Acting in line with them makes one a loser.
— baker

O loser of what? — Janus

Socioeconomic status. Happiness.

In order to be happy and to succeed in this world, it appears that a person must be willing to engage in and engage in a measure (the right measure) of lying, stealing, killing, cheating, gambling.

Official morality states that one is supposed to be fair, honest, kind, generous, goodwilled, respectful, responsible, hardworking, and such. But a person who actually behaves that way is a ninny and doesn't do well in life.

The issue here is as to the puzzling inconsistency of certain common doctrines. — Banno

There is an explanation with the help of which it all makes sense: Jehovah is a _demigod_. Not the Supreme Personality of Godhead.

Let's take as an illustration two notable christian philosophers, Saint Thomas Aquinas and Saint Augustine:
— Amalac

Thanks for this. Those who have claimed that belief in hell is not central to Christianity would do well to consider your post. — Banno

The threat of eternal damnation is Christianity's only selling point.

I say a god who inflicts infinite torture for finite offences is not worthy of worship. — Banno

If someone who claims to have the "Truth about God" (in this case, a Christian) tells you to convert to his religion, and you refuse to do so, he interprets this as if you had said "I hate God, we're through". (Nevermind your actual reasons. Neither God nor Christians care about those.)
In that sense, you have indeed committed a finite, but most importantly, final offense toward God, and it's an offense that severs all ties between you and God, and between you and Christians, thus you earn eternal damnation.

To be clear, you wouldn't actually be believing in God, you'd be believing in what some people told you on the topic of God. Unless we have actual, first-hand knowledge of God (which most of us don't), it all comes down to just believing what other people say.

/.../

IOW, set ourselves up as the judges over other people's religious identity.
— baker
I begin to suspect you're crazy. Where does your thinking come from? People say all kinds of things, but saying alone never makes it so, right? Being a Christian - or anything - is not settled merely because a person says he is. If that, then a Christian - or anything else - is whatever anyone says it is, whenever it pleases them to say it. Is that how you understand that world to operate when its operating reasonably well? — tim wood

*sigh*

So who decides who is a real Christian? You?

Suppose that science have achieve immortality for humans (whatever the mean for this).

What would be philosophical consequence? — John Pingo

Hellish boredom.

It's mortality that makes us get our butts in gear. — fishfry

"I should start this big project, which will take at least 5 years to complete, and it is the possibility that I could die tomorrow that motivates me to complete said project."

-- Said noone ever.

We shall simply inquire as to what a Christian is, and under what authority. Being satisfied along those lines, we ask whether the folks in question are Christian by that standard. And not withstanding what anyone says or claims or interprets, they either are, or they are not. — tim wood

IOW, set ourselves up as the judges over other people's religious identity.

You also don't know if there is a god to match any given interpretation. — Tom Storm

Then how do you know it's an interpretation?

We certainly have no way readily identifiable method for determining which interpretation is true (if any) so what does it leave us with?

Transcendental dread. Probably the original aim of hellish doctrines.

Those who do not believe in god, when they die, will be cast into eternal torment.
Christians hold that the person who inflicts this unjust punishment - God - is worthy of worship.
— Banno
I'm not sure Christians say or believe any of this. Cite? (Lots of people who call themselves Christians do say this, but they're not Christians.) — tim wood

And if we ask, "Who is a true Christian?", we shall be accused of a No True Scottsman fallacy?

No question that some - many - believe it, and many of those call themselves Christian. But I challenge it. Nor am I a defender of any faith, but I like accuracy and clarity. — tim wood

And for this, you shall burn! :fire::fire: :fire:

I don't think one should judge a person based solely on one contemptible view that they have about a certain subject, since they may have other redeemable views or qualities. — Amalac

Jews should associate with Nazis?
Blacks should make friends with KKK members?
Women should pursue intimate relationships with misogynists?

I find generic attacks inaccurate caricatures, treating religion as this monolithic belief system, as if they are all the same. — Hanover

Now that's a "generic attack".

The issue at hand is how to deal with those people who actually do believe in eternal damnation, or for whom we have reason to believe that they believe in eternal damnation (ie. people who declare to have an affiliation with a particular religion which has, as part of its doctrine, the doctrine of eternal damnation).

Roman Catholics, for example, are bound by their affiliation to the RCC to believe in eternal damnation, because eternal damnation is part of RCC doctrine. Even if occasionally, one can find Catholics who don't believe in eternal damnation.

The bottomline is that if someone professes affiliation to a particular religion, then we are justified to treat them as having assented to all the doctrinal points of said religion.

Religious individualism stops the moment someone declares affiliation to a particular religion.

What do you find questionable about the common ideas of virtue? — Janus

Acting in line with them makes one a loser.

Finally, all versions of god are interpretations. — Tom Storm

No, you can't possibly know that, for empirical reasons, because you haven't investigated every theist that has ever lived.

The only way you could know that "all versions of god are interpretations" is if you were god, and could this discern what is merely an interpretation and what is actually the truth.

if we subscribe to the Theory of Evolution, we must subscribe to Social Darwinism.
— baker

Why? Looks plain wrong to me. "Survival of the fittest" is not what evolution is about. — Banno

If you get to pick what to think about Christianity, Christians get to pick and choose what they think about evolution.

So the question is, what are we to make of their judgment? They choose to believe, not in the light of the evidence, but in the face of the evidence. They admire the worst conceivable torturer.

Such folk are ripe for manipulation. — Banno

Nah. Because:

Leaving that aside, is your point that good catholics, the pope included, do not actually believe the doctrine they espouse? That would indeed be a good thing. Would that they did not then feel obligated to pretend that they do, when dealing with events in the world. — Banno

I suspect such is the case generally among Christians. I've seen too many instances where Christians ridicule those who actually, really believe the doctrines, and even more so those who act accordingly.

The most plausible explanation seems to be that Christian doctrines, esp. the ones about eternal damnation, were devised as a means for combat, or at least that they function as sand thrown into the eyes of the enemy.

The strategy appears to be as folllows: Always present yourself as formidable and with powerful allies. Do whatever you can to make people fear you. This way, you will maximize your chances for success in the world.

Beliefs, in and of themselves, do not cause harm. So their beliefs are irrelevant.
— Pinprick

Indeed, with this i will pretty much agree. — Banno

Really? You can peacefully coexist with someone who believes you should be dead or suffer forever, and you know they believe thusly?

Whose beliefs are based on what? Feel-good love-dovey gut feelings.
— baker

On interpretations like anyone else. — Tom Storm

You don't actually know that. You have simply ruled out the possibility of God being what would usually be called "evil".

When someone believes s/he has the final solution (vide late Christopher Hitchens) to all our problems, rejecting it would be utter folly or, worse, siding with the devil, no? What would be an appropriate punishment for such wilful stupidity or evil? — Agent Smith

People should be punished for not believing someone who claims to have the solution???

Someone comes along, claiming to have the solution to all our problems -- and this alone should justify us believing this person, and if we don't, we deserve eternal punishment???

Do you even hear yourself?!


The gravity of the threat (or warning) or a solution doesn't mean that the threat/warning is about something that is actually true, or that the proposed solution is efficacious.

Perhaps we might agree that the presumption of virtue ont he part of the religious is... questionable? — Banno

Or perhaps question _our_ ideas of virtue?

many progressive Christians — Tom Storm

Whose beliefs are based on what? Feel-good love-dovey gut feelings.

grave concern over the hideous barbarism and nasty judgement of so much religious writing and practice. — Tom Storm

On the other hand, if we subscribe to the Theory of Evolution, we must subscribe to Social Darwinism.
And fire-and-brimstone religion is Social Darwinism.

Those who rejoice at the thought of seeing others suffer in hell for eternity while they themselves are happy in heaven everafter can always say to you, "See, this is survival of the fittest."

It is an exercise in religion-bashing, and the seeking of self-satisfaction that' us atheists are far more humane than those beastly Christians and Muslims could ever be'. So I don't think I'll play along. — Wayfarer

That's too bad. Maybe you could help. Many of us have quite traumatic experiences with Abrahamic religions. Recovering from religious abuse is still a taboo in Western culture. And you're helping to perpetrate it, helping the hardened atheist materialists become even more so.

But your birth is imposed on you, by God.
— baker

Where does the Bible say that? — Wayfarer

"You formed me in the womb" says the Psalmist.
Besides, it follows from God being omnimax that nothing happens without his will.

Buddhists believe that you are born out of the karma of previous lives, and that your condition is one of 'beginningless ignorance'. Should you not avail yourself of the opportunity to devote yourself to the Dharma in this brief sliver of time that your life occupies, then your fate might be a hell that is equally dreadful to any of those depicted in Dante's Inferno.

Ha! Now you're getting there.

Getting along with them is fine, until they want to introduce legislation that allows them to persecute LGTBQI+ children. — Banno

You and them have two foundational beliefs that are incompatible:

You believe that the world can and should be changed for the better.
The Abrahamic monotheists believe that the world is incorrigible, a vale of tears.

This is your essential and unbridgable disagreement.

Why would we let apologists for hatred and violence help build an agreement around ethics? — Tom Storm

Given that we want some kind of democracy and that they make up a considerable portion of the human population, what choices do we have?

I think this depiction relies on a peculiarly modern conception of God as a kind of camp commandant. The Christian view would be more that due to humanity's inherent predeliction to sub-optimal behaviour (consequence of 'the original sin') then the outcome of their life choices is likely to be poor ('hell'). They are offered a way to avoid this fate ('salvation') but should they reject it willfully, then the consequences are on them. I believe this is what is behind C.S. Lewis statement that 'the doors of hell are locked from the inside.' It's not imposed on them except as a consequence of their decisions. — Wayfarer

But your birth is imposed on you, by God.

God, supposedly in his infinite wisdom and goodness, made you inherently sinful and deserving of eternal suffering. Nevermind the "inherited sin" theory; God knew it all, he put it all in motion, nothing happens without his will, he is reponsible for your birth and your nature.

And the only way you can avoid your horrible fate is by believing what some people tell you, people who beat you, rape you, and generally don't care whether you live or die. Truly, people whose word you should take for gold!

My interest here is as to the extent to which Christians (and Muslims) ought be allowed at the table when ethical issues are discussed. Given their avowed admiration for evil, ought we trust their ethical judgement? — Banno

When your face is printed on the money, you can do what you want. But until such a time, you just might have to find a way to get along with others, regardless of their morality.

We’ll at least you can look forward to pupating. — Wayfarer

Nah, we'll make silk out of his cocoon.

If you don't hold the beliefs I attributed to you and hence don't disagree with what I've been saying (even though to me your responses made it look as though you were disagreeing) all you have to say is that you don't disagree.

If you do disagree I would like to know precisely what you are disagreeing with and why, otherwise discussion is pointless. All this talk about me feeling this or that, and me projecting this and that is pointless. I'm not interested in that. — Janus

The manner in which you're conducting this discussion is part of the discussion.

I remember I minor epiphany in my youth, crossing the Harbour Bridge on a bus. I suddenly saw that a lot of what bothered me was only me; that everyone else on that bus had exactly the same concerns. And that it really didn’t matter. It was just fleeting, not a big deal, but I remember it being a very liberating moment. — Wayfarer

One still needs to earn a living, ensure one's place in the world, fight the struggle for survival, for status, for respect.
So those things that "bother one" are a big deal, they do matter, even if everyone has them.

If you yourself don't taste a mango, you'll never have the first-hand knowledge that the epistemic community of mango tasters have.
— baker

Hey, leave qualia out of this... — Tom Storm

The issue isn't even about qualia. It's about interpersonal verifiability among epistemic peers within a specialized field of knowledge.

For example, a doctor with proper training can discern, simply with the use of a stethoscope, the various sounds that the human heart makes and is able to asses whether the heart is healthy or not. Other doctors with such training can also discern and evaluate those sounds. They can also recognize whether a particular other doctor has discerned the sounds correctly or not. In contrast, people who are not thusly trained are unable to discern those sounds or recognize whether another person can discern them or not.

I contend that such interpersonal verifiability among epistemic peers within a specialized field of knowledge applies also to religion/spirituality. While @Janus thinks that I am deluded to think this way. Perhaps he thinks this way also about doctors, engineers, musicians, atheletes, anyone who has expertise in a specialized field of knowledge ...

Manly pride? Interesting. I note that celibacy is often used throughout religious and mystical traditions as evidence of serious spiritual devotion. — Tom Storm

Just read over these two suttas:

https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/an/an05/an05.075.than.html
https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/an/an05/an05.076.than.html

I always laugh at the imagery.

I also note that the great Catholic mystic and putative hermit, Thomas Merton had a girlfriend - is this evidence of hypocrisy, or a man leaving the church and seeking union with the female principle?

See the above suttas.


Although in Merton's defense: Attempting celibacy with nothing else as a foundation for it but Catholic doctrine is a demanding task. Those with a Dharmic foundation have a better chance at it.

Now, it occurs to me that this interchange, which is taken as conclusive proof of the doctrine on anatta, overlooks something important. At that time in history, a few centuries either side of C.E., the invention of the chariot was a deciding factor in the rise and fall of empires.
/.../
So, whilst it is trivially true to observe that none of the component parts of a chariot are actually a chariot in themselves, nevertheless the 'idea of a chariot' is something real, and its construction and possession is a real good from the perspective of nation-building. So, 'the idea of a chariot' is what really constitutes 'the chariot', not this or that particular piece of the chariot. Furthermore, even if the particular chariot on which the King arrived was to be destroyed or stolen, then another could be constructed, but only by those who had knowledge of the principles of chariot building. — Wayfarer

Ratha Kalpana (from Sanskrit ratha 'chariot', and kalpana 'image')[1] is a metaphor used in Hindu scriptures to describe the relationship between the senses, mind, intellect and the Self.[2][3] The metaphor was first used in the Katha Upanishad and is thought to have inspired similar descriptions in the Bhagavad Gita, the Dhammapada and Plato's Phaedrus.[4][5][6][7]
/.../
Verses 1.3.3–11 of Katha Upanishad deal with the allegoric expression of human body as a chariot.[5] The body is equated to a chariot where the horses are the senses, the mind is the reins, and the driver or charioteer is the intellect.[2] The passenger of the chariot is the Self (Atman). Through this analogy, it is explained that the Atman is separate from the physical body, just as the passenger of a chariot is separate from the chariot. The verses conclude by describing control of the chariot and contemplation on the Self as ways by which the intellect acquires Self Knowledge.[11]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratha_Kalpana

It seems to me a lot of early Buddhist polemics about non-self are likewise undermined by a naive understanding of what constitutes agency and identity, although I think this is one of the shortcomings that was later overcome by a more sophisticated understanding of śūnyatā.

The Early Buddhist doctrine of anatta is about what is fit to be regarded as self and what is not fit to be regarded as self. Things that are subject to aging, illness, and death are not fit to be regarded as self.

So far, the EB anatta doctrine is actually in accord with various attavada doctrines. Where I think it differs from them is that it assigns to those attavada doctrines also the status of being subject to aging, illness, and death, in the sense that doctrines, consisting of ideas are subject to conception, deterioration, and cessation, they come and go.

In one's unenlightened state, whatever one would conceive as self would necessarily be subject to aging, illness, and death, it would be a proliferation, papanca, simply on account of it being an idea. As such, not fit to be regarded as self.


Part of the problem with the "there is no self, ever, in any way" type of anatta doctrine (which is by now the dominant anatta doctrine in Buddhism) is that it's due to theoretical efforts to construct a coherent Buddhist doctrine, based primarily on the suttas. The Abhidharma tries to summarize the suttas into a coherent system. For this purpose, it sometimes has to fill in what seems like blanks, but this way, inadvertedly, creates a doctrine that is in discord with the suttas.

In contrast, an assumption that one can find among Suttavadis is that the Path was never intended to be approached in a wholesale doctrinal manner (by first theoretically working out the entire system in the abstract), but in small steps, according to the person's actual attainment at any given point in time.

I am not suffering — Apollodorus

You don't say!

Just to note: Overcoming sensual desire (which includes the desire for sex) is very important in Dharmic religions. It's a matter of manly pride, it's proof that one has overcome lowly desires. It's also a sign that one is so spiritually advanced so as to be unperturbed by sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and tactile sensations.

Overcoming sensual desire also means that one can be a better servant to God (or, even better, a servant of a servant of God). Because acting on lust means that one is trying to enjoy separately from God, which brings one away from God, and thus into misery.

Servitude to God is something Hindus have literally written into their names. The element "das" (for men) and "dasi" (for women) means 'servant'. So Mohandas Gandhi was a servant of Mohan, Mohan is one of the names for God.

God — Tom Storm

What does "God" stand for, metaphorically?

As an old man Gandhi used to lie in bed with naked young women who were decades younger than him. — Tom Storm

How come noone wonders what happened to those women afterwards? By Hindu standards, they would not be eligible for marriage anymore, and their only choices for a livelihood afterwards would be begging or prostitution.

This, apparently was a celibacy test and an attempt to prove he was beyond temptation. Wanker...

I think that if one feels the need to test oneself as to whether one can resist a certain temptation, then this already is a sure sign that one cannot resist it. Such "testing" is simply another excuse to yield to it.


Other than that, we're talking about Indians, Hindus. It wouldn't be a surprise to find that more men did such things, or worse. This is a culture that expects a newly widdowed woman to commit suicide by throwing herself into the funeral pyre of her husband (if she doesn't, she apparently didn't really love him).

ISKCON's founder, Srila Prabhupada, married a woman he specifically did not like, on the conviction that this would help him curb his sexual desire. And then he blamed her for the failed marriage.

Yes, I know and was being ironic. I was not patronizing you I was questioning the validity of your statements and asking for arguments to back them up. — Janus

This

That you believe the small subset you are familiar with must be the only authentic one says more about you than anything else. — Janus

is your projection, entirely of your doing.
I'm not going to defend things you merely imagine I said.

We are not talking about some body of codified knowledge, but about transforming ourselves. The fact that there are a few traditions of transformative practice does not entail that there are not (perhaps very many) other possibilities. The possibilities are not limited to what Baker can imagine. — Janus

Jesus. This is why I hate spirituality. These power games, the accusing of another of stances they don't hold and expecting them to defend them, the misrepresentation, always acting in bad faith, this assuming that the other is an idiot.

You make some bold accusation against me, and then what am I to do? Defend myself? If I explain myself and show where you've misrepresented me, then you've won, you got away with not reading. It's right-winger tactics.

Does it help to know the secret handshake? — Joshs

If you yourself don't taste a mango, you'll never have the first-hand knowledge that the epistemic community of mango tasters have.

And I gave you my answer. But let me put it slightly differently, though the gist of it is the same.

Paṭiccasamuppāda or pratītyasamutpāda refers to the Buddhist Theory of Origination (or Cause and Effect). Basically, it states that ignorance (avijjā) results in craving (taṇhā), craving results in attachment (upādāna), attachment in “being” (bhava), and “being” in decay and death (jarāmaraṇa). — Apollodorus

The standard list is the one with twelve items. I brought up dependent co-arising because you kept talking about consciousness and how after enlightenment, there must exist some other consciousness.
But it looks like you didn't read the list with the twelve items.

In other words, a chain of cause and effect arising from ignorance and resulting in suffering, that can be broken through knowledge.

No, early Buddhism doesn't think that chain can be broken through merely with knowledge.

In fact, you can collapse it even further and say that ignorance leads to wrong action or “sin” (in the form of wrong acts of volition, cognition, etc.), and wrong action leads to suffering.

Sure, but this is extremely general.

Not much different from what other systems teach.

Does any of them teach that "from the remainderless fading & cessation of that very ignorance comes the cessation of fabrications"; and that "from the cessation of fabrications comes the cessation of consciousness"?

In Platonism, the root ignorance is ignorance of one’s true identity as pure, unconditioned and free intelligence.

If we are "pure, unconditioned and free intelligence", then why are we here in an embodied state, suffering, and not being sure who we are?

If, as a result of ignorance, you self-identify with the body-mind compound, you generate mental states and a whole inner world that limits and conditions your intelligence, leading you further and further away from your true self.

But whence ignorance?

However, if we are serious about philosophy in the original Greek sense of "love of, and quest after, truth", then I think we will get there in the end, with or without Buddhism.

Do you mean that enlightenment is inevitable and that everyone is destined for it?