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| Are you (practically speaking) Atheist? |
| Yes. |
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53% |
[ 51 ] |
| No. |
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46% |
[ 44 ] |
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| Total Votes : 95 |
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| Author |
Message |
atlhockey
Joined: 20 Aug 2006
Location: Jeonju City
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 Posted: Sat Oct 14, 2006 10:33 pm Post subject: Re: re: |
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| seoulunitarian wrote: |
| Did you even look at the links (rhetorical question)? |
I'll answer it anyway.
I always look at the links, even Rteacher's drivel. |
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Satori
Joined: 09 Dec 2005
Location: Above it all
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| Posted: Sat Oct 14, 2006 10:57 pm Post subject: |
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| One thing that can be noticed about Christianity is that it attracts the weak. Most sincere christians are raised into by thier family. But when you look at fully formed adults with no religious upbringing who have converted to christianity, you find people who are insecure, isolated, incompetant, lost, lack confidence, lack direction. Very rarely do you find someone who is highly intelligent, balanced, confident, sucessful, and happy spontaneously converted to christianity as a fully formed adult. Religious is succor for the weak. It's also a very effective method of political control. Republicans know this well, get people scared of something and then tell them you have the solution, and they will give up all thier personal freedom to be made safe. |
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flakfizer
Joined: 12 Nov 2004
Location: scaling the Cliffs of Insanity with a frayed rope.
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| Posted: Sat Oct 14, 2006 11:27 pm Post subject: |
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| Satori wrote: |
| you find people who are insecure, isolated, incompetant, lost, lack confidence, lack direction. |
Are you talking about Christians or ESL teachers? |
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seoulunitarian
Joined: 06 Jul 2004
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| Posted: Sun Oct 15, 2006 2:04 am Post subject: re: |
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I feel the need, every four or five pages, to confront the oversimplification of religion evident in this thread. I have consistently refused to lump all atheists together in generalizations, and have recognized the vibrant variety that exists in atheistic circles. Why is the same not being done toward religious types? A cursory review of religious faculty members the world over will show that many religious people are neither weak nor stupid, but highly intelligent, thinking individuals. Very few thinking Christians believe in a "white-bearded" deity issuing judgments from a physical heaven. Please afford the same objectivity to those with whom you disagree that you would expect for yourself.
Peace |
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Rteacher
Joined: 23 May 2005
Location: Western MA, USA
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mithridates
Joined: 03 Mar 2003
Location: President's office, Korean Space Agency
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| Posted: Sun Oct 15, 2006 2:38 am Post subject: |
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| Satori wrote: |
| No expansionism. |
Sure there wasn't. Let's just ignore the statement Myoushinji issued in 2001 apologizing for their cooperation with the war. Here's a part of it:
「（戦争協力としては）宗門が植民地や占領地の拡大に伴って別院や布教所を設立し、植民地政策に協力したこと。戦勝祈願の祈祷や講演会を開き、従軍僧を派遣して戦意高揚に荷担したこと。戦闘機購入のための献金運動など物心両面にわたって戦争遂行体制の先頭にたったことなどがあります
Basically, sorry for helping to expand colonization, setting up religious institutions in the newly colonized areas, holding speeches and prayers to pray for victory in the war, sending monks along with the soldiers to keep up their fighting spirit, and raising money to pay for military vehicles. Good thing there's no expansionism in the religion.
http://osaka.yomiuri.co.jp/ritsumei/rs50511a.htm
PS I like Zen a lot. |
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flotsam
Joined: 28 Mar 2006
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| Posted: Sun Oct 15, 2006 6:52 am Post subject: Re: re: |
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| seoulunitarian wrote: |
I feel the need, every four or five pages, to confront the oversimplification of religion evident in this thread. I have consistently refused to lump all atheists together in generalizations, and have recognized the vibrant variety that exists in atheistic circles. Why is the same not being done toward religious types? A cursory review of religious faculty members the world over will show that many religious people are neither weak nor stupid, but highly intelligent, thinking individuals. Very few thinking Christians believe in a "white-bearded" deity issuing judgments from a physical heaven. Please afford the same objectivity to those with whom you disagree that you would expect for yourself.
Peace |
This is a fair post. It's rather unfortunate that you were followed by this:
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flotsam
Joined: 28 Mar 2006
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| Posted: Sun Oct 15, 2006 6:54 am Post subject: |
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| mithridates wrote: |
| Satori wrote: |
| No expansionism. |
Sure there wasn't. Let's just ignore the statement Myoushinji issued in 2001 apologizing for their cooperation with the war. Here's a part of it:
「（戦争協力としては）宗門が植民地や占領地の拡大に伴って別院や布教所を設立し、植民地政策に協力したこと。戦勝祈願の祈祷や講演会を開き、従軍僧を派遣して戦意高揚に荷担したこと。戦闘機購入のための献金運動など物心両面にわたって戦争遂行体制の先頭にたったことなどがあります
Basically, sorry for helping to expand colonization, setting up religious institutions in the newly colonized areas, holding speeches and prayers to pray for victory in the war, sending monks along with the soldiers to keep up their fighting spirit, and raising money to pay for military vehicles. Good thing there's no expansionism in the religion.
http://osaka.yomiuri.co.jp/ritsumei/rs50511a.htm
PS I like Zen a lot. |
In all fairness, you guys are talking about the Japanese. So this little side discussion doesn't really have an impact on humanity. |
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Satori
Joined: 09 Dec 2005
Location: Above it all
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| Posted: Sun Oct 15, 2006 12:14 pm Post subject: |
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| mithridates wrote: |
| Satori wrote: |
| No expansionism. |
Sure there wasn't. Let's just ignore the statement Myoushinji issued in 2001 apologizing for their cooperation with the war. Here's a part of it:
「（戦争協力としては）宗門が植民地や占領地の拡大に伴って別院や布教所を設立し、植民地政策に協力したこと。戦勝祈願の祈祷や講演会を開き、従軍僧を派遣して戦意高揚に荷担したこと。戦闘機購入のための献金運動など物心両面にわたって戦争遂行体制の先頭にたったことなどがあります
Basically, sorry for helping to expand colonization, setting up religious institutions in the newly colonized areas, holding speeches and prayers to pray for victory in the war, sending monks along with the soldiers to keep up their fighting spirit, and raising money to pay for military vehicles. Good thing there's no expansionism in the religion.
http://osaka.yomiuri.co.jp/ritsumei/rs50511a.htm
PS I like Zen a lot. |
You know very well that this is not Buddhist expansionism, and a case of Buddhist getting carried along on the wave of Japanese nationalism. That was not a Buddhist imperative at all. That was nationalism at play there, and the Buddhists were being used. Absolutely nothing like a Crusade or Jihad. |
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mithridates
Joined: 03 Mar 2003
Location: President's office, Korean Space Agency
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| Posted: Sun Oct 15, 2006 4:47 pm Post subject: |
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| Satori wrote: |
| mithridates wrote: |
| Satori wrote: |
| No expansionism. |
Sure there wasn't. Let's just ignore the statement Myoushinji issued in 2001 apologizing for their cooperation with the war. Here's a part of it:
「（戦争協力としては）宗門が植民地や占領地の拡大に伴って別院や布教所を設立し、植民地政策に協力したこと。戦勝祈願の祈祷や講演会を開き、従軍僧を派遣して戦意高揚に荷担したこと。戦闘機購入のための献金運動など物心両面にわたって戦争遂行体制の先頭にたったことなどがあります
Basically, sorry for helping to expand colonization, setting up religious institutions in the newly colonized areas, holding speeches and prayers to pray for victory in the war, sending monks along with the soldiers to keep up their fighting spirit, and raising money to pay for military vehicles. Good thing there's no expansionism in the religion.
http://osaka.yomiuri.co.jp/ritsumei/rs50511a.htm
PS I like Zen a lot. |
You know very well that this is not Buddhist expansionism, and a case of Buddhist getting carried along on the wave of Japanese nationalism. That was not a Buddhist imperative at all. That was nationalism at play there, and the Buddhists were being used. Absolutely nothing like a Crusade or Jihad. |
How does Buddhism get "carried along" with nationalism to the point that it raises money to buy military vehicles and holds events to pray for victory in war?
| Quote: |
| Victoria quotes extensively from D. T. Suzuki and his teacher Shaku Soen, a university-educated roshi who portrayed Buddhism as a "universal religion" at the World Parliament yet actively supported the Russo-Japanese War (1904-5), justifying it with the usual rationalizations: "War is not necessarily horrible, provided that it is fought for a just and honorable cause, that it is fought for the upholding of humanity and civilization. Many material human bodies may be destroyed, many humane hearts be broken, but from a broader point of view these sacrifices are so many phoenixes consumed in the sacred fire of spirituality..." When Tolstoy wrote asking him to cooperate in appealing for peace, Soen refused and visited the war front to encourage the troops, declaring that "In the present hostilities, into which Japan has entered with great reluctance, she pursues no egoistic purpose, but seeks the subjugation of evils hostile to civilization, peace, and enlightenment" (27-8). |
| Quote: |
| In 1934 Harada Daiun Sogaku recommended implementing fascist politics while criticizing education for making people shallow and "cosmopolitan minded". In 1939 he described the oneness of Zen and war: "[If ordered to] march: tramp tramp, or shoot: bang, bang. This is the manifestation of the highest Wisdom [of Enlightenment]. The unity of Zen and war of which I speak extends to the farthest reaches of the holy war [now under way]" (137). |
I'm sure he got "carried along" so much that he simply had no choice but to describe the current conflict as a holy war. I hate when that happens to me too. One day you're meditating on eliminating suffering and bringing about peace and then suddenly you just get "carried along" and have no choice but to do the following:
| Quote: |
| "of course one should kill, killing as many as possible. One should, fighting hard, kill everyone in the enemy army. The reason for this is that in order to carry compassion and filial obedience through to perfection it is necessary to assist good and punish evil. However, in killing one should swallow one's tears, bearing in mind the truth of killing yet not killing" --Yasutani Hakuun. |
| Quote: |
| Rinzai Zen Master Nantembo (1839 - 1925) preached, there was "no bodhisattva practice superior to the compassionate taking of life." |
| Quote: |
| Victoria identifies Sawaki Kodo (1880-1965), one of the great Soto Zen patriarchs of this century, as an evangelical war proponent. Serving in Russia as a soldier, he happily related how he and his comrades had "gorged ourselves on killing people." Later, in 1942, he wrote, "It is just to punish those who disturb the public order. Whether one kills or does not kill, the precept forbidding killing [is preserved]. It is the precept forbidding killing that wields the sword. It is the precept that throws the bomb." |
| Quote: |
| consider the following passage that D. T. Suzuki wrote at the same time as the Nanking massacre: "... the art of swordsmanship distinguishes between the sword that kills and the sword that gives life. The one that is used by a technician cannot go any further than killing.... The case is altogether different with the one who is compelled to lift the sword. For it is really not he but the sword itself that does the killing. He had no desire to harm anybody, but the enemy appears and makes himself a victim. It is though the sword automatically performs its function of justice, which is the function of mercy�. the swordsman turns into an artist of the first grade, engaged in producing a work of genuine originality." |
| Quote: |
| It is Harada who is equated battlefield loyalty, marching and shooting with the "highest wisdom of enlightenment." He called this "combat zazen, the king of meditation." As Japan was losing, his rhetoric became even more extreme. In preparation for a possible invasion, Harada called on the entire nation to be willing to die for the emperor. "If you see the enemy you must kill him; you must destroy the false and establish the true - these are the cardinal points of Zen. It is said further that if you kill someone, it is fitting that you see his blood." |
As the rest of one of the reviews states:
| Quote: |
| It is crucial not to dismiss this as merely a Japanese political problem. The Zen leadership did not just go along with the wartime bandwagon, they were often the bandleaders. Placing what happened in context of history and politics in no way reduces the responsibility of the Zen tradition. |
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Alias
Joined: 24 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Sun Oct 15, 2006 6:13 pm Post subject: |
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There is a saying that an atheist couldn't be elected dog catcher in the US. Here is some proof:
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Religion has entered the political fray in a race for an appellate court bench in east Texas.
The Austin-based Republican Party of Texas played the religion card in a Sept. 21 online newsletter. As alleged in the newsletter, Texarkana solo E. Ben Franks, Democratic nominee for a seat on the 6th Court of Appeals, "is reported to be a professed atheist" and apparently believes the Bible is a "collection of myths.'"
But Franks says he has never professed to be an atheist and is not a member of any atheist organization. Franks says no one with the Republican Party ever asked him whether he professes to be an atheist. However, he says he's not surprised by the allegation.
"I'm not surprised at anything anybody says in politics anymore," Franks says.
Anthony Champagne, a political science professor at the University of Texas at Dallas, says he has watched judicial races in Texas and other parts of the country for 25 years and has never before seen a judicial candidate accused of being an atheist.
"I've never seen the religious issue pushed that hard," Champagne says.
Champagne says the last time that religion was raised in a significant political race in Texas was the 1960 presidential election, in which the fact that then-Democratic nominee John F. Kennedy was a Catholic became an issue.
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http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1160125527178 |
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Rteacher
Joined: 23 May 2005
Location: Western MA, USA
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| Posted: Sun Oct 15, 2006 6:44 pm Post subject: |
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Unless it's being severely oppressed and there's need to fight for religious freedom, organized religions should not get mixed up in politics. It's really contaminating, and religionists who do it tend to get more materialistic and corrupt.
Regarding Buddhiism, it's technically an atheistic philosophy because it purposefully denies the authority of the Vedic scriptures in order to repudiate common misuse of injunctions dealing with animal sacrifices. However, Buddha was an empowered incarnation of God so whoever worships him makes spiritual advancement...
Unfortunately, Buddhist organizations in Korea are still big supporters of disgraced SNU stem-cell scientist, Hwang Woo-Suk because he publicly identifies with Buddhism...
Speaking of atheistic science, "Off-Topic" forum readers should occasionally check out developments in the "List of Scientists..." thread
http://www.eslcafe.com/forums/korea/viewtopic.php?t=59990&start=1155 and marvel at how the big bully science boys (plus "althockey"...) have been getting thwarted lately in what they obviously thought would be a slam dunk effort to establish the faith-based Evolution theory ... |
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flotsam
Joined: 28 Mar 2006
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| Posted: Sun Oct 15, 2006 7:13 pm Post subject: |
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| Rteacher wrote: |
Regarding Buddhiism, it's technically an atheistic philosophy because it purposefully denies the authority of the Vedic scriptures in order to repudiate common misuse of injunctions dealing with animal sacrifices. However, Buddha was an empowered incarnation of God so whoever worships him makes spiritual advancement...
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Oh, cool. So you admit Buddhists don't subscribe to your hocus-pocus-got no-focus...
The only people who "worship" the Buddha are fruitcakes like you, and your ilk, who follow the blue prancey dude, and his ilk.
Damn it. I said I wouldn't respond, but he is so uninformed and so easily refutable...gads!
Must. Not. Take. Candy. From. Baby. |
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kermo
Joined: 01 Sep 2004
Location: Eating eggs, with a comb, out of a shoe.
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| Posted: Sun Oct 15, 2006 7:17 pm Post subject: |
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| flotsam wrote: |
| Rteacher wrote: |
Regarding Buddhiism, it's technically an atheistic philosophy because it purposefully denies the authority of the Vedic scriptures in order to repudiate common misuse of injunctions dealing with animal sacrifices. However, Buddha was an empowered incarnation of God so whoever worships him makes spiritual advancement...
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Oh, cool. So you admit Buddhists don't subscribe to your hocus-pocus-got no-focus...
The only people who "worship" the Buddha are fruitcakes like you, and your ilk, who follow the blue prancey dude, and his ilk.
Damn it. I said I wouldn't respond, but he is so uninformed and so easily refutable...gads!
Must. Not. Take. Candy. From. Baby. |
I taught a Buddhist nun last semester, and she seems to believe in an incarnate, divine Buddha, who will return to earth and save the world. She and her fellow sisters venerated statues while we visited temples together, which looked like worship to me.
So, what's the deal? |
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flotsam
Joined: 28 Mar 2006
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| Posted: Sun Oct 15, 2006 7:28 pm Post subject: |
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| kermo wrote: |
| flotsam wrote: |
| Rteacher wrote: |
Regarding Buddhiism, it's technically an atheistic philosophy because it purposefully denies the authority of the Vedic scriptures in order to repudiate common misuse of injunctions dealing with animal sacrifices. However, Buddha was an empowered incarnation of God so whoever worships him makes spiritual advancement...
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Oh, cool. So you admit Buddhists don't subscribe to your hocus-pocus-got no-focus...
The only people who "worship" the Buddha are fruitcakes like you, and your ilk, who follow the blue prancey dude, and his ilk.
Damn it. I said I wouldn't respond, but he is so uninformed and so easily refutable...gads!
Must. Not. Take. Candy. From. Baby. |
I taught a Buddhist nun last semester, and she seems to believe in an incarnate, divine Buddha, who will return to earth and save the world. She and her fellow sisters venerated statues while we visited temples together, which looked like worship to me.
So, what's the deal? |
She's a part of the Pure Land sect--fringe element of Buddhism. Some of them actually believe that the Buddha is a god-like character, most do not, but choose to focus their practice through devotion to Shakyamuni. They are a small minority among Buddhists whose numbers usually wax and wane depending on social conditions. Think of the most extreme of them as the AA of Buddhism and the less extreme as those who take the Mahayana ideal of universal realization very seriously and due to the strain of the responsibility require more guidance and comfort along the path.
Almost every Buddhist bows to images of the Buddha, but the idea is to remind oneself of his(the practioner's) imperfectness, the perfectness of Shakyamuni(or any of the Buddhas) due to his(their) realization and, most importantly, the fact that we are all capable of achieving the state the Buddhas did as we all have the same human potential. There is a Grand Canyon of difference between veneration and worship.
The Buddha is the model, not the way.
This is also all very elementary. Five minutes of research followed by five minutes of reading would have all these questions cleared up for all you theists, but as I have observed before, none of you seem to be inclined to come to the table informed, thereby enhancing the quality of the discussion.
What's the deal? |
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