Many theists try and use Bhuddism as a peaceful religion or use them in statistics to make it seem there are more believers, most countires with high buddhists rates also have high atheist rates (china and i think Japan)..
When googled "is buddism a religion" the response i got was:
"Buddhism doesn't fit neatly into either category of religion or philosophy. When people asked Buddha what he was teaching, he said he teaches "the way things are." He said nobody should believe his teachings out of faith, but instead they should examine for themselves to see if they are true or not."
As to my knowledge Bhuddism does not require any god or diety, i find it as a way of life, not a religion, its different then other religions even hinduism, hindus have many gods, its a more polytheistic religion, where bhuddists have no god.. It irratates me when people tie in Bhuddism with religion, and most bhuddists are somewhat secular which is respectable.
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on to my next topic, what makes religion so prominent in the 21st century, there are many reasons, but which one is the most affective, or maybe its a collective of them all.. Im going to list as many possibilities that i know of that keeps religion alive today, if anyone has any other possibilities please comment!
-Fear of death
-Childhood indoctrination
-Scientific illeteracy
-Comfort
-Church school
-Right wing media (Fox News)
The funnt thing i find out everytime is without the methods i listed above religion would probably die out, but scientific theories that religious people love to bash on would be found no matter what..
Thoughts?
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Scientific illetetacy is a defininitive factor indeed. Because of it, we get instances like this one below.
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That article made me loose brain cells, how can people be so deluded and bash on something they know nothing about, once you take the time to learn about how evolution really works it will only amaze..
Indeed. As I tried to explane to my theist friend, you have no grounds to say something is incorrect or even comment on it if you are not willing to even try to understand it.
This may go better in Pragmatics "The Dark Side of Theism", but look at this image below. It's saddening.
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Thats heart breaking!
Although Buddha did not believe he was a god, Buddhist practice and believe the Buddha was indeed a god.
This site may enlighten you:
http://online.sfsu.edu/rone/Buddhism/footsteps.htm
The Buddhist believe in reincarnation a derivative of Hinduism.
Although Buddhism may not be as wacked out as most religions, it is still a religion that holds beliefs in non-proven theories. There is a part of Buddhism that tell stories of Buddha leaving this world on a discovery quest. He flew and transcended time and space. In that sense he became super human. Therefor Buddhism is a belief that just doesn't make sense.
Yes the tenets are sound, but that doesn't make it any less crazy logically.
Well said and duly noted.
Buddhism itself is sort of the, and I apologize if my analogy comes off as somewhat culturally insensitive, tofu of religions. It speaks on a number of things that most people would consider are ethical common sense, but compiles it in a way that most people don't on an everyday basis. It does stray away from deifying Mr. Gautama, but it does open the door to a lot of woo in its vagueness.
Someone put it very succinctly when it came to Buddhism: it may be, on paper, a perfectly peaceful religion intolerant of violence or hatred. But it's never been a dominant religion in any part of the world and it likely never will. And largely due to that fact. As cultural movements are concerned, it's not conducive to remaining extant in the face of violent or territorial cultures. It has always relied on dominant martial cultures to protect it, and by its tenets will always require protection. This isn't a knock on its values as anything that can be accurately described as wholly nonviolent is noble. The problem lies in that if you had a room with a thousand scripturally literal Buddhists and only one scripturally literal Abrahamist, within a day you'd be left with a room with one Abrahamist with really sore arms.
And quite possibly the room would have recved a sparkly new red coat of "paint"
Interesting, so it has many woo woo claims it makes, many of which are not proven like you guys said. So for a religion to be a religion must their be a deity or can it just be a claim unproven that you wish to believe, and if bhuddism is not a religion, and believing something that is not proven is not really a way of life, then what is buddhism? A philosophy of some sort?
Actually Buddhism has a deity....Buddha. Buddhist belief that the Dali Lama is Buddha reincarnated.
"Some Buddhists accept the existence of beings in higher realms (see Buddhist cosmology), known as devas, but they, like humans, are said to be suffering in saṃsāra and are not necessarily wiser than us. In fact, the Buddha is often portrayed as a teacher of the gods, and superior to them."
According to the wiki, not sure if the information above is accurate or not.
"Buddhist belief that Dali Lama is Buddha reincarnated"
But is that the basis of bhuddism, is it in writing? Or is it just some bhuddists think that..?
It's actually a local sect of Buddhist teaching, specific to Tibet. To paint all of Buddhism with the brush of Tibetan practice isn't fair. Widely known? Yes. Widely practiced? I'm going to say no. Even if every person who follow the Vajrayana sect are all adherents of the Lama's teachings (which they all aren't) then that's still less than five percent of Buddhists.
Buddhists believe in a state of enlightenment in which we are freed from the wheels of karma and merge into something that can only be explained as the creative force / source of all. I have a problem not seeing this as any different from Hindu / Yogic philosophy. I know Buddha tried to remove all doctrine and dogma from this philosophical premise but enlightenment over reason is not my bag. The lack of trust Buddha had in the intellect reminds me of the Christians view of the "works of man". These are both things that I cherish very much. Neither Buddhists or Monotheists own compassion and right livelihood. I think all religions have wasted many good peoples time and lives. Think of where we could be if we were not staring into our inner forehead all the time.
Thousands of years ahead, both scientifically and philosophically, of we're we are now. That's were we would be.