I'm sort of puzzled by not only this sudden need of hers to have people attack buddhism but also where she's getting this sudden belief that atheists think all that much about Buddhism.

I'd guess that the majority of atheists don't know (or care) all that much about Buddhism. From her ravings you'd think all atheists were automatically Buhddists.

And as others keep pointing out... Buddhism has no relevence to people's issues with Christianity. If we were in a Buddhist country and Buddhists were influencing our political system then there'd be a lot of critical looks at the system.

This may be the most irrelevent thread she's ever done. (Note: for the record I have not reviewed her past threads for comparison and its quite possible that this isn't close to her most irrelevent. But at the moment it feels like its up there.)

Ok but I wonder that you ask to be granted something nobody on here grants anyone else particularly me.

I'm brought up in more threads I don't participate in than anybody on here.

I'm sure you've brought me up more than once.

Eye for an eye, eh, Splenda?

I criticize Buddhism. I dont like the whole "negative emotion" suppression thing. But in truth it has vary little affect on me, unlike Christianity. Which is why im more concerned with Christianity.


Btw this is not a Christian forum. The questions of existence are everyone's.
I haven't been taking a political stand even though you keep insisting people who criticize the bible are doing that. Im taking a moral one.

But I thought that Christians were supposed to turn the other cheek?

Since when was the pot calling the kettle black an eye for an eye?

You'll excuse me if I put you back on ignore? Your avatar gives me the creeps and it's a little early for Halloween.

Lame.

What is it that you mean about the "negative emotion" suppression thing? How do you think it is better to dwell on negative emotions? (I don't necessarily disagree, and I am not sure they do 100% of the time if you mean what I think you mean)

Thanks for posting. I don't think I've learned much about Buddhism itt. But mostly about one specific hybrid Buddhist form, Tibetan Lamaism, and Tibetan Lamaism has a lot of secret rites and likes to use prayer wheels which other prominent Buddhists groups think is not a Buddhist practice.

There are a lot of secret rites in Lamaism to make great warriors maybe that is why it attracted Nazi notice.

Some of the high ranking lamas also have Tantric sex slaves. Which seem to turn traditional monk celibacy on its head but they have their own lama rationalizations for it.

Just things like anger. I dont think they are always bad.

It's interesting Buddhism is seen by a lot of Westerners as atheistic. If you look at the prayer wheels of the Tibetan Buddhists they sometimes have "dakinis" on them.

A "dakini" is a female Tantric deity.

Grunching, so apologies if someone already pointed out the following:

Your source is horribly inaccurate. The historical Buddha never said one single word about "the sacrifice of the feminine principle". And to say that "the Hinayana monk fears and dreads women" is absurd. There are tens of thousands of female monks who surely don't fear themselves and women are welcome at just about every temple in the world. Also, the word "Hinayana" is both inaccurate and extremely derogatory. Some Mahayana Buddhists, including this author, use the word to denigrate Theravada, the oldest surviving school of Buddhism whose scriptures (suttas) are the closest we have to what the historical Buddha actually taught. Mahayana and Vajrayana came along several centuries later.

You should throw that book away if you want to learn about Buddhism, as I'm sure the author made as many mistakes about Mahayana and Vajrayana as he did about Theravada.

If you want to know what the Buddha really said, try What The Buddha Taught by Dr. Walpola Rahula. And if you're interested in how Buddhism spread, read How Buddhism Began by Dr. Richard Gombrich.

Well I got caught up in studying Lamaism at the moment.

But think about how little people know about Buddhist sects or talk about them yet they think that Buddhism is great just from looking at the Dalai Lama.

They don't even know to contrast Lamaism with other forms of Buddhism.

This question is interesting to me because I think lots of people derail other people with other religions based on their observations but little knowledge about what they are advocating or approving of.

Also when I took a religious belief poll a while back right after scoring high for a few Christian groups I also scored high on Mahayana and Theravada Buddhism. It was very interesting to see your spirituality as a sort of melting pot with all these different spiritual strains making up who you are.

That's what I thought. Neither do buddhists. There are kinds of anger that are seen as ok for a limited time. Like anger in loving-kindness, as in when your kid is playing near a cliff edge (literally or metaphorically). It can be understandable to be angry because of the suffering they are risking frivolously.

Paul Ekman in his book with the Dalai Lama uses the different example that his father being an ******* made him try harder to make achievements that would outshine the ones his father had attained. Even if true, it is possible Ekman could have found the drive from a more constructive fuel that would not have the proven health/happiness consequences of cyclic anger. That is an interesting book btw.

I can personally attest that anger can be crippling far more often than it can be of any benefit. But, everything should be held to a Nicomachean golden mean imho.

Please don't waste any more effort reading anything but the bible for a while. You are seriously misunderstanding the fundamentals of that.

I didn't miss any fundamentals.

The only fundamental I mentioned was reincarnation. The rest was Lamaism.

I dont know much about Buddhism. So if no Buddhist call for eliminating anger altogether, then i wouldn't have a problem with that aspect. What about the limiting anger though. Should i limit my anger over a continuing injustices. Or is ok to have anger about that injustices every time i think about it? And how about the limiting of sexual attraction? I thought Buddhist call for limiting it.


Either way though. If i knew more about Buddhism i would almost guarantee there are aspects of it which i would disagree with.

I used to be a fundementalist christian, trust me, bearing false witness is a no no.
Not all anger is negative. Not all lust is negative. If lust is inappropriate then it is negative, if it is for your wife...obviously not. If you can't focus at work because you are fantasizing about a co-worker, the buddhist would recommend you focus on the object of lust not as a person but as the collective parts. When you focus on the internal organs of the digestive system and how they work in that person, for example, for many that can take you out of the overwhelming emotion you could reasonably have for someone.

If you are angry over continuing injustice, that does not mean you just sit down and rage over it. The bottom line is that you do what you can do to stop or attenuate the injustice. You do what you can do and don't worry about it. Being angry does not often help you accomplish goals that are anything more than purely physical in nature. Still, I am not so sure you can't do just as well with determination that is not based on anger. If you can't change the injustice then it is a profound waste to be angry as it only punishes you for no reason. So, it is really more about pragmatism and being as effective as you can and not becoming your own enemy. If you have the idea that doing it properly is to be a blissed out powerbottom, that isn't accurate at all. : ) Dwelling on injustice in a ruminating kind of way not only is counterproductive it can literally change the anatomy and physiology of your brain in a negative way since you are starving the left side prefrontal cortex and vastly overusing the amygdala. Modern neurology has done much to flesh out what is real and what is imagined. Radiology these days is no joke and it is just getting better...these are exciting times!

I have certainly heard things that buddhist people said that I disagreed with. I heard a buddhist lady yammer about the problem with kids these days is they don't do what their parents say. Obviously there is a range of parental quality, and not all kids win it. I am not sure that is a failing of buddhist thought, but it was certainly a foolish thing to make a blanket statement like that. However, I think you would be well served to learn more as it is just a helpful way to live to be more loving and kind and not blown around by the winds of destructive emotions. Really all it comes down to is focusing on improving yourself in this life and worrying about some afterlife when and if that happens. For now I have too much work to do being more like I would like to be to worry about it. Mostly I think it is more likely that fairy tales are fairy tales, but there is wisdom I have learned in every religion I have studied.

I suggest you go back and read the OP.

This thread isn't about Buddhist doctrine fundamentals. Its about mythic perception of them in The West.

A lot of Westerners aren't familiar with Buddhism and its' divisions but they do have an impression from the media, movies and pop culture.

Oh and just to elaborate Kentucky, myth building is still a huge and powerful force in the world today. It can create false impressions and be used to steer populations in directions they normally wouldn't go.

I was watching Third Reich, The Rise the other day and if anything ever based itself on a myth it was Nazism. They constructed a very elaborate one and showed up exactly when Germany was at its' most fearful: The Great Depression. They even sacrificed their own nation to perpetuate their myth. Of course, the preparation was actually decades in the making taking advantage of other myths and ideas disseminated before the Depression and the Nazi ethos was built on them.

Myth building is powerful because the human mind narratively integrates it is just a lot of people are unaware of what they are integrating.

In Nazism Hitler confused people by encouraging a fear of inside enemies: the Communists. Then he could grab hold of the country and wag the dog.

I was addressing a series of myths. You have expressed a very warped view, and whether purposefully or not say things that are misleading and then you stick with it when you could and should know it is incorrect. So, not necessarily everything is going to directly relate to your OP since there isn't really much of a drastic misunderstanding except by you.

Read the OP.

People don't know Buddhism in the West. They think it is meditation and sitting in the Lotus position.

But you acquire baggage with it. If you adopt Buddhism you acquire karma and you put yourself under its' rules.

I did.

for many it is only about meditation

If you adopt christianity you agree to a series of rules, not so at all in buddhist philosophy.

in buddhist philosophy the admonition is fundamental to have "faith" in nothing, and what is presented should be vetted vigorously

Rules guide behavior though when circumstances are abominable.

Did you know at the end of the war in Nazi Germany there was a massive social breakdown and everyone started to act crazy. There were mass suicides. Occupying forces would walk into towns and the leading German officials would already be dead. 5,000 people killed themselves in Berlin before the Red Army entered.