40 replies to this topic

[susmariosep]

Susma - please take this as constructive criticism, but I know why you were banned from infidels - you tend to ignore earlier validated arguments and create statements which are drawn from thin air with no logical backing. It makes it impossible to have a meaningful conversation with you. -- Gej

Up to now, honestly I have not found anyone who really go into the reasons for my suspension from Infidels forum, in an impartial manner, by examining the reasons as alleged by the moderators and administrators of Infidels, that is, on the basis of their own policies and rules as written and as articulated and explained by them, moderators and administrators and owners.

DonSpanton said that he would like to make some comments about my suspension; even though he himself is an Infidels forum member and being in good standing, might naturally take the side of the powers that be, as is typical behavior of the average human, namely, to take the side of the powers in whose gratuity they exist, and move, and sport about, against the one banished by these same powers from their playground, which playground is supposed to be conducted on the basis of egalitarianism, democratic principles, free thought and free civil speech.

Well, I am disappointed with DonSpanton, for at the end and after my waiting for some days, he came up with the advice to me that considering the fact that the powers that be in Infidels are atheists or agnostics or in brief that they happen to be of views directly opposed to mine, even though in my posts time and again, as everywhere I go, I tell people that I am just exercising hypothetical options and discussing them in a speculative manner, that I am not any firm committed card-carrying member of any so-called atheist or theist or agnostic or whatever group, like for example the something like Atheists Association, or is it Society, of America, that I can also very well argue with them that is in their side if I fancy like doing so.

I mean that DonSpanton came up with the consuelo de bobo* that considering the situation as is in Infidels, I should be happy to have at least received the token hearing that I did get from them. No, he never really went into an examination of the questioned posts of mine, and compare them to the policies and rules of Infidels, and make a logical finding.

But DonSpanton declared to me that in this forum of Imminst, they don't ban people on such basis as he saw in Infidels; here they really practice free thought and free civil speech, and they don't get piqued at all and act out their pigue in shall we say infantile manners like throwing out people who happen to talk back to them.

I should not go into this matter any further, because I have opted to not return to Infidels even though my suspension as of December 18, 2004, is over -- unless they have gotten two administrators to elevate my suspension to a hard, meaning interminable, banning (for they also have such a thing as a soft banning which I did not have the curiosity to find out the details about, except that it's not like a death penalty where correction is impossible).


...you tend to ignore earlier validated arguments and create statements which are drawn from thin air with no logical backing. It makes it impossible to have a meaningful conversation with you. -- Gej

That is a very intriguing observation from your part about my discussion manners and reasoning approaches.

I happen to be a practitioner of silence in the face of disagreement with people, to save time and labor, which at the end not one-half of any one particular party of the contending discussants are willing to reach a so much as mid-way consensus with any other party.

(Vanity now) If people read all my posts in all forums I have ever joined they will notice that I am one opinion-maker who is the most disposed to admit openly and eloquently a mistake in facts or in logic from myself, but not to argue endlessly about things which can neither as the saying goes be proven to everyone's satisfaction to be one way or the other.

I invite you to do me a favor for my own education in the virtue of admitting mistakes or ignorance when shown to be mistaken or ignorant, go over my posts here in this forum of Imminst, and pick out those mistakes or instances of ignorance, and I will admit to them and apologize even, if I had annoyed people no end by stubbornly arguing in support of my mistakes or ignorance.

For your own guidance, I request you also to see silence from me as not refusal to see facts and logic, but as just no desire to challenge something in terms of facts or inescapable logic -- because they are debatable at best. This also applies when you think that I am not taking your contention seriously by apparently not attending to your contention anymore, but instead to proceed to another matter or another direction.

Please remember that as far as I am concerned and I believe that is the whole idea of these message boards in the internet, as also in the barber shops of old, or at the corner cafes, or in ancient Athens in the agoras, or in more contemporary times in the Speakers Forum of Hyde Park, London, people get together to express their views and allege some reasons; and only the fervidly attached to their own fanatical brain-childs get overly rattled as to resort to the rule of might is right.

The most important outcome of these discussions is that people at least have a chance to air their views and to listen to some other people's views, and for the minimum remember one day that someone did say something like that in the past or yesterday, and it is still foolish or it is now a fact or a truth.


As regards superstition, even government which loathes to make definitions has to also entertain some very definite ideas of what is religion and what is superstition, as they lawmakers, judges, and peace and law officials seek to create and maintain order and safety in the community.

We cannot say that religion is superstition, and period; because they do exist and live and act and prosecute their interests, men and women who claim to be religious but not superstitious, and they are certainly many of them much more learned, intelligent, civilized, of the best intentions for fellowmen and the world at large -- than you and me can ever succeed to lay claim to.

For myself, I am coming nearer and nearer to the temptation to understand superstition as distinct from religion, not in a descriptive manner but in a prescriptive manner. So that I would say provisionally that superstition is anything in belief that is brought into the behavioral domain by any human, that is not preservative of life or its enhancement or its ennoblement; thus in terms of prescriptive control ideas and actions in that direction should be understood as superstitious.

Why? Because when we talk about religion being rational if at all, of course, and superstition being irrational, we are again falling into the trap of endless searching for what is the rational and what the irrational. Even the Vietnamese government official in a website of the Viet government tells us that they are not against religions but against superstitions. And this official reminds us that one man's religion is another man's superstition. He is in charge of explaining why the communist Viet government has this or that policy or law against this or that religious or superstitious action or movement by this or that religious or superstitious groups.


Please, don't fall into annoyance or the appearance of annoyance. Otherwise, as BJKlein introspects into himself, I seem to notice in his thread about why he left or resigned from the directorate of the Transhumanist Society, he found himself in a negative spiral with fellow directors.

Let's continue to discuss and not get into a negative spiral. There are ways of not falling into a negative spiral or avoiding annoying provocations, aside from, shall we say, banning people from talking their minds, from your presence; or as with powers that be in message boards who engage also in discussions with simple members and against these latters, they can just disregard these posters who can't be convinced by them.

Except for uncivil speech and then only temporarily, no one should ever be banned from a message board for his views and reasons for these views, however outrageous they sound. What fellows posters and powers that be can do is to disregard them, but let them continue to post their ideas until they find themselves in effect speaking to a blank wall, and stop posting -- and then afterwards like a member of the accepted choirs (which is also very counterproductive to the campaign in advancement of knowledge and discovery, in the long run), they chant in unison with fellow choir members.


You have been most courteous and cordial, and I commend you for your equanimity.

Susma

Consuelo de bobo, Spanish for consolation of the Dunce.

I hope DonSpanton who is a power that exists in this forum will not get pigued and ban me or consign me to the outer darkness here. Lazarus Long, to my knowledge, seems to be the most 'equanimitous' chap in this environment. Of course, so far the powers that be have been most egaliarian and democratic, and upholders of free inquiry and free civil speech.

[susmariosep]

Back to Buddhism, as superstition, an examination of its philosophical underpinnings.


My idea of superstition as of this moment is that it is a behavior founded upon some possibly irrational belief, but the most important ingredient of this behavior is that it is not preservative of life, or it does not enhance life, or it is not conducive to life ennoblement.

And what is religion? As I have defined it time and again everywhere I go, here again below:


Religion is a human behavior founded upon a belief in an unknown power resulting in affections and actions intended to influence the power to react favorably to the believer.

And what is the difference between religion and superstition?

For me on pragmatic considerations, the belief component in religion can be explained to be rationally justifiable, but most important the purposes intended by the person with a religion are positive to life preservation, its enhancement, and its ennoblement.

See therefore that in superstition the belief component can be irrational and usually is irrational, but the crucial distinction is that in superstition the ends pursued in superstition or at least resultant are not in the interest of life preservation, and neither life enhancement, and not life ennoblement.


I will leave to others to show how other religions can be superstitious, I will just focus my attention on how Buddhism is the quintessential superstition.


Consider first the most basic of Buddhist teaching, namely, that extinction of existence is the goal to pursue in order to end suffering which comes from desire. On that score alone, Buddhism is I would consider the conspicuously quintessential superstitious thought system par none. It is a grand superstition.

In a nutshell, here is Buddhism in its most fundamental tenets:

Life is all suffering owing to the phenomenon of human desire, to rid life of suffering one must neutralize desire, then one will finally when one succeeds completely in annihilating desire reach extinction of the self.

The belief that life is all suffering owing to the phenomenon of human desire, that is an irrational belief. Then the work of deadening desire, that is certainly contrary to life preservation, its enhancement, and its ennoblement.

And the supreme end of life is self-extinction, described very tangibly by Buddhists theoreticians as like the extinguishment of the fire burning in the wick of a candle blown out by a gust of air.

That's why I always wonder why Buddhists do not do the logical thing to do themselves in quickly and painlessly by swallowing cyanide. The most convenient liberation from all desire, all suffering, all life, all existence.

But no, because one must strive and labor and bear all the pains and sorrows in order to one day arrive at extinction.

Now, if that is not a grand superstition, then you tell me why?

Susma

[stranger]

Susma,

"And the supreme end of life is self-extinction"

I'm pretty sure you meant to say , ''the supreme goal of life..." (for the Buddhists)

Actually, you're jumping to conclusions again. It is very easy to criticize what one knows nothing about.

I don't know much about the Buddhist philosophy of life, but one thing I do know is this:
Their goal is simply to merge 'with the light'. To become one with the light. Self is not annihilated. One just becomes pure energy. The advantage of this energy is that it still maintains pure consciuosness and at the same time one is also able to receive and express divine emotion--love, unparalleled peace of mind, etc. Nirvana, they call it.

And no, there are no shortcuts. No pain, no gain. The curbing of the sense desires is the key. But like the little Buddah said, you don't have to go to extremes, either. Just take the 'middle path'. The intention of meditation is to make up your mind once and for all--to get out of the entanglement of the cycle of birth and death.

The cyanide will get you out of life itself, but not through the lower realms of death(the astral worlds, etc.) The light, is way beyond those lower realms. You cannot go into 'orbit' with a suborbital vehicle. And the proper way to get an 'orbital' vehicle(mentality) is to ascribe to the prescribed duties--meditation, fasting, stilling the mind from sense desire, etc. You have to prove that you want to be a luminous being. It's not a matter of asking for it. One has to do his own part.
Heaven helps those who help themselves, as the saying goes.

And no, Buddhism is not the 'grand superstition'. It might seem so to you, since you're only looking at it from the outside in. Much like licking the jar of honey from the outside. There's no way on earth you can partake of its pure sweet taste.

And quit beating around the bush. Are you a so-called 'postgraduate Catholic' that wants to experiment with higher learning,or are you still a Catholic that likes to bash anything that he doesn't understand. And as far as 'post'(in Catholic) is concerned, don't make a big deal out of it. Catholicism, as far as religions go, is barely elementary level.

I hate to rain on your parade,man, but there's nothing but hot air in anything that you're trying to say. I know you want to enjoy a nice cafe-like atmosphere, that's fine with me. But don't try to lead, when you can barely follow.

stranger

[DJS]

My goodness Susma, you must have done something wrong to cause Stranger to show fangs! [lol]

And I think I know what it is: YOUR INSISTANCE THAT EVERY RELIGION BUT YOUR OWN IS SUPERSTITION.

[DJS]

Oh, and by the way Sus, I didn't comment any further on your case because, frankly, I couldn't determine the grounds for a ban as the dialog was all over the place and rather confusing... [glasses]

I have also noticed that you stated that when you disagree with a point made by another poster your response is silence. Well, that's no way to conduct meaningful dialog on internet forums -- that is, unless you just like to hear the sound of your voice. )

I wonder, will you answer this question? Peter stated that all religions are codified superstition, and I agree with him in this regard.

You are basically making the claim that Buddism is superstition. Why will you not hold Catholicism to the same standard?

Take Care

DonS

[immortalitysystems.com]

All religions are energised by the surwival instinct.

The so called Pantheistic (natur whership) is geared to help in having enoug to eat.

When that was not the big problem any more, religions (gods) were created that treid to deal with the upsurdity of death, by offering some better solution.

Once we are homo immortalis, religions will be created that will cater to what?

[susmariosep]

Thanks, guys, that's all very good of your part to react to my favorite topic about superstition and religion in re Buddhism.

About Catholicism, I agree with you that it is also superstitious.

Yet, may I slip in this question: Which is more superstitious, Catholicism or Buddhism, in another configuration: Christianity or Buddhism?

Why bother at all about distinguishing between superstition and religion? What about that the prince must control man's religious behavior just as with everything in the realm, to achieve the best order and peace for the well-being of the most number of people? And he has to determine wherefore what is religious and what is superstitious; even the communist official in charge of religious matters take the serious application to delineate between superstition and religion: the first not acceptable at all, the second can be tolerated at least.


See, you think that I am not attending to specific points brought up by Stranger and others here to reply to my posts, identifying Buddhism as the superstition on grand scale, to use a humorous slant, in excelsis.

Please take up one contention specific from my correspondent discussants here, and consider if there is anything that can be established to the happy consensus by us all here.

Even Buddhists themselves can't agree among themselves on specifics, but on generics they can be; how much less can anyone who has not spent time like years in Buddhism talk about others not knowing nothing about Buddhism.

And there are devout Buddhists who spent decades in faithful quest for enlightenment, and came to the enlightenment to jump out of this system before they missed life altogether. The same also with Christians; consider the most outspoken atheists, they are to be found from among shall we call them postgraduate Christians?

What I like to focus on is the big picture. Is there such a big picture in Buddhism, in Catholicism, in Islam, in any one religion?

Or maybe the most conspicuous and most influential in terms of molding human behavior and the skyline of society.

We can argue endlessly what the man Buddha really taught, when he either from lack of foresight or from shrewd scheming purposely left nothing written during his lifetime. Only some maybe at least over three hundred years after his death that written accounts appeared of the man and his teachings. And we know that in all events, the self-acclaimed authentic followers who could not agree among themselves -- as with Christians, and Muslims, had to decide on number, with the lesser number having to split off and found their own faction of genuine followers of Buddha, at that, feeling that lesser is better and truer. Isn't that method of settling differences not unlike some TV game show: "On a survey of 100 viewers..." something like that.

About enlightenment, you think that they are in unison, the Buddhists from since the demise of their master to the present day? And what about the precise understanding of Nirvana?


You talk about dialogue as though in every dialogue people have to come to some concurring stand. I beg to disagree. The fact that like in a market place, so also in a forum anywhere outside the web or inside, people get a chance to display their views and talk about the merits of them, even at the same time seeing also the wares set forth by their next door vendors. Sounds like Nootropi and his rival vendors.

We are not here talking only among ourselves. I would maintain that the most important people in this forum are the viewers; like in a theater the audience is the most important and indispensable constituent.

So if for no one's else benefit except among the viewers or visitors, namely, that they have the opportunity to see diversity of views and their multiplicity, that already is a great gain to the advancement of learning.


Back to Buddhism as superstition, I am just engaged in this topic as an exercise, just like in school children are provided with a drawing booklet where they can attempt the rudiments of using lines and colors to produce recognizable humans, animals, structures.


Okay, let's all state, without saying that others don't know nothing about nothing in Buddhism -- I for one never indulge in wholesale categorizing someone as knowing nothing about some subject, state namely what is the most fundamental teaching of Buddhism in less than fifty words.

Then we can continue to make a presentation of what is superstition as distinct from religion. If superstition is religion and vice-versa, then tell us what is religion, also in less than fifty words.

From those two points we can proceed to discuss whether Buddhism is a superstition or to what extent.

About Catholicism and Christianity in general, there is no dearth whatsoever with studies of their superstitious features. Shall we now do a similar favor to Buddhism, for Buddhists to know better their Buddhism?

Susma

[kevin]

Buddhism, to my understanding, teaches that it is 'attachment' to mind objects which causes a division in what is really a totality. It doesn't seek to promote 'non-existence', just 'non-attachment', to both positive as well as negative mind objects.

Again, I'm no expert on Buddhism, but it seems to me that it tells people to try to understand the level of reality underlying physical and mental impulses imposed by our biology in an instinctive manner.

This is just my understanding, and just as there are many flavours of other beliefs, I'm sure there are some which may qualify as supersititon, but at its core I don't believe that Buddhism demonstrates the 'life' nullifying characteristics you propose Susma.

[susmariosep]

Buddhism, to my understanding, teaches that it is 'attachment' to mind objects which causes a division in what is really a totality.  It doesn't seek to promote 'non-existence', just 'non-attachment', to both positive as well as negative mind objects.

Again, I'm no expert on Buddhism, but it seems to me that it tells people to try to understand the level of reality underlying physical and mental impulses imposed by our biology in an instinctive manner. 

This is just my understanding, and just as there are many flavours of other beliefs, I'm sure there are some which may qualify as supersititon, but at its core I don't believe that Buddhism demonstrates the 'life' nullifying characteristics you propose Susma.

What a whiff of fresh air on a Christmas morning, from you, Kevin. Thanks.


This is not some insight from yours truly, but anyone with a habit of observation can attest to its verity, namely, Buddhism does have a lot of good points for emotional detachment propitious to peace, quiet, calmness, amid the hustles and bustles of modern life; yet I would suspect that it is in its core what we might call, to use that term already I seem to recall employed by other observers, life-denying instead of life-affirming, and also more to use a concrete description navel-gazing than prospecting into the world of nature and the universe outside one's illusive mind.

Susma

[kevin]

Rather than buddhism being life-denying or life-affirming.. I think that they attempt to move past the relative 'merits' of destruction vs. creation/life vs. death/good vs. evil etc. by putting forward the notion that it is the creation of the distinction between these events and the attachment of our consciousness thereof which supports our perception of reality as we know it.

I do not think buddhism advocates death over life but tries to provide an alternative to an existence of perceived suffering. If consciousness is indeed at the root of reality and what we perceive are creations of our minds working individually or in concert, then it is possible that reality is an illusion. Once aware that an illusion is an illusion one can begin to entertain ideas of discovering its origin and while perhaps being unable to discern its truths at a fundamental, can at least manipulate its structure for one's own purposes.. maybe buying time for deeper understanding.. if time is even what we think it to be.

I do not subscribe to any philosophy but I have in the past found myself drawn to buddhist teaching in its purer form. I do not believe however that just because reality might be a synthetic conscious construct of related mind objects rather than the independent assortment of free-acting entities, that this knowledge obviates the need for acting to alter it for the perceived betterment of existence. If anything, real knowledge is demonstrably able to effect change in our reality thus those who are 'in the know' should be able to help others and themselves.

Although there are likely variations which do not fit, on the face of it, Buddhism appears to be a passive rather than active system and this passivity might be considered 'life-denying' when it goes against survival. Obviously I subscribe to the idea that regardless of the illusivity of reality, action is better than inaction.

Of course reality may not be an illusion and the arbitrary distinctions between good and evil many not be arbitrary at all.

[susmariosep]

Time to put closure to this thread.

Thanks, Kevin, for your very sober assessment of Buddhism.

I wanted to find the superstitious elements in Buddhism. Of course there are many, specially in what I call the Buddhism of the masses in lands where Buddhism is an ethnic religion.

Then also I wanted to determine why Westerners some of them it goes without saying are so taken up with Buddhism, and I can still now only suspect that it seems to be purely the same inclination of human nature toward novelty, or greener pasture. And the quest to be different and thus better in that respect. What will statistics tell us, there are more Buddhists converting to Christianity than people from the West converting to Buddhism?

Up to now, and some people here will detest me for my apparent stubborn denseness in not fathoming the metaphysics of Buddhist extinction eschatology, I still can't see any sense in rebirth repeated until desire is totally exterminated then a person will enter into Nirvana. And explain it any way they will, extinction is still extinction, and illusion still needs a subject to be illuded about or a subject in charge of the illusion mechanism. My limited intelligence I guess.

Now, here is my biggest and most drastic down to earth disapproval of Buddhism, namely, as in Catholicism in the quest for Christian perfection, it exhorts the monastic life of celibacy and separation from society and contempt for the world and blind submission to the mind and will of a fellow human slavishly believed in as possessing superior knowledge and right to command, as the best and surest formula to arrive at Nirvana, to the extinction of the self.

That for me, as with Catholicism of which I call myself a postgraduate Catholic, is the most unacceptable superstition of superstitions, because it is against life, its inhancement, and its ennoblement. And that is what I have arrived at for a definition of superstition, namely, a religious manifestation that is against life, its enhancement, and its ennoblement.

Susma