Unexpectedly, we seem to be in complete agreement that the cessation of suffering is not the point of Buddhism.

Alright, we'll set aside my suggestion that religions function and fulfill various needs in ways that most people don't realize and focus on the ultimate promise of Buddhism which is, as you point out, the cessation of suffering. If that's the goal then the practice would essentially be to condition, or rather de-condition, ourselves in such a way that we don't suffer.

Is Buddhism actually particularly good at achieving this goal? I'm skeptical. And, I'll regurgitate the old saying that it's easy to be a holy man on the top of a mountain.

Rebirth has to do with the supposed structure or metaphysics of suffering. I don't understand why that would be motivational. If nirvana is the carrot, suffering itself is the stick.

For me, "practice" is too broad a brush to be meaningful here. Religious practice has many facets/goals – I think more than most people realize. For instance, it may be fair to say that people have a desire for meaning in their lives and religious practice may help fulfill that need. Religious practice can help attain that state of fulfillment. They achieve that goal regardless of their state of *enlightenment*... and regardless of their ability to endure pain with composure.

I am wondering if one who practices and doesn't believe in any of that could attain similar earthly results to the above knowing this life is their one and only shot. — unimportant

There are scientific studies that indicate meditation practices help with pain management. I don’t think this is controversial.

I don’t think self-immolation is a sanctioned Buddhist destination, btw.

At the end of the day, it must be something more than a mere intellectual convinction. If it was just that, then, all people who believe that the "self is an illusion" would have some kind of 'enlightenment' in the Buddhist sense. — boundless

This part makes sense. :up:

If you believe that you only live once, can you really believe in the doctrine of 'non-self'? I mean, if you believe that you live only once, you perhaps tend to think that you are an 'unique' entity. So, I'm not sure that you can be convinced (not just intellectually but in a deeper level) of that doctrine if you do not believe in rebirth. — boundless

This doesn’t make any sense to me. Can you explain? You believe that there are no unique entities? If that were true we couldn’t distinguish individual things or entities.

If you believe there are levels of attainment and a destination it seems you’ve already drank much of the Kool-Aid.

This is a genuine thing, not my suggesting something about you - if you're willing to see Charlie for what he actually was, and see his utterances in context and without specious commentary, you may find this interesting. It was one factor that made me realise my understanding of Kirk as hateful was woefully inaccurate. It is an analysis from a Christian perspective, which is important - but also from a Kirk critic (in his lifetim). — AmadeusD

I didn't say that Kirk was a racist, fascist, natzi, homophobe, transphobe, or claim that his personal view is that trans people are awful and shouldn't exist. I simply quoted him saying to a cheering audience:

"You hear that William Thomas? You're an abomination to God."
–– Charlie Kirk

That being the case, I don't know what relevance the Williams video has. Maybe projection? It's funny that Williams goes on and on about what he calls the "Newman effect" in the video but around halfway through he unwittingly demonstrates a glaring example of it himself. He reduces the Harvard admittance process to "melanin over merit," completely ignoring all admittance considerations beside academic metrics. No selective U.S. colleges use only academics and Harvard has always argued that academic metrics alone were not enough to fairly choose between many extremely highly qualified applicants. Also, if his concern is actually unfair college admittance practices, why can't I find him criticizing legacy admissions, donor preferences, athlete recruitment, or wealth-based advantages?

In the end of the video Williams says that he loves people who have more melanin than he does. Unfortunately it appears that that love is as shallow as his cheap "melanin over merit" slogan.

At an anti-sexual assault event in 2018 Biden said, in context of Trump boasting about pussy grabbing, "They asked me if I’d like to debate this gentleman, and I said 'no.' I said, 'If we were in high school, I’d take him behind the gym and beat the hell out of him.'"

You claimed that "Biden literally, more than one, suggested he would try to physically assault Trump if given the chance."

Do you understand the difference between "if we were in high school" and "assault Trump if given the chance"? The former is an impossible hypothetical scenario. To those not biased against Biden it's simply a way of expressing condemnation of Trump boasting about sexual assault.

A 2023 trial by a jury of his peers found that Trump had sexually assaulted author E. Jean Carrol, if you recall.

It's astonishing that you think Biden is the bad guy in this situation.

"You hear that William Thomas [deadnaming Lia Thomas]? You're an abomination to God."
–– Charlie Kirk

The congregation applauds.

Assuming he is 'wrong' is anti-philosophical. — I like sushi

Indeed, a wise man once said that there are no mistakes, only happy accidents.

Christians believe we are all, every single one (not just Jews and believes but all human beings), God’s children. — Fire Ologist

Charlie Kirk pointed out that God thinks trans are abominations. Kinda worse to be hated by your dad than a stranger.

I have a theory that the driving force behind progressivism is compassion. Therefore, progressives who have no compassion are fooling themselves. They're just trying to own the higher moral ground without the morality to go with it.

True? — frank

It’s silly to think that anyone other than a sociopath can be without compassion or morality. My theory is that people on the top should be conservative because they should want to conserve a system that works for them and people on the bottom should be progressive because they should want to change a system that's not working for them. In accordance with this theory we should be highly skeptical of rich progressives and we should pity the foolishness of poor conservatives.

Sometimes trolls try really hard to get you to respond to them. Toxic stuff. — frank

It’s rather telling that AmadeusD doesn’t take issue with Trump boasting about sexual assault (pussy grabbing) but does take issue with Biden’s condemnation of sexual assault and his hypothetical punishment for it.

There is literally no chance that Biden can go back in time to high school and beat Trumps ass. :lol:

I like his Trump/Reiner and Biden/Kirk compassion comparison. Reiner was a harsh critic of Trump and Kirk was a harsh critic of Biden so I think it's a fair equivalency.

Reiner said that Trump is a mentally unstable sociopath, a traitor, and similar comments.

Kirk said that Biden was a corrupt tyrant and should be given the death penalty for crimes against America, in addition to other criticisms and calls to action.

When Kirk was murdered Biden posted the following statement:

“There is no place in our country for this kind of violence. It must end now. Jill and I are praying for Charlie Kirk’s family and loved ones.”
–– Joe Biden on X

When Reiner was murdered Trump posted the following statement:

"A very sad thing happened last night in Hollywood. Rob Reiner, a tortured and struggling, but once very talented movie director and comedy star, has passed away, together with his wife, Michele, reportedly due to the anger he caused others through his massive, unyielding, and incurable affliction with a mind crippling disease known as TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME, sometimes referred to as TDS. He was known to have driven people CRAZY by his raging obsession of President Donald J. Trump, with his obvious paranoia reaching new heights as the Trump Administration surpassed all goals and expectations of greatness, and with the Golden Age of America upon us, perhaps like never before. May Rob and Michele rest in peace!"
–– Donald Trump on Truth Social

I think it's fair to say that the Trump response does not express compassion and that the Biden response does.

Also, no elected Democrat official, formal Democratic Party leader, or political pundit publicly celebrated the death of Charlie Kirk.

I mean, Biden literally, more than one, suggested he would try to physically assault Trump if given the chance, and not a President. — AmadeusD

This is a blatant lie. Biden said something about giving Trump a beating behind the gym in High School, presumably to beat the lecherous 'pussy grabbing' out of him. Apparently Biden has more compassion for victims of sexual harassment than for creepy men who use their status to sexually assault women.

Does lying about it express a bias and is it "the type of bias that makes these things so difficult to talk about"? I think any bias can hinder communication.

You are not a good faith interlocutor — AmadeusD

I was seriously hoping that you were joking.

Oh, you're being serious?

:lol:

Of course there were weirdos celebrating Kirk's death. Kirk was a culture warrior and warriors have enemies.

The difference is that Trump is the chosen leader of the Conservative Party.

I don't see a lack of compassion on either side. — AmadeusD

Less than 24 hours after the Reiners were found stabbed to death in their Brentwood home on Sunday, Trump –– the leader of the Conservative Party –– lambasted Rob Reiner for his political beliefs, posting on Truth Social that his death was “reportedly due to the anger he caused others through his massive, unyielding, and incurable affliction with a mind crippling disease known as TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME” and that Reiner “was known to have driven people CRAZY by his raging obsession of President Donald J. Trump.”

...and I should add that although the modern mind balks at the explicit claim, "Everyone who is X is good and everyone who is not is bad" (even though that claim is constantly being made implicitly), the formula itself is not the problem. The problem is a superficial X. For example, Aristotle's X would be "just, temperate, prudent, and courageous," and it is precisely the complexity and robustness of the cardinal virtues that make such an X plausible. "Compassion" is too one-dimensional to serve that role. — Leontiskos

All X's are ossified by tribes, whether they be political, religious, or whatever.

Yet, whatever else the drug lord is, they aren't one of Nietzsche's "Last Men." Walter's story is partially the tale of a man transcending Last Manhood through crime. The point isn't so much the crime, as this transcending motion. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Drug lords might be showing the raw potential for 'active nihilism' and breaking bad (from the herd), but without self-mastery or higher vision, they're reacting rather than creating.

Harry could never get past seeing language as nothing but reference — Banno

Language is the house of Being, so he don't belong in the house?

You might ask yourself why his supporters saw him in that position.
— praxis

The majority did not, … — AmadeusD

You took a poll?

but to the extend that they did it's because the saw themselves constantly attacked for having reasonable opinions and he spoke to that. — AmadeusD

So he was their champion (cultural warrior).

In fact, a democrat did a dive into his videos and found that his only examples of personal name-calling were about himself. — AmadeusD

A culture warrior isn’t defined by being insulting.

Private company brands a trans on cans and the anti-woke freak.

Department of labor brands white dudes on social media and it's :up:

As it happens, as a subscriber to Vervaeke's mailing list, his most recent missive was about 'spiritual but not religious'. — Wayfarer

I think Vervaeke forgot to address the pitfalls of groupthink and the fact that groups can reinforce comfort, avoid hard questions, and be quite defensive.

Spiritual but not religious sounds a lot like The Religion That Is Not a Religion. Sounds too much like it, I think, and that motivates the impulse to make them distinct—to mark the heretics.

Now I see the cultishness.

You might ask yourself why his supporters saw him in that position.

Your view of hte world seems to be derived from your personal wishes and not reality. — AmadeusD

I didn't want Kirk to be a culture warrior. I wish he were not a culture warrior. I wish there were no culture warriors on either side of the war, simply because you can't have a war without warriors.

This leads to a question: is it possible to believe that religions are all not wrong, without believing that they are all right? Or is the idea that they are neither wrong not right, but are merely helpful or unhelpful stories? Then we might ask how a religion could be helpful or unhelpful. — Janus

Religion can obviously be helpful (and right in its helpfulness)—too helpful in many many instances.

Helpful in regard to meaning?

I think most religion is more about feeling connected to the possibility of an afterlife than about feeling connected to life. — Janus

From what I gather, Vervaeke holds that the former approach is wrong and the latter (psychological and phenomenological) is right.

He doesn't say that at all, from what I've read and heard, which is a quite a lot. In the Awakening from the Meaning Crisis, he gives space to religious figures such as Augustine, Aquinas, Luther and Tillich, to name a few - from a critical perspective, to be sure, but certainly not from the perspective of religions being wrong. If you can find anything from him which says that, I'll revise my view. — Wayfarer

If he believes that one is right I assume he would be a devout member of that religion.

You can see Vervaeke kind of wrestling with religious questions - he's upfront about having been born into a fairly dysfunctional fundamentalist family and his rejection of that. But he dialogues with philosophers of religion and theologians - William Desmond, D C Schindler, many others. In his quest to articulate the meaning of 'wisdom' he does grapple with religious ideas, but from many different perspectives and traditions. — Wayfarer

What I mean to say is that Vervaeke seems to think that religions are—to put it plainly—wrong. Like Nietzsche, he seems to think that religions are fundamentally nihilistic, in that meaning and purpose can't be found in reality, and that religion’s binding power lies in shared fictions, collectively believed narratives that create trust, order, and meaning. The fiction is not a flaw; it’s the mechanism by which religion turns isolated individuals into cohesive communities.

That being the case, how could cohesive communities be bound by a "reality-oriented axis of value"?

Fifty hour lecture series. Is there anything he doesn't cover? :grin:

At a glance, the funny thing that comes to mind is that pretty much only religious people–those within a particular religious tradition–would be resistant to what Vervaeke proposes, and does that essentially mean that secularism is required to move forward? I suppose that questions like this are covered in the series.

This is the lounge and this thread is as dead as the subject of the topic.

Kirk publicly stated—to cheering audiences no less—that people he doesn’t even know are abominations. As I’ve pointed out, this is the epitome of bigotry.

Because of its tribal nature and claims to absolute truth and divine sanction, religion is structurally susceptible to bigotry, so it doesn’t take much for a firebrand like Kirk to stoke the flames of it.

Hmm. While I do not think Kirk ever did this - yes, that's right. So does Kamala, Seder, Maddow, Tiedrich, Reich etc.. etc.. — AmadeusD

Oh good, you do understand what I’m talking about. I can’t help it if you’re unable to see Kirk as a culture warrior. Pretty much everyone else on the planet sees it clearly though, including his supporters—especially his supporters.

make a claim in my DMs — AmadeusD

What does that mean?

People are really stupid and (as it seems you are quite disposed to do) actually look for things to get upset about... — AmadeusD

Kirk, and other culture warriors, profit from catering to such people.

A bigot like Kirk didn’t merely think trans are wrong or misguided as you mistakenly suggest; he consider them abominations. It's not just 'you are wrong,' but 'you should not exist.'
— praxis

You genuinely seem unable to stick to reality. So I shall pass on further engagement here. — AmadeusD

Oh right, Kirk and his followers think trans should exist. What reality are you living in?

I'm glad you are enjoying it. When you finish shoot me an , I'd love to get your impressions. There's a lot to it. — Manuel

The Magus by John Fowles is a remarkable book; beautify written and great storytelling. Kept having to revise my ideas about what it's about :grin: but in the very end–which was quite tense–it came together for me.

Frankly I prefer Ai Nietzsche to real Nietzsche.

This is the disconnect. That I find it strange you are unable to see. — Outlander

But I do see. I see the situation clearly.

The twisted notion that anything is an abomination springs from moral absolutism or the sheepish belief in a hierarchy of objective values. It is the epitome of bigotry. The essence of bigotry is irrational attachment to one’s own group or viewpoint, coupled with hostility or contempt (aka abomination) toward others who differ. Bigotry isn’t just disagreement, it’s closed-mindedness elevated to moral certainty. A bigot like Kirk didn’t merely think trans are wrong or misguided as you mistakenly suggest; he consider them abominations. It's not just 'you are wrong,' but 'you should not exist.'

I think some scholars speculate that he was deliberately ambiguous to avoid being taken as an authority.