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Are atheistic Buddhists immoral?
lobster
Crusty Veteran
New study in the news
https://phys.org/news/2017-08-atheists-thought-immoral-fellow.html
Some of us are Buddhist and atheist. ?
Are we moral, independent of sila or our affiliation to atheistic dharma??
Personally I consider god immoral.?
1
Comments
Ha! So even atheists think atheists could sometime use a little strong-arming to keep them on the straight-and-narrow. Do this/Do that - because I said so! That was interesting article, @lobster.
Thanks @silver
These atheistic micro crustaceans recently partly ate a teenager. If they were gods creatures might they have finished off the job?
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/aug/07/tiny-meat-loving-marine-creatures-eat-teenagers-legs-at-melbourne-beach
I consider myself a food item for non vegans but sometimes the tables are turned ...
That poor kid!
Hey, sea lice get hungry too.
I suppose by one way of looking at it god is an immoral idea because it posits that humans are immoral by their basic nature - this would seem to encourage immorality - since we're incapable of doing any better, why try?
The closest I ever came to being murdered (not close at all, actually), the perp was -you guessed it - an atheist, and he did murder quite a number of other people. The publicity around this case undoubtedly did a lot to encourage the supposed connection. but I don't see it - it's too simplistic by far.
"If there exists a god all powerful to fulfil,
in every creature bliss or woe, and action good or ill,
that god is stained with sin, man does but work his will !"
There are other possibilities. As with Shiva, the creator and destroyer, God may create and end things, but not be involved in between. That's what I have come to believe.
But we don't know, and won't, so each person must think things over and see where his considerations take him or her.
Morality and religion - or lack of it - are not mutually exclusive.
The universe is full of possibilities...endless possibilities
Your post reminds me of the Deist "clock" @vinlyn
I'm thinking along the lines of ..."What's immoral today could be moral tomorrow and vice versa"... relatively speaking ( this would include the atheist Buddhists ) ...I guess that's anicca for ya
Yes I largely agree... but there is still so much we don't know about the universe, science for example hasn't yet come close to explaining what consciousness is or how it works. It is very possible the whole universe is alive, and then perhaps Baruch Spinoza was right and the universe is God.
I think broad swaths of mankind get so very attached to one concept (whichever one it is for that culture) of "what is" that they become blinded to looking at things any other way.
I challenge anyone, anywhere to cough up sound statistical data indicating measurably higher rates of crime in atheists while controlling for confounding factors such as socioeconomic status, educational attainment, and mental illness.
For we are concerned ultimately with acts, are we not?
No such evidence exists: turns out that atheists are about as "moral" as anyone else. The perception of atheists as inherently immoral is based on cultural norms, not objective truth. In societies where people grow up in conditions where they equate morality to religious belief, they develop cognitive biases wherein they incorrectly conflate religiosity and morality.
Human morality is founded on the one ability that -- barring brain damage or mental illness -- we all possess: empathy.
The whole concept of atheist and not is interesting to me. Buddhists (except those who have hybrid beliefs that work for them) generally don't believe in God, especially an Abrahamic one, so wouldn't that generally mean Buddhists are also Atheist? Yet the term is almost always implied to mean someone who doesn't subscribe to any sort of belief set. It's kind of a confusing thing to navigate. Just like when most people suggest all religion is a God-belief type of religion, which many are not.
You were doing good till you hit that last sentence. I make no such assumption. In fact, I think the moral code in most societies rests on the religion of those societies, even for those in the society who do not act as a member of that religion.
There have been studies done about morality and where it comes from, and there are, in very young babies, morality that exists across the board of humanity that has nothing to do with religion whatsoever. It's pretty interesting reading. There are a lot of articles if you google "infants and morality." Or "inherent morality." Babies, of course, are atheist in terms of how we consider belief in God and religion. Here's a couple of them
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/11/as-babies-we-knew-morality/281567/
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-moral-life-of-babies/
They talk about the moral core that even our youngest babies seem to have, and when it's nurtured and then explained as reason comes into play it carries through their lives. Religion definitely comes into play, but I'd argue religion often does more harm to our natural morality than it enhances or encourages it. Because it so often sets up the barrier of us vs them.
Vinlyn That is an interesting way to look at it. I was just talking to my Dad about Buddhism and Hinduism. He wanted to know if Ghandi was a Buddhist or Hindu and we talked about that for awhile. My dad admires Ghandis phrase "I like your Christ but not always Christians". So I guess the Christians or Buddhists or people in between birth or death those ones are on their own for their conduct and flaws or failures or whatever.
I will just say mental illness and empathy are not mutually exclusive. And I've spent time in a psych ward as a patient. It does affect it though. Some of my co-patients were so affected they were non-verbal so I couldn't say if in their thoughts they were empathetic. From a Buddhist point of view even without empathy the four immeasurable can potentially arise anywhere. Kindness, Compassion, Sympathetic Joy (Mudita), and Equinimity. I think sometimes people are hurt by a mentally ill person and then they correlate the two.
I have also spent time in a psych ward. I was not indicating that mental illness and empathy are mutually exclusive. Keep in mind that "mental illness" is an umbrella term that encompasses many different kinds of problems spanning from obsessive compulsive disorder to sociopathy. It is easier to assume that the reader is intelligent and understands the distinction than to be needlessly specific.
Empathy has its roots in the brain, relying amongst other functions on the working of "mirror neurons." This capacity is physical and can be damaged or lost.
Poorly conceived. From where do religious mores come, then? Out of vacuum? I think not.
Refugee I didn't intend to put words in your mouth that you were saying all mental illnesses result in loss of empathy or non-development of empathy. I was just making my own statement and words to the effect that in general mental illness and empathy are not mutually exclusive. I think a reader could understand what you said but it wouldn't have been terrible writing labor to say "in my experience many mentally ill are not empathic". You didn't do anything wrong or say anything wrong I just posted to share my thoughts and experience.
Also I'll add that your experience in a psych ward might not have been as a patient but rather as staff or family. That itself would give us a different body of experiences that affect our perspective.
Fair enough. Judging by your response, I think my tone may have come across as defensive. This was not intentional. I have been sitting in somewhat adversarial meetings for much of the day, and this is likely coloring my communication style. I didn't intend to jump on you.
Often from folk tales.
Where do those come from?
It's turtles all the way down.
Thanks everyone.
God™is good and Boddhisatvas, non-Allahists, Protestants and HH Dally Lama Trump are evil ... or is it the other way around? Are atheists or goddists mad?
What is a cructacean to do?
I want those. I want to express those. God or devils not required. Empowerment needed ...
Green Atheist Prayer (suitable for some Buddhists)
Our Friends all around us,
Hello {insert name};
You are here;
will be fun, promise,
in earth, our haven:
Give us this day our Garden;
And forgive us our trumps,
as we forgive them that turnip against us;
And lead us not into extinction,
But deliver us flowers:
For this is The Shire,
the Land, and the Wonder,
For ever and ever
Sustainably.
Original:
Our Father, which art in heaven,
Hallowed be thy Name;
Thy kingdom come;
Thy will be done
in earth, as it is in heaven:
Give us this day our daily bread;
And forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive them that trespass against us;
And lead us not into temptation,
But deliver us from evil:
For thine is the kingdom,
the power, and the glory,
For ever and ever.
Amen.
God...trademarked ?
God is an idea, a meme transmitted to you by a lineage of other humans complicit in its invention. Similarly entwined with God are the ideas of good and evil, before there were only beneficial and unbeneficial.
Imagine, our distant ancestors believed in a pantheon of gods. Before that came a variety of nature spirits. These things are just beliefs about the forces that may control our lives, all of which are vain and far from the truth.
Science has shown us the influence of chance and the evolving natural world, and much of our world today is shaped by human hands. We live in a shell created by other humans - houses, furniture, tv.
Although I actually went into teaching and then school administration, I started out with 2 degrees in geology and delved heavily into paleontology (and hence, evolution). Every paleontology professor I ever had or just met was a church-going Christian. And when you consider that over 6 BILLION people believe in God, it isn't exactly an idea to just dismiss.
Well said @vinlyn
I feel our need to accept divinity, reject or use skilfully is much like the placebo effect. It is medicinal ...
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-power-of-placebo-how-our-brains-can-heal-our-minds-and-bodies/
It is why I value hypnosis as a healing practice.
And now a message from my sponsor Bodhi Bats Buddha ...
The fact that more people believe in something doesn't mean they are right. There is nothing in the natural or scientific worlds that supports the thought that there is such a thing as God. From a reasoning point of view he seems to be an invention... do you see animals praying, or building temples? Are there daily miracles that require his intervention?
Wherever we have looked in the world with the detailed lenses of science and evidence, we have found no trace of the hands of God, just more physical processes which continue to shape the world. And that's why I feel comfortable just dismissing God as a meme, the desire by grown men to have a greater father figure who is responsible.
Pah! I shall ignore the feeble-minded theists clutching at their metaphysical straws, and recite my atheist catechism:
Who made me?
Evolution made me!
Why did evolution make me?
To praise Saint Dawkins and annoy the God-botherers!
Perhaps not, but then most people used to believe the earth was flat, and that the earth was at the centre of the universe.
In my view the prevalence of God belief is quite straightforwardly explained by the human need for comfort in a brief and uncertain existence.
I also suspect it is fear of death as final extinction which underlies most religious belief. Religions invariably propose some sort of afterlife or continuation ( Buddhism included ), which is part of their comfort and appeal.
I think it's very unlikely without a liberal application of dodgy pseudo-science. Do you have any evidence or reasoning to support this idea?
There are a number of scientists - some of them quite well known in the areas of near-death study - who hold that consciousness is non-local to the brain. That would imply some consciousness-space which at least partially overlaps physical space. Which leads to some kind of conscious life on a universal scale.
We're not talking well-substantiated science here, it's only speculation.
God and his will/plan and the promise of a heaven/immortality is a placebo for when life gets real tough to accept. And yes...placebos can be beneficial.
@SpinyNorman .... just realized you already said this in a more eloquent way.
I think you miss my point entirely. I don't know if there's a God or not. And neither do you. We each have opinions about that. If there is a God, no one knows how he works, although it seems perfectly clear to me that he doesn't operate the way the Bible says he operates.
But one can take a similar tack about Buddhist beliefs. Do you have idea how many hundreds of chedis in Thailand supposedly have the hair of Buddha, or the breastbone of Buddha, or some other relic of Buddha's body? Gee, how many breastbones did Buddha have? The explanation -- magical replication. Of course, it's absurd. Do you have any idea of how many Buddha footprints there are in Southeast Asia, Japan, and other nations? One estimate is that there are around 3,000. That's absurd, as well. Talk to most learned people and ask them if they think it's logical that for 300 years monks kept Buddha's words exactly only through the oral tradition. Come on now. That's almost as illogical as those who believe that the Bible was written by the hand of God. Spend considerable time in Thailand or other primarily Buddhist nations and see how much folk traditions and animism have interwoven themselves in with Buddhism. My local Thai Buddhist temple has a spirit house to provide a home for the spirits that lived on the land before the temple was built. Do you accept all the various Buddhist spirits, including devas and yakshas, as do millions of Buddhists? My point is that just as with Christianity, there is a lot in the Buddhist world that (to paraphrase slightly) "nothing in the natural or scientific worlds...supports".
I've had conversations with a few monks about this overall question. And their answer to whether there is there or is not a God can be summarized by saying: that's something we cannot know, so why focus on it. That Buddhism deals with what we can know...what we can actually observe...what we can actually test. But what I also found with them was that even though they take that stance, they also have a degree of respect for many aspects of the Christian religion. That rather than being dismissive of it, they are more interested in considering areas of agreement and disagreement between the two religions or philosophies...because both Buddhism and Christianity can be taken as religions or as philosophies.
And so to me, the bigger question is the essence of various religions. What are the principles? So for starters, I toss out the Old Testament and concentrate on the teachings of Jesus. And I'm not alone. Has not Thich Nhat Hanh written books about that very topic? I think his opening words in "Living Buddha, Living Christ" should give us pause in so easily dismissing other religions: "...An Indian Christian friend told the assembly, "We are going to hear about the beauties of several traditions, but that does not mean that we are going to make a fruit salad." When it came my turn to speak, I said, "Fruit salad can be delicious! I have shared the Eucharist...and our worship became possible because of the sufferings we...shared over many years." Some of the Buddhists present were shocked to hear I had participated in the Eucharist, and many Christians seemed truly horrified. To me, religious life is life. I do not see any reason to spend one's whole life tasting just one kind of fruit. We human beings can be nourished by the best of many traditions."
"We human beings can be nourished by the best of many traditions." And this goes along with my long held belief that no one has a corner market on wisdom. Wisdom is wisdom wherever it is found.
A few days ago I ran across this web essay that I liked very much: https://appliedbuddhism.com/2010/08/18/can-you-be-a-buddhist-christian/
I particularly liked this part of the essay: "...I do not follow the Christian faith, but I have studied it for many years. I believe that Christianity is not about trying to get to Heaven, but embodying the essence of Christ, who encompassed the four sublime states. A Christian wanting to achieve these qualities can enrich his faith by adding Buddhist practices and not be hypocritical. While I do not follow Christianity, I do not deny it. While I do not believe in the afterlife as they do, if those who follow it embody the qualities of Jesus in the here and now, then I embrace their practice as successful and good. Too many practitioners of all faiths focus on the rewards at the end of our journey, when the rewards and purpose are the journey itself."
It has long seemed to me that there is no "right" religion, although there are some "wrong" religions. There is not agreement even within Buddhism about Buddhism. There are folks who are or have been on this site who have said they don't believe it is necessary to take the Five Precepts. And I have talked to monks who say that if you don't, then you're not following Buddhism. I don't know who's "right", but it sure keeps me thinking.
The problem with the god thingy for many theists is how to describe "It" ...It would seem there are as many descriptions of this so-called supernatural being as there are theists who adhere to a belief in "It" ...
In the long run theists/deists Buddhists can believe what they want...It will all come out in the aggregate wash cycle.....
In regards to the research/study...In all honesty the first thing that came to mind was "Who in their "right mind" would commit such an act ?" and the simple answer to this regardless of whether one is a believer or non-believer ...one would have to be mentally deranged to carry out such a barbaric act...
Quote
"Participants were given a description of a fictional evildoer who tortured animals as a child, then grows up to become a teacher who murders and mutilates five homeless people"
To be quite honest I do think that atheists 'Buddhists or otherwise' (unless their 'are' mentally deranged) wouldn't do such a things and the same goes for the religious person ( even those theists who are in the habit of talking to/praying to/worshipping an unseen supernatural force/being)...
I think for the most part this study/research is flawed .... just ask yourself what would drive you to commit such an act ? .......One would think that one would have to be out of their mind ie, not thinking properly =mentally deranged.... (Mental illness knows no boundaries..)
"quite overtly secular, people still seem to intuitively hold on to the believe that religion is a moral safeguard."
we are a bunch of heathens in this part of the world...so no surprises there..... 
Only in Finland and New Zealand, two secular countries, did the experiment not yield conclusive evidence of anti-atheist prejudice, said the team
"
I had to smile when I read this
“Once again, the point of this discussion is not to accuse Christians of endorsing torture and persecution. Of course most devout Christians today are thoroughly tolerant and humane people. Even those who thunder from televised pulpits do not call for burning heretics alive or hoisting Jews on the strappado. The question is why they don’t, given that their beliefs imply that it would serve the greater good. The answer is that people in the West today compartmentalize their religious ideology. When they affirm their faith in houses of worship, they profess beliefs that have barely changed in two thousand years. But when it comes to their actions, they respect modern norms of nonviolence and toleration, a benevolent hypocrisy for which we should all be grateful.”
― Steven Pinker, The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined
That's all well and fine. And when I go to chanting once a week at the local Buddhist temple, I don't try to chant in Pali, I follow along in a translation booklet in English (silently). Guess what -- it's an affirmation of faith in the Triple Gem that hasn't changed in substance for decades. This is not exactly the one we use, but close enough: http://www.dharmathai.com/evening-prayers-thai-buddhist-chanting/
In both Christianity and Buddhism there are really 2 non-parallel paths: the formal religion path and the personal faith path. As I sit there during chanting, it often occurs to me how similar in very general structure the formal religion is. The roles of monk and priest are not that different. The roles of lay people are not that different.
But since the real topic here is morality, a formally religious Buddhist and a formally religious Christian can both be moral, or can both be immoral. A lay person following more of an informal path in either religion can be moral or immoral.
A couple of weeks ago I was chatting with two of the Thai monks about change, and one spoke up and said, "Yes, everything changes, except the Truth!" And I stifled a giggle as I thought about all the different Truths that different cultures believe in...that aren't Truths at all. But we are so wrapped up in the my belief system is the only right one, that we can't see that that is exactly what the person in the other belief system is saying. I have a degree of faith in my beliefs, but I am not egotistical enough to be able to be positive that my Truths are THE TRUTH. And as a result I can respect many religions (not all), even if I don't necessarily agree with their beliefs. I guess it comes down to what I think that Thich Nhat Hanh was saying: The proof is in the pudding; what kind of moral life is that person living, regardless of which religion he sees himself to be a member of.
The thing that Buddhism has in common with scientific thought is a respect for evidence, so I find it quite ironic that Buddhism has blended with a number of animist and deist traditions around Asia.
You would think that buddhists would teach the lay people, tell them "do not bother with these superstitions about spirits" and instead look at what kinds of proof support these things. I have great respect for people like Ajahn Chah who take a stand against superstition, because evidence and the working of the world do not support such a thing as spirits.
Standards of evidence and proof should not only be applied to the teachings of the Buddha, but to anything that other people ask you to believe. There are a lot of con-men and bullshit artists out there who will try to peddle beliefs in fantastical things just because it was what they were told once by a grandparent, who should be treated with decisive skepticism.
The world is sufficiently marvellous and fantastical without having to embellish and romanticise it with untruth.
Going from consciousness extending beyond the brain ( whatever that means ) to the universe being conscious seems like a really big stretch. And isn't this belief really a form of deism, a sort of theism-lite?
In the suttas the advice is to not speculate about such metaphysical imponderables, and not to cling to beliefs. The focus is more on developing insight into present experience.
The study seems highly flawed to me. If someone would do bad things just because nobody is going to punish them then they are no less immoral than someone who is only decent for fear of said punishment.
Someone that thinks in those terms whether Theist, Atheist or Agnostic is not a moral person. Actually, what it seems to suggest is that moral Atheists are more moral than moral Theists in that when they are nice to you it's because it's the right thing to do and not because a deity may be watching.
Empathy does not come from religion. Empathy comes from understanding pain hurts.
@Kerome It seems quite common for people to blend new things with the old, comfortable things. I don't find it surprising at all, for example, that Buddhism was blended with Bon in Tibet. I doubt in that time people felt comfortable adopting multiple view sets, especially when they become so intertwined with the culture that you can't differentiate them well. I practice quite a few Pagan things, because when I was a card carrying and practicing Pagan, I really liked the rituals around Sabbats. So I keep them as part of my overall spiritual practice. They don't contradict Buddhism, but even if they did I wouldn't care. Many parts of what I did practice would, to many other people, be seen as contradictions. But if it meant something to me, I wouldn't care and it wouldn't bother me to blend them into something that works for me. That's what people have been doing all through time, I suspect. That's why Buddhism is different in every part of the world.
I'm sure that that's at least partly right @karasti, but it leads to something precious like the original form of Buddhism being changed over time into other forms which really hardly resemble the original at all. Some parts of the lore are the same, but much of the form and traditions are different when you compare say Tibetan Buddhism to what we know of the original Indian Buddhism. It gets further and further away from the original words of the Buddha.
I'm not suggesting that isn't the case, as obviously it is. But that doesn't mean there isn't value in the new conglomeration as well. Culture is a huge thing for most people, and it's not something that is easy or desirable to most to abandon. Every religion takes on a flavor of the culture, even the original parts of Buddhism did so in India. There has been a lot of discussion of what Buddhism will "become" or "turn into" in the Western world as it continues to evolve in our cultures. I don't think there is ever an end point, as long as human beings and their cultures change, the belief sets they carry will change as well. That's not always a bad thing. Refusing to adapt isn't our nature. Knowing the core of their own beliefs is the responsibility of each practitioner.
It's just that I'm not so sure it's a good thing as far as Buddhism is concerned. The Buddha laid out a path to enlightenment, and for others to go and tinker with that seems like hubris, especially when the tinkering comes from sources like animism.
So is there an "original" Buddhism, and if so, where would you find it? And is there an argument that the subsequent cultural adaptations ( Chinese, Japanese, Tibetan, western, etc ) as not as authentic as the "original"?
I would say that that is so. For example in Tibetan Buddhism very little effort is made to preserve the words of the Buddha separately from later teachers... the lore as it is taught is all of these things together, with people like Lama Tsong Khappa and Atisha providing core perspectives and the words of the Buddha coming at second or third hand.