Welcome home! Please contact lincoln@icrontic.com if you have any difficulty logging in or using the site. New registrations must be manually approved which may take several days. Can't log in? Try clearing your browser's cookies.
Atheism
How is it like to be an Atheist? How do you justify being one, and are people judgmental towards you because you dont believe in relgion?
0
Comments
Hm... a thought just occured to me.
Are Buddhists Atheists?
From an a-theist (I can explain that later if you like) point of view, the whole 'god' thing is a Supreme Irrelevance and requires no justification. Anybody with a ha'porth of sense can see that we are not governed by some big old bloke in the sky who loves us unconditionally, so let's just get on and do the best we can. This 'best' can, and is, illuminated by great and holy thinkers and (possibly mythic, certainly legendary) figures like Plato, Moses, Jesus, Gautama, Gandhi, MLK, Homer, Rumi, Padmasambhava and countless others from every culture.
(Attributed to Lucy in "Peanuts, featuring good Ol' Charlie Brown!" But others may have different ideas....!)
While I don't experience too much personal discrimination, I am more sensitive to discrimination to atheists in general. At least in the U.S., atheists are portrayed very poorly in the media - especially when the pledge of allegiance or religious displays on government land are brought up. It's as if we're all mean people just looking out for ourselves and trying to ruin everyone else's fun - which is certainly not the case. I occasionally get emails forwarded to me talking about how all the atheists (as well as other non-Christians) should all "sit down and shut up" since the majority of the country is Christian. It presents an awkward situation since some of those emails have come from family members who don't know I'm atheist - and I don't plan on telling them, either.
In general, though, since we are a minority here - and a rather silent/invisible one at that - I think a lot of people forget that we are just normal people, too.
Oh really, Mr. SmartyPants.
Ever see this dude?
-bf
I just couldn't find a bigger picture of him on the internet and my copy of Month Python and The Holy Grail is at home.
My bad.
-bf
"What?!? It's my Day off, for My sake! Oh, look.... just leave a message, I'll get back to you....OK???!!???"
It is at times of a-theism, that I remember and enjoy some of Voltaire's last words. He was asked by a pious friend if he did not think that, dying, he ought not to ask God (in whom he had gravest doubts) for forgiveness. Voltaire replied: "Of course he'll forgive me. C'est son metier (That's his job)"
It is quite possible (perhaps actually easier) to live a full human life when the whole 'God' thing is seen as irrelevant.
I have spent the better part of my life studying spirituality, religion, history, legend and myth. It is a most wonderful pastime but not serious, like being a baker or raising a family. It's no more (nor less) important than a passion for jazz or postage stamps. But I do think it's important to have a passion.
"it should be no more surprising to be born twice than it was to have been born once!"
Methinks this man was well-versed in more matters than prose....
I have to say that I have a hard time wrapping my mind around the thought of "reincarnation" without a little smirk.
I also think quite a bit about how a bunch of muscle, bone and tissue can recognize itself as being "Me".
This kind of puts the idea of reincarnation in a better light for me.
If it happened once - why can't it happen again?
-bf
No problem....
Don't forget that there is a distinct difference, definitively, between 'Reincarnation' and 'Re-Birth'....
And it's not the Muscle bone and tissue that is 'you'....
If (Heaven Forbid - sorry to use the phrase in the atheism thread - !!) you were to lose an arm.... you'd be no less 'you' than you were with it.... putting aside the obvious emotional distress and adjustment you'd have to make, in essence, you'd still be Buddhafoot.... if you wear glasses to read, you are no less a person when you take them off... Your physical 'You' is not who you are..... It is your "Mind" that determines 'who' you are.... your emotions are not you: they are phases you pass through...you're not angry or happy or sad ALL the time, are you.....? So.... Who are 'You'?
My point exactly.
On another thread, I was making the point about how a lump of fat (which is what our brain is - albeit a specialized piece of fat) allows us to recognize ourselves. It's just tissue - so why doesn't the fat around my waist do the same thing? Or why at all?
But, I guess it's a good thing the fat around my waist doesn't act like my brain. It's gotten to big, I'd have mutiple personalities by now...
-bf
I was going to ask them the same question....
At one point I would have said, "Because I know I only have one personality."
But now, it really doesn't matter how many personalities I have. That's my middle-way response. I think I only have one - but why form an attachment or label to however many I have.
On the other hand, you referred to me as "Jason" - so maybe I do have some issues...
-bf
i quite like what Shakira (the Columbian pop singer) said: atoms that have come together to ponder the fact of their existence.
Hence, we are starstuff that knows it exists.
That's weird. My hubby came up with pretty much the same idea. Sounds good to me.
i looked at a globe today (its been a while) it was weird to see usa and iraq/afghan on complete opisite sides of the globe like that. and then the first two things to come to my head are the bible and qoran. it really made it clear even for a dumbass like me that something had to happen and better now than before every country has nukes or whatever the future brings it only takes one country to divide the world or at least thats what it seems. or would other countrys setting good examples bring understanding/peace before that time came? anyway that little moment i had with myself got me lookin at the countries near the USA and Iraq and their religions. you can just see it pan in some places. i found http://www.adherents.com/Religions_By_Adherents.html
googled buddist and ended up here & d/led some of the audio for later. are christianity and islam the only two with a big fat book to read and find the awnsers youre looking for? or the only 2 ''religions''sorry if youve all done what im doing already but this is just new for me. they all want peace, and theres the zeta reticuli
You say and, indeed, that is true. Afghanistan, Iraq and, more importantly today, Iran, are so far away from the USA that it is impossible for them to deliver a nuclear weapon onto US soil. Even at the height of the Cold War, ICBMs were so expensive that only the US and the USSR had funds to divert to such fripperies.
I wish you well.
Whatever the case - if we don't see you - I'm sure you know we wish you the best in whatever path you choose.
-bf
Anybody seen Match Point yet?
Here are more: Woody Allen Quotes
I believe many of us have atheistic strands in us that bob up to the surface when people foist their unthinking, platitudinous words on us. I remember Gilbert O'Sullivan's song from the 1970s, "Alone Again, Naturally." It had a verse:
"To think that only yesterday,
I was cheerful, bright and gay,
Looking forward to, but who wouldn't do,
The role I was about to play
But as if to knock me down,
Reality came around
And without so much as a mere touch,
Cut me into little pieces
Leaving me to doubt,
All about God and His mercy
For if He really does exist
Why did He desert me
In my hour of need?
I truly am indeed,
Alone again, naturally."
A country singer changed the words and said "I know that he exists." This really bothered me on esthetic grounds, since it completely ruined the poetry, i.e. the meaning of the song for me. The impossibility of the notion to doubt God for even an instant is JUST PHONEY and harmful to the spirit of truth. And Jesus said we should worship "God" "in spirit and truth."
Atheism, in my opinion, need not be "being against God" or "against Belief" per se. For me, it mainly means "being against the grain of cut-and-dry Theism." Theism, as I see it, accomplishes nothing, save the clouding of the eyes to perhaps greater and simpler truths. If people want spiritual awakening, they should listen to the words of the spiritual teachers, and not to the labels of their followers.
Sincerely,
Nirvana (curious worker bee)
I would imagine very few people on here were brought up Buddhist from the beginning so we bring shades of colour from all our previous spiritual experiences so we'd all have to cover ourselves in sticky labels saying "Ex catholic, pagan, buddhist" etc which is patently silly.
My first reaction on meeting a new person isn't what sexuality, race, religion, nationality etc etc they are ... it's ooooh new person, how exciting! (but then I don't get out much!)
I remember when I was writing and playing songs, just me, my guitar and a mike, for benefits and folk festivals and Take Back the Night concerts about ten years ago. For the Peterborough Folk Festival (in Canada) the organizer was writing short biographies of all the performers and he was running them by us before he got them printed. For mine he had written that I was a feminist songwriter and he was so off the mark. I asked him to just call me a songwriter because none of my music was political in any way. It was strong music and he mistook that for feminism. I wrote a lot of my songs with the intention of having men hear them, not just women. The last thing I wanted was to marginalize my own music. It was SOO not feminist. It was just written from a female perspective. That's all. He was very gracious and understood immediately. He had a lot of experience with artists. I am many, many things on the surface of my current being. My identity was already narrowed. I couldn't let it become THAT narrowed.
On a completely different note, can anyone tell me what this smiley means? Is it rude?
:PWNED:
NONETHELESS, I WAS NOT SPEAKING ABOUT MERE LABELS. I'm speaking about disingenuous thinking or believing. It's simply WRONG to preach that there's a subject which cannot be questioned. Such preaching, by word or example, crushes the human spirit's integrity.
Now, if people are so insecure in their "religious opinions," that they cannot for a second question them, what we have is more akin to Fascism than to mere labelling or party factioning. Just my opinion.
Sincerely,
Nirvana
Those Who Say It's Not Are Merely Deceived
By the Clouds
Or by
Being on the Wrong Side of the Gentle Earth
At Their Particular Time.
Language is not necessarily a villain. The conventions of the world are often quite useful. Without them we could not communicate. Even the Buddha himself used worldly conventions when he taught [if nobody has already noticed there are thousands of Suttas!]. The only problem is that when we attach to those conventions out of avijja (ignorance) we help to condition our own fetters to suffering. This forms a sense of self, an "I", me, mine that becomes associated with those conventions. When we have a view of self, we have craving arise out of that--craving to get, craving to remove, and craving to stay the same. Once the false shroud of self is cast off like a dirty rag, however, there is no longer anything left which produces suffering. Why is that? Because we can then clearly see phenomenon as they truly are. In and of themselves, words have no inherent existence. When words are perceived as they actually are, they are only perceptions [their meaning to you], mental formations [when thought], and sound [as heard].
Jason
You believe in a book that has talking animals, wizards, witches, demons, sticks turning into snakes, food falling from the sky, people walking on water, and all sorts of magical, absurd and primitive stories, and you say that we are the ones that need help?
- Dan Barker, Losing Faith in Faith :bigclap:
"The hope of science is the perfection of the human race. The hope of theology is the salvation of a few and the damnation of almost everybody."
- Robert Ingersoll
"If a person wants to be atheistic it's his God-given right to be an atheist."
—Michael Patton
Hehe....Just thought I'd share...
But I sure do have a HUGE Atheistic streak in me, dog-gone-it!
I LOVE ATHEISTS BECAUSE THEY ARE THE MOST TRUTHFUL PEOPLE IN THE WORLD.
DOG GONE IT!!!!!!
GOD- BE- WITH- YOU- ALL- AND- MAY- HE- BRING- YOU- TO- THE- BUDDHA'S- TRUTH-!!!!
'View of self' is a technical term in Buddhism. It means precisely to mistake the five aggregates as being the true self. From the commentary to the Sutta-Nipata we read:
Destruction (uhaccati) of view of self (attanuditthi) means removing the view that one’s being is the body (sakkayaditthi). — SnA 1126
When we cling to what is not ours, namely, the five aggregates we come to suffering. By the same token, when we don't cling to the false self (the five aggregates) saying na me so atta (this is not my self), we begin the true course of liberation.
And, exactly what is ours?
Jason
Atheism is the lack of belief in a Supreme Being
Agnosticism is one that isn't convinced of the existence or non-existence of a Supreme Being.
Theism is the belief in a Supreme Being.
Whatever you believe, the Buddha exhorted us to "Come and see" what he had found. That sentence resonated inside and that's whatever "I" am is drawn to. My philosophical perspective is one as an agnostic. I'm not afraid to question both sides of the issue of a Supreme Being. Like Simon, it is a passion of mine. But, it does nothing to get me further along the Middle Way at this point.
Nirvana,
I wish you well in any pursuit you take philosophically. I'm glad you are questioning. It's a really good thing.