ask, if there is no such thing as karma and rebirth, why is it that some people are born rich and some are born poor? Why is it that some people are born healthy and some are born sick etc? How does one account for this?

To my mind right now, this is just pure chance and there need not be an explanation for it, the same as there need not be an explanation on how the universe began. <snip text>

The Buddha has spoken, according to the records, on Karma and this was recorded in the Culakammavibhanga Sutta. I still have problem believing in him there.

Given that I cannot yet believe in this idea, I cannot also believe in reincarnation and rebirth and these being the tenets of Buddhism, how can I call myself a Buddhist?

Your thoughts? Opinions?

[xunzian]

Have you looked much into Wang Yangming and xinxue? While it doesn't appeal to me (waaaay too Buddhist), I think it might be a very good fit for you. Many of the same principles found in Buddhism are there, but there is no concept of reincarnation. Instead of karmic explanations, the idea is to make yourself one with reality, or rather to realize that you are one with existence and to learn how to manifest that reality. Check out his "Daxue wen", you should be able to find it pretty easily. "Chuan xi lu", especially the first three chapters, are also good resources.

From his Inquiry on the Great Learning, as translated by Wing-tsit Chan:

"The great man regards Heaven and Earth and the myriad of things as one body. He regards the world as one family and the country as one person . . . That the great man can regard Heaven, Earth, and the myriad of things as one body is not because he deliberately wants to do so, but because it is natural to the humane nature of his mind that he do so. Forming one body with Heaven, Earth, and the myriad of things is not only true of the great man. Even the mind of the small man is no different. Only he himself makes it small. Therefore when he sees a child about to fall into a well, he cannot help a feeling of alarm and comiseration. This shows that his humanity forms one body with the child [this is a thought experiment Mencius used to demonstrate the innate goodness of man's nature]. It may be objected that the child belongs to the same species. Again, when he observes the pitiful cries and frightened appearance of birds and animals about to be slaughtered, he cannot help feeling an "inability to bear" their suffering [that is a reference to a famous passage in the Mencius with King Xuan of Qi and the king's reluctance to sacrifice an Ox after having seen it and being unable to bear its pitiful cries.]. This shows that his humanity forms one body with birds and animals. It may be objected that birds and animals are sentient beings as he is. But when he sees plants broken and destroyed, he cannot help . . . feeling . . . pity. This shows that his humanity forms one body with plants. It may be said that plants are living things as he is. Yet even when he sees tiles and stones shattered and crushed, he cannot help . . . feeling . . . regret. This shows that his humanity forms one body with tiles and stones. This means that even the mind of the small man necessarily has the humanity that forms one body with all. Such a mind is rooted in his Heaven-endowed nature, and is naturally intelligent, clear and not beclouded. For this reason it is called "clear character" "

So, instead of thinking of polluting the environment as generating 'bad karma' you are instead, quite literally, polluting a vital part of yourself through these actions.

Edit: I also think that there are good reasons for simply being culturally Buddhist. My girfriend, like you, was raised Buddhist and while she has doubts about reincarnation she doesn't really let that get in the way of her general agreement with the system. I agree that that simply side-stepping the issue is a less than perfect solution, however, I do not think that anyone agrees 100% with any given ideology, so variation of belief is expected (demanded, actually). While I agree that Buddhism without reincarnation loses a lot of its vitality, if the system works for you (and it seems to), then why question it? Or rather, why bring yourself in line with the system when you (culturally) already seem to be. After all, Buddha said that you ought not believe anything on authority, not matter who told it to you, even if he told it to you. So, I think such skepticism is in-line with Buddhist thought, even if it is out-of-line.

[drewjmore]

I don't like the mystical aspects of 'karma' either.

However, for me, karma works perfectly as a psychological concept: acts which nurture 'bad' karma* tend to impact other people in negative emotional ways, which can lead to their own acts which nurture 'bad' karma...

*-Some people (mis?)understand karma as having a positive & a negative aspect. Isn't the original concept that all karma is 'bad'?

[abaddon]

Karma is cause and effect. There is no good and bad.

"Why was I born poor and not rich?" Because given the state of the universe at the time it wouldn't have happened otherwise -- no person is separate from that, and the "pure chance" posited by the blog-writer has no chance of surviving scrutiny. Our choices influence everything, there's nothing private about them. The writer of the blog-entry is judging being born "poor" as misfortune. And it's that judgment that binds him to the "misfortune" and thus will seem like "bad karma" to him.

Also I think the writer is stumbling on anatma. He seems to think of himself as an entity that endures through a lifetime but then stops at death. And the way he describes how karma goes on without him looks like he sees himself as separated out from everything else, something distinct from the environment.

Once you recognize there is no entity that springs into existence from nothing ("just happens") at birth and that later miraculously exits from the universe at death -- that even moment-by-moment the "Me" is recreated--, then how your choices continuously make you what you are shouldn't be such a problem to conceive.

For all intents and purposes, this life is indeed all we have. Each moment is all "you" have. There's nothing in karma/rebirth that excuses people from taking the here-and-now seriously. Right Now is as real as it gets. Work to have the best and most joyous life and not leave a big ugly stain behind you and everyone's "rebirths" will be more "fortunate."

[wordy]

When I read what Abaddon writes here I get the feeling that it is futile to use the label atheist.

Atheistic Buddhism may be formally without gods but not without false faith in Once you recognize there is no entity that springs into existence from nothing ("just happens") at birth and that later miraculously exits from the universe at death

The human body is the actual entity that is what is alive and which dies and thus buddhism if it continues to have the view that Abaddon describe in my citation then it is a false belief even if it is "atheistic" re gods.

[abaddon]

When I read what Abaddon writes here I get the feeling that it is futile to use the label atheist.

Only if you evaluate that word in a way that defies what it actually means. It doesn't mean "free of ideas that I disagree with." Materialism and atheism are not synonyms.

Atheistic Buddhism may be formally without gods but not without false faith in [abaddon's quote about no souls]

When I wrote "entity" I meant soul. To deny bodies would be moronic; but we're talking phenomenological experience here, not physiology.

The human body is the actual entity that is what is alive and which dies and thus buddhism if it continues to have the view that Abaddon describe in my citation then it is a false belief even if it is "atheistic" re gods.

Are you saying bodies "spring into existence from nothing" and then "exit from the universe at death"? Those are the things that I said "entities" don't do -- "entities" being things, like "souls" for example, that exist in and of themselves -- which don't exist. (Yes, I'm talking about what things that don't exist don't do :Cheeky: ).

"Alive" and "dead" are words of convenience to describe a certain kind of physiological functioning, or lack thereof.

In any case, you've confused "atma" with "body," and so you failed to demonstrate any "false belief" in my post. I think you want to reduce "I" to a body, and in that way preserve a temporary soul (one that exists for only the duration of one life, while the body's alive). That way you preserve a distinct identity because you perceive that anatma threatens your sense of being a distinct identity.

So let me ask this: Is it a body's fingers typing those words in your posts? Or is it "wordy" typing them with his fingers?

[wordy]

I think you want to reduce "I" to a body, and in that way preserve a temporary soul (one that exists for only the duration of one life, while the body's alive).

That is not to reduce "I", it is to describe the complexity of being a human being. The "I" emerge as an experience of the body. The body gets aware of itself as an "I". It is a tool the body has to discern it's relation to the world and it's own history. Another such tool is the notion of "Theory of Mind" which realize that other humans has their own view on things and that by mirroring their acts one could maybe discern what they are up to next. An error prone guessing.

Are you saying bodies "spring into existence from nothing" and then "exit from the universe at death"?

I guess you have heard of sexual reproductions?

Is it a body's fingers typing those words in your posts? Or is it "wordy" typing them with his fingers?

The body that gets aware of itself as "Wordy" do the typing. After the typing the conscious part of that body gets aware of what the body wrote. Consciousness lags behind the actual act. The body do the typing and later rationalize it as the experience of "Wordy" doing the writing. Physics is the primary cause. But the feedback from the experience could change how the body decide. It is a loop that is why it lags, it takes time to go around the loop to get aware of it from that perspective.

[wordy]

Abaddon, may I ask something.

Is the view you express above particular for you as an individual or is that view shared by the majority of schools of buddhism?

I mean are you an exception or is those views the basic buddhism. The most known interpretation of buddhism or is your view something the other buddhists gets surprised about and say that is an unusual interpretation. All the rest agree with "Wordy" and them don't see your view as typical of buddhist views?

If your views are the main views then it shows why atheists need to always qualify what type of atheist one is.

I'm an atheistic naturalist and not an atheistic buddhist.

[aupmanyav]

Once you recognize there is no entity that springs into existence from nothing ("just happens") at birth and that later miraculously exits from the universe at death -- This is one of the problems for me too with buddhism. 'springs into existence from nothing'. As far as we know today, the atoms are really quantum field. The illusionary entity was never born or created (our illusion), it never remained the same (our illusion), and never died or ceased (our illusion). So what if quantum fields are not substance. They create substance, energy, space, time (our illusions). This is Brahman and Maya. Don't like the name?

[Yeshi]

This is one of the problems for me too with buddhism. 'springs into existence from nothing'.

Read more carefuly, your problem might not be with buddhism: he said "no entity that springs into existence from nothing".


This is Brahman and Maya. Don't like the name?

Nope, we dont like undefined terms. Maya means Illusion directly, but what Brahman means, only you know :)

[aupmanyav]

Read carefully, Yeshi. Brahman means quantum field. :) Then Abaddon goes on to compound the problem by saying that 'identity' means soul. True, consciousness lags. It is not something universal as Perfectbite says, it belongs to the body, it belongs to the mind. It finally ceases with the body. Maya is the illusions because of difference of scale. It is a house, no, it is not a house, it is bricks and cement, no, it is not bricks and cement, it is atoms of calcium carbonate and silicon-di-oxide, no, it is not atoms of calcium carbonate and silicon-di-oxide, it is quantum field. Reduce, reduce, reduce, until you reach the kernel, if you reach the kernel. Many people don't.

Wordy, realised persons like Abaddon, Perfectbite, and myself cannot have views which can be termed as basic to Buddhism or Hinduism. We create our own cocktails.

[Yeshi]

Brahman means quantum field. :)

In this ad hoc sudden definition of yours now:

Brahman (IIRC, not that i know) means something universal, whereas a quantum field is not universe-spanning but locally occuring in instances.

(now you supposedly chime in that all of those are interconnected overdimensionally into huge Indra net 'which is it', etc... in another New Age 'everything is everything' natanraja dance)

The term Brahman is used EVERYWHERE in strictly hindu theistic concept sense, to denote alleged (and wrong) dychotomy atman-brahman. So your dilligent attempts to infuse each and every discussion with 'Brahman' muddle with unneeded definition overwrites. (not to mention, create nausea).

Guess i better leave this forum, as 'the realised person' coctails are not easily palatable *bleargh*

[aupmanyav]

'whereas a quantum field is not universe-spanning but locally occuring in instances.' I suppose you may not be totally correct here. You may read the Wiki article in Quantum Theory. I have never said that we know 'Brahman' fully. All that I mention stands to correction by the latest findings in research. Just as Einstein was hoping to find the universal theory, I am also waiting for it. Ever since I have joined the forum, I have tried to inject physics in our (philosophical only) discussions here. True, Nataraja's dance or Indra's net seems quite probable to me. As I mentioned, the hindu idea is of 'atta' of Brahman as opposed to 'anatta' of Buddhism, nothing more. But in that also, I hear from the discussants here, that Buddhism is only silent and not against the existence of unity. Brahman can be theistic for those who like it that way and non-theistic for others, like those of the Upanishads who said 'to know Brahman is to become Brahman' or 'in darkness are those who worship the manifest, in greater darkness are those who worship the unmanifest'. Like those who said 'all that we percieve is Brahman', 'only one exists, there is no second', or 'Brahman is the truth, the percieved is untruth'. Lastly, I would be so sorry if you even think of leaving the forum, it is not my forum, it is our forum. So, friend, banish the thought. Regards.

[premjan]

Leaving is probably more of a value in Buddhism, whereas staying is more of a value in Hinduism.

[aupmanyav]

Leaving is valuable in Hinduism also, but only after the three debts are repaid.

[Yeshi]

why dont you invent/use a term which is not already that much ladden with meaning as Brahman is?

Osho (Rajneesh) used i think 'Existence', us, the old shool tibetan buddhists use 'Rigpa' (Wisdom) or Dharmakaya (body of knowledge), if we both follow some version (in making) of quantum consciousness mind theories, why not assert a new term which reflects the new lingo?

The sensitivity you ruthlessly trample over is the relation of minds to an eventual Mind (with big 'M' - a nonexistent theist theory), by using Brahman. You undermine the freedom of a new standpoint by adhering to it.

We could vote with Premjan's help for some new term, which is not overly buddhist either, like buddha nature or Tathagathagarbha.

IMHO, lets call it Primordial Awareness (of Light, or Electromagnetic Field).
For the main aspect of it is the awareness or ability to experience.

[premjan]

Honestly I think it is better not to insist on a fundamental term - either brahman or buddha mind etc. as these are probably obstacles to seeing things clearly.

[abaddon]

That is not to reduce "I", it is to describe the complexity of being a human being. The "I" emerge as an experience of the body. The body gets aware of itself as an "I". It is a tool the body has to discern it's relation to the world and it's own history... The body do the typing and later rationalize it as the experience of "Wordy" doing the writing. Physics is the primary cause. But the feedback from the experience could change how the body decide....

Here you've attributed the creation of a sense of identity to body functions, which is how I mean "reduce 'I' to a body."

You don't really seem to be contradicting what I wrote: "that even moment-by-moment the "Me" is recreated."

The blog-writer quoted in the OP said he doubts rebirth, apparently taking rebirth to mean there's an enduring insubstantial self (a "soul") that survives death and gets born again. I said there's not only no enduring insubstantial self between lives, but not even one within a life. That's not to deny that a sense of self is created as a function (or "tool"). That it's created repeatedly (in a loop) is rather the point of "rebirth."

"Loops" work very well as a metaphor for the ever-recreated identity. They should, as Buddhism is an ethical, phenomenological systems theory. But Buddhism sees our choices as central, they're both input and feedback (much like the "Wheel of Rebirth" metaphor).

Is the view you express above particular for you as an individual or is that view shared by the majority of schools of buddhism? ... If your views are the main views then it shows why atheists need to always qualify what type of atheist one is.

I don't know how that follows. You're saying, I think, that I'm not "atheistic enough" for you. You dislike [your imagination of] my views, so if I were representative of Buddhists generally then it'd show how Buddhists generally are not "atheistic enough."

I'm an atheistic naturalist and not an atheistic buddhist.

I'm a Buddhistic agnostic-atheistic naturalist. So we're both atheists, regardless of what else we think about anything. Pick another word if "I'm an atheist" doesn't seem sufficient to explain your variety of naturalism (there's great variety there too, you know).

I'm giving my best understanding of Buddhism when I speak of it. Which is inevitably "interpreting," just as Buddha and every other "Buddhist" has done. I don't see that mine is so different from others' interpretations, though I'm not a follower of any "school." Buddhism seems pretty consistent on the fundamentals, and if I get any of those wrong then I'm certainly open to corrections if they're provided with convincing arguments.

[aupmanyav]

The sensitivity you ruthlessly trample over is the relation of minds to an eventual Mind (with big 'M' - a nonexistent theist theory), by using Brahman.How about just 'field'. Yes, by principle, I would trample over a universal mind, universal awareness, or God. Awareness usually rattles me, because it has no universality which some people attribute to it, it is only local (one mind's) and it is very temporary. As I said, Brahman is strictly atheistic for some. I tried to check for quantum field being local, I suppose it is more than that (though I cannot claim to have full understanding). Any input (from any member, time permitting) would be very welcome. FYI, I am a hindu and for that reason comfortable with Brahman. Loop, Abaddon, I would not like to be caught in a loop.

[abaddon]

Loop, Abaddon, I would not like to be caught in a loop.

Hence nirvana. It doesn't extinguish "loops" but does diminish being mindlessly stuck within them.

[perfectbite]

Leaving is probably more of a value in Buddhism, whereas staying is more of a value in Hinduism.

Hanging around to see what happens next or what reponses occur is also handy for Buddhists.

[aupmanyav]

Karma floats and attaches itself to an available body, don't know why buddhists try to stick to this and such positions. IMHO, they should dump Karma forthwith and agree to the socially beneficial and necessary 'dharma' of hinduism. This is how we can repay our debt to the society which nurtures us.

[abaddon]

Karma floats and attaches itself to an available body, don't know why buddhists try to stick to this and such positions. IMHO, they should dump Karma forthwith and agree to the socially beneficial and necessary 'dharma' of hinduism. This is how we can repay our debt to the society which nurtures us.
No one should stick to this fantasy about a floating karma that "attaches itself" to people (or to "an available body"). Sounds like something from a science fiction/horror film.

Misunderstandings like this, that just keep getting repeated in spite of better info being widely available, look like karma to me.

[xunzian]

Well, Dharma is one of the central tenents of Buddhism -- one of the three jewels.

I believe they are from Hinduism (Karma, Dharma, Sangha).

My understanding is that the major split between Hinduism and Buddhism is ethnocentricity and castes. Would you say this is a fair assessment? I'm not terribly familiar with Hinduism.

[aupmanyav]

Even animals follow a certain behaviour, their 'dharma'. A monkey-mother would shoo away the father if he tries to violate his daughter. How they know this biology, I do not know. Lions and Hynas would make a kill in tandem. This is biological survival. 'Dharma' also is biological survival and well-being of the specie, therefore, necessary. If an enlightened sage commits suicide saying that it does not make a difference, or face and enraged elephant and gets killed, it certainly does not make any difference to substrate. A Gautama leaves home for search of truth or not, finds it or not, that also does not make a difference to the substrate. All people do this or all people do not do this, nothing makes a difference to the substrate, it is not involved. It is a difference of scale which creates our illusions. We count in millimeters, it exists in Angstroms. But this is what we do, go according to the rules of the society, otherwise life would be very difficult. There is an absolute level and there is a pragmatic level, as Sankara said. Repaying debt of the family and the society is necessary at the pragmatic level.

[perfectbite]

Well, Dharma is one of the central tenents of Buddhism -- one of the three jewels.

I believe they are from Hinduism (Karma, Dharma, Sangha).

My understanding is that the major split between Hinduism and Buddhism is ethnocentricity and castes. Would you say this is a fair assessment? I'm not terribly familiar with Hinduism.

You are also not terribly familiar with Buddhism.

The three jewels of Sangha driven Buddhism are:

The Buddha, the Buddha's Dharma and the Sangha.

As mentioned elsewhere on this forum, originally there were only two; the Buddha and the Buddha's Dharma.

[aupmanyav]

My understanding is that the major split between Hinduism and Buddhism is ethnocentricity and castes.It was not ethnocentricity, buddhism was accepted in Gandhara (North Western Pakistan), Maharashtra, Kanyakubja, and Magadha (Central India). It was accepted by kings and subjects alike. It was a different interpretation in Philosophy, about rituals and desires, perfectly valid in hinduism also. Jainism (about which people know even less outside India) also came about the same time. These were like new sects in hinduism. People flitted from one to another according to their inclinations, nobody cared, there had always been hundreds of sects in hinduism. The same happened with sikhism in medival India. IMHO, it was the later buddhist and jain scholarship, expositions, and expansions, which made them different (Kanishka's great buddhist assembly, etc.).

[wordy]

I'm a Buddhistic agnostic-atheistic naturalist.

That reminds me of Humpty-Dumpty, when I use a term it means exactly what I intended it to mean at writing sort of. Doesn't words like naturalist and atheistic loose their communicative meaning if they could be used in such a way you do here? If your a naturalist then I don't want to be a naturalist. :)

when I wrote The body that gets aware of itself as "Wordy" do the typing. After the typing the conscious part of that body gets aware of what the body wrote. Consciousness lags behind the actual act. The body do the typing and later rationalize it as the experience of "Wordy" doing the writing. Physics is the primary cause. But the feedback from the experience could change how the body decide. It is a loop that is why it lags, it takes time to go around the loop to get aware of it from that perspective. that is compatible with being a naturalist.

What you wrote some posts ago is not compatible with naturalism as I understand naturalism. Why would Internet Infidels say that they are a drop of reason in a pool of confusion, if they share your views?

If naturalism is compatible with the views you have shown in these threads on iidb then naturalism is not a drop of reason, then it is the confusion itself?

[abaddon]

That reminds me of Humpty-Dumpty, when I use a term it means exactly what I intended it to mean at writing sort of. Doesn't words like naturalist and atheistic loose their communicative meaning if they could be used in such a way you do here? If your a naturalist then I don't want to be a naturalist.
You intend your words to mean what you intend your words to mean... "sort of"?

If my view on nature is different from yours, that doesn't change what "naturalist" means. You can have your view, and I'll keep mine. The word isn't ruined by having more expansive meanings than you're allowing.

You're saying in essence, "It means what I mean, or it means nothing," and that's highly restricting. What happens when you insist on such a thing is that all the conclusions are already known, you just have to force everyone else to accept your meanings. That limits what anyone can say about reality -- and I guess everyone would be less "confused" if they all just agreed to take one single viewpoint.

Worse, the intent of your words is not clear because you don't expand on what you mean; a few labels cannot and will never do all the work for you. And I suspect you mean something more than most people do by them (especially with the word "atheist").

Here's what I mean by "atheist": I don't believe in literal gods or spirits. Simple enough.

Here's what I mean by "naturalism": Nature is all there is, and all of nature is subject to experience and there's no good reason to believe in something "beyond experience." But I allow that there may be more to nature than what the "public" can experience; not everything is easily available to everyone.

What is "supernaturalism"? It's whatever the "religionists" say it is. If they say God transcends nature, then they themselves have defined a "super-nature." The supernatural isn't simply "whatever science doesn't talk about."

I've never defined karma or rebirth or nirvana as things that cannot be found in nature. They're not transcendent, they're not beyond human experience. They're more similar to consciousness (as an interior unmediated experience, not the fantastic rationalizations about "excretions of a brain") and beauty -- natural processes too complex, qualitative and subjective to be easily shared for "public verification." Not similar enough to rocks and body processes for measuring. But they're nevertheless nothing similar to spirits or some transcendent something-or-other. They're an unscientific way of explaining some processes within nature; I sometimes prefer "unscientific" ways of explaining these processes because of science's limits. Buddhism sees nature's processes as interwoven with ethical concerns (hence "karma" instead of simply "cause-effect") because the most important point in knowing anything is the quality of experience (our happiness). It doesn't split the world into subjective and objective, so it's not interested in quantifying everything "objectively" and publicly. Knowing just for the sake of knowing is a waste of time. And so I'm not interested in limiting myself to a "scientific" viewpoint because I'm not interested in just data but more in living well.

Now you might say that's "abaddonism" and not "real Buddhism." And then I'll reply that the intent of Buddhism is for us to pave our ways through life with the tools we have the best way we can, so abaddonism is not a misrepresentation of Buddhism. Buddhism isn't just what folk-religionists do and believe, or what's said in some old texts that rely on the strange-seeming cultural idioms of their time and place. "Skeptics" play on this kind of Straw Man for easy religion-bashing; it's a deliberate misrepresentation used to avoid the actual complexity of the subject.

What you wrote some posts ago is not compatible with naturalism as I understand naturalism.
Then define your naturalism. You probably mean "reductive materialism."

Naturalism is often taken to mean "nature as discovered by science" but I think science is limited and can't know all of nature. There are other methods to reasonably understand empirical nature without being wholly dependent on science.

Why would Internet Infidels say that they are a drop of reason in a pool of confusion, if they share your views?
I don't know. Maybe they mean something different than you think? Or, maybe they're confused? Either way, am I supposed to care what they say?

If naturalism is compatible with the views you have shown in these threads on iidb then naturalism is not a drop of reason, then it is the confusion itself?
You need to (1) demonstrate that my views are incompatible with naturalism and that they're unreasonable or confused. And also (2) demonstrate these ideas in your post: (a) "Internet Infidels" (whoever that is) has the only "reasonable" variety of naturalism; (b) their variety of naturalism is your variety of naturalism; and (c) everyone should agree with that view or else they're confused.

It would likely be easier if you took one idea at a time instead of taking the whole of my views and calling them confused.

[aupmanyav]

Naturalism is often taken to mean "nature as discovered by science" but I think science is limited and can't know all of nature. There are other methods to reasonably understand empirical nature without being wholly dependent on science.Abaddon, science has limits, it is clearly aware of its limits, and it is not dismissive of meanings beyond its limits. If it was, then it would not be science.

Just as Wordy is stuck on his definition of 'naturalism', kindly do not get stuck with your definition of 'science' (as you gave in this post).

[Waning Moon Conrad]

Corgan Sow, I think that I like this friend of yours.

Personally I think that a person who doesn't believe in rebirth or karma is being honest when they say that they can't call themselves a Buddhist.

For argument's sake, let's say that it's all true.

In such a case, if a person takes from Buddhism what they can believe in, lives a good life, treats other sentient beings with respect and is ethical and compassionate, they will accumulate positive karma and if they call themselves a Buddhist when others such as myself might not, their doing so will not preclude the Buddhas from appearing to them in the state between death and rebirth and inviting them to liberation.

[Waning Moon Conrad]

Yes Wordy, I know I'm a superstitious idiot.

[pescifish]

Hey! No insults to users, including yourself! ;)

[aupmanyav]

In such a case, if a person takes from Buddhism what they can believe in, lives a good life, treats other sentient beings with respect and is ethical and compassionate, they will accumulate positive karma and if they call themselves a Buddhist when others such as myself might not, their doing so will not preclude the Buddhas from appearing to them in the state between death and rebirth and inviting them to liberation.I see a problem here. The person does not believe in re-incarnation. There is no state between death and rebirth for him and no re-birth. The person believes that he would be completely dead and annihilated, liberation or no liberation. How can Buddhas appear to anybody? They have already attained 'nibbana'. The Maitreya Buddha is not going to come soon.

[li po]

I see a problem here. The person does not believe in re-incarnation. There is no state between death and rebirth for him and no re-birth. The person believes that he would be completely dead and annihilated, liberation or no liberation. How can Buddhas appear to anybody? They have already attained 'nibbana'. The Maitreya Buddha is not going to come soon.

:confused:

[wordy]

Yes Wordy, I know I'm a superstitious idiot.
Waning Moon Conrad, I would be very surprised if I have ever used words like idiot. I am very much against that one use words like superstitious too. I feel very bad every time atheists use such words about religionists. Not my style nor intention to give you the association that I would see you or Abaddon as superstitious idiots. Sadly mistaken though.

What I try to say is that people could honestly be mistake in their interpretations. They do their best and fails, that is neither to be a superstitious person not an idiot. Only being mistaken about reality.

I could be mistaken too.

[Waning Moon Conrad]

Waning Moon Conrad, I would be very surprised if I have ever used words like idiot.

I don't think you ever have used words like idiot. I meant the post in a playful way. It's just my sense of humour.

[aupmanyav]

:confused:Except in a dream.