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People are free to choose whatever tradition they want to belong to 🙏 . I’m merely pointing out the conflict between loyalty to a personal principle of sincerity and truth on the one hand, and the desire to belong to a tradition which holds unknown values on the other.

Perhaps I shouldn’t have used the you-form in that previous quote you mentioned @Jason, it gells with my experience but it seems maybe not very kind. You’re quite right to point it out.

By writing in this thread I am trying to sort out my own views as well, not always so easy. I’m seeking to figure out whether it is a reasonable point of view, or whether there are any objections that I hadn’t already spotted.

@Jeroen said:

@person said:
march to the beat of your own drum and all

I do see the point of that, I do. But in a way what the religious impulse is all about is measuring yourself against a common vision, by taking onboard the Noble Eightfold Path you are saying I am going to be less like my own natural vision and more like this other vision I have been told about. By saying, I am a Christian or I am a Buddhist you are only play acting, wearing a suit of clothes which you do not necessarily agree with in all details, only for the Real You to emerge in moments of reflection.

That's too much like a no true Scotsman view for my taste. Even within institutionalized religious structures, such as Catholicism, there's a wealth of opinions and views, many of them hotly debated. The person who termed the phrase double-belonging and wrote the book Without Buddha I Could not be Christian, for example, is himself a Catholic theologian. Would you then say that he's not really a Catholic or Christian? Why not just accept where someone is at and engage them from there rather than trying to define for them who and what they are? Just something to think about.

@person said:
I think of myself as a Buddhist but I don't wear it on my sleeve or often tell other people. When I do it tends to form an idea of who I am according to their idea of what Buddhism is, and the reality is usually quite a bit different.

Exactly, and that may well be the reason people tend to be a bit reticent about mentioning their religious beliefs. It often leads to an awkward conversation exploring what exactly those views are, and so leads to a) the possibility of being exposed to be of little knowledge, b) the possibility of being exposed as having thought very little about important topics.

When you call a river by its name shouldn't you include all it empties into? What's a name anyway but a way to divide further?

I shouted at the ocean. It just waved.

@Jason said:

@Jeroen said:

@Jason said:
The history of Christianity, along with Buddhism and every other ism, is the history of people arguing about what shit you can and can't believe, what is and isn't truth, etc.

Very true. The whole idea of a schism basically comes from disagreement over a point of doctrine, and when it comes down to the individual you can either make the decision political, or you can make it based on principle, but even then what you are doing is splitting hairs about a single point, where many other points are left undebated.

You certainly have the freedom to call yourself whatever you wish, though. As long as other people don’t object, I guess.

Even if they object, I think. Others may disagree and try to label others by their own criteria, but that doesn't make someone inherently any less of something they believe they are. If I consider myself a follower of the Buddha and Jesus, do I stop becoming one if someone says that's not true because I don't believe x? Maybe in their minds, but I'll claim the labels nevertheless. Maybe that would be different if I were excommunicated, but probably not then either. Personally, I think the world would be better off if people were a little bit less sectarian.

I'm generally of the same attitude, march to the beat of your own drum and all. I've come to the conclusion though that while as much as I tend to balk at sectarianism and more fundamentalist interpretations, traditions that keep a tighter ship also tend to be able to maintain the important aspects of the teachings for longer periods. A Buddhism maintained largely of people like myself would quickly deteriorate and lose the core of what makes them valuable.