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Post by Admiral Lithp on May 16, 2009 23:01:58 GMT -5
So, I'm not sure if I had another thread on here about this or not, but a search isn't turning anything up, so here goes:
I'm finally taking that World Relgions class I mentioned way back when.
Actually, we're pretty far into it. We've just covered the "big 3," that is to say, Judaism, Christianity, & Islam.
At this point, it was put to a vote whether to go into terrorism or atheism. Quite frankly, I did not find either topic particularly interesting, so I just abstained from voting.
Atheism won. It was, apparently, considered the "most interesting religion" by the class. Even if I did consider it to be a religion, the reason for the interest escapes me.
Quite frankly, I'm just waiting to get past this, and into the Eastern religions. We're only spending a couple of days on atheism, which is good for that reason. Bad because I probably won't get a chance to point out some flaws with the unit.*
Although, I suppose it doesn't really matter. Even if I did get a chance to argue that, say, atheism is not a prerequisite for nihilism, all of the stuff would still be on the test, like it is now.
Anyway...so far, I haven't really learned anything new. Not particularly surprising, as there isn't a whole lot to know about the "Big 3." Hence why I'm much more interested in the Eastern religions, and maybe some of the new age stuff (although there isn't a whole lot to that that I haven't looked up, either).
It's really a shame that this is only a 1 semester class. It could work so much better with 2 semesters, or even a whole year. We could've gotten into stuff like cults, interactions between different religions, and theological debates.
So, I've rambled on for a good 2 text boxes, now. What do the rest of you have to say, in response to all of this?
*=There's actually a lot I think this current unit is wrong about. (I copy/pasted this from some shit I typed on an RR-offshoot, which shall remain nameless, due to the fact that I promsied not to go into it. So, I chose to just put this as a side-note, instead of butchering the post, or wasting a lot of time to edit it for flow.)
I think that people are probably a combination of the viewpoints expressed in the nihilist/rationalist/existantialist table.
As I indicated earlier, I do not find nihilism to be unique to atheism.
Of course, atheism is not a religion. I'm willing to compromise & accept the "it can be argued" stance, but I, of course, have a lot of arguments against it:
1. The Big Bang/Evolution are not creation stories. They are attempts to explain how everything got to be the way it is, yes, but they look for evidence, and are not set in stone. Very different from a creation story.
2. In light of # 1, I think that all of that stuff is really more like a world view. A subculture thing. For example, the entire Buddhist religion is said to be atheistic. They don't reject EVERYTHING spiritual, and I'm not so sure about their stance regarding those theories.
3. Basically, atheism is, as we all know, a single, shared belief that there is no God, or that it is extremely unlikely. Anything that is associated with it is not a "tenet," it is simply an idea adopted because it makes sense.
4. Back to the theories thing, there are theists who accept that stuff. Why? Because it isn't religion, it's SCIENCE.
All things considered, though, I'm not too surprised that I have to be anal about this. I had a lot of hang-ups with the introductory vocab, afterall.
Oh, & I know it was suggested that I figure out the teacher's religion once, possibly on the old forum. We actually all tried the other day, for no reason other than curiosity. He refuses to divulge the information unless it's in the hallway, & part of the general conversation. I don't know how widespread of a trend this is, but a lot of teachers in my school are really overcautious when it comes to divulging their personal beliefs.
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Post by Tiger on May 16, 2009 23:47:17 GMT -5
So, I'm not sure if I had another thread on here about this or not, but a search isn't turning anything up, so here goes: You did, I remember it. How do you even have enough material to fill a few days? Atheists are inherently unorganized, and don't necessarily have any beliefs in common beyond the nonexistence of gods. And how is terrorism in any way considered a religion? It's a military tactic that only sometimes has religious motivations behind it. Nor does the latter imply the former. It depends on your definition of religion.As you mention in #3, attributing these beliefs to atheists is fallacious. Atheism only indicates a belief in the nonexistence of god, not adherence to any other beliefs or teachings. There are some sects that worship the Buddha as a god, but in general, yes, it is atheistic. What dogma they do have (reincarnation, nirvana) is generally considered irrelevant to a person's ability to follow the Eightfold Path and achieve enlightenment. They're probably the most science-friendly religion out there.
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Post by Admiral Lithp on May 16, 2009 23:57:36 GMT -5
God damn it, I'm a dumbass. The terrorism thing was going to be sort of an extension on Islam. Specifically, radical Islam, and the conflict between it & Israel.
As for having enough material to fill a few days, like I said, we're getting into a lot of shit that I don't think necessarily reflects atheism, but a subculture of ideas that tends to gather around atheism in developed countries.
Like, I know FSTDT isn't all atheists, but I figure there's probably a lot of them here. Don't we share a lot of similar ideas? We're just a group who happens to think alike in more ways than just one. We don't really have dogmas.
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Post by Captain Obvious on May 17, 2009 0:32:29 GMT -5
Okay I think I can sum up all of the lessons plans for your study of Atheism.
Day 1, Minute 1, Second 1 - Atheists do not believe there is a god
Day 1, Minute 1, Second 10 - Everyone take the next couple days off
END
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Post by antichrist on May 17, 2009 0:41:08 GMT -5
I'm a little disturbed if they're going to try and cram all Buddhism into the same hole. SFU has 3 semesters of Buddhism (Indian, Chinese, and Japanese) but you can get a BA of Eastern Studies through them. I have a small book that explains all of the different Buddhist traditions, but I've screwed my leg up so I'm not moving off of the couch (thank god for laptops). Basically Buddhism is very fluid. There are some that actually do worship Buddha as a God. I find it rather strange that the most superstitious form of Buddhism seems to of cropped up in the area that Siddhārtha Gautama was from. They're as bad as the Christian fundies, all of the stories about Sid's life are true. Daring to call him Sid is blasphemy. Some of the stories about him are weird. The strangest one is that when he was born, he stood up pointed in the 10 sacred positions (8 compass directions, up and down) said I am the chosen one (yep, spoke from birth) and lotus blossoms sprung up wherever he stepped for all of his life. There are two major splits in Buddhism Theravada or the lesser vehicle (lesser because they believe less people can become enlightened) and Mahayana aka the Greater Vehicle because anyone may become enlightened. Tibetan Buddhism is probably the most ritualistic. There's even a form that's on cult watch. Soka Gakkai International hasn't done anything illegal, but they do tend to scam their followers (you have to buy sacred objects from SGI) and you're to meditate on the leader rather than emptying your mind, or something more useful. My husband is a non-practicing follower of Jodo Shinshu which seems to be what happened when Buddhism ran into Shintoism. (Buddhism tends to blend with other religions rather than dominate). They believe in reincarnation and that there is a temporary "Western Heaven" where you go to clean up your karma before you head off to Nirvana. I practice Soto Zen which is what developed when Buddhism ran into Taoism. It's called Ch'an in China, where it originated. Basically the story is that Dogen (13th Century monk) was so disgusted by the corruption of Buddhism in Japan that he went to China where he stayed at Cloud City (a monastery) until he achieved enlightenment. When he went back to Japan with his new insight, nobody wanted to hear about it, so he went and lived on a mountain outside of Kyoto. The one thing I like about Zen is that none of the texts are considered holy. You take what you want and leave the rest. If someone proved that Buddha didn't exist, it wouldn't matter. If there's any other questions I can answer for you, let me know. Here's a site that helped me understand things at first. Well sort of, it seems the more you study the more questions you have. www.mahidol.ac.th/budsir/buddhism.htm
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Post by Admiral Lithp on May 17, 2009 1:45:01 GMT -5
Dude, even if we had an entire year, we really couldn't go into all the different denominations of all the different religions. It's just not realistic.
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Post by Vypernight on May 17, 2009 4:15:57 GMT -5
I practice Soto Zen which is what developed when Buddhism ran into Taoism. It's called Ch'an in China, where it originated. Basically the story is that Dogen (13th Century monk) was so disgusted by the corruption of Buddhism in Japan that he went to China where he stayed at Cloud City (a monastery) until he achieved enlightenment. When he went back to Japan with his new insight, nobody wanted to hear about it, so he went and lived on a mountain outside of Kyoto. The one thing I like about Zen is that none of the texts are considered holy. You take what you want and leave the rest. If someone proved that Buddha didn't exist, it wouldn't matter. If there's any other questions I can answer for you, let me know. Here's a site that helped me understand things at first. Well sort of, it seems the more you study the more questions you have. www.mahidol.ac.th/budsir/buddhism.htmYeah, I prefer Zen because it doesn't really deal with any ritual (unless you're actually in a temple) or spirituality. but yea, even though Buddha said basically that belief in a higher power was left to the individual, people still insist on worshipping him, to the point of having specific rituals of where to put his statue. But then again, Jesus was open-minded and compassionate, and you've seen how many of his followers act.
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Post by skyfire on May 17, 2009 7:55:37 GMT -5
I'm a little disturbed if they're going to try and cram all Buddhism into the same hole. SFU has 3 semesters of Buddhism (Indian, Chinese, and Japanese) but you can get a BA of Eastern Studies through them. It's just a simple survey course; if it's like the one I took, the basic idea is to just give people a general overview of what different groups believe and move on. I do agree though that there should probably be a "Survey of Western Religions" (Native American tribal religion, African tribal religion, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and all the respective offshoots) and a "Survey of Eastern Religions" (Hinduism, Buddhism, Shinto, their offshoots, and a dash of the Chinese philosophical movements) simply because splitting the classes in two would allow more time to get into the actual details. But sadly, it's just not always practical.
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Post by Yahweh on May 17, 2009 8:44:37 GMT -5
Of course, atheism is not a religion. I'm willing to compromise & accept the "it can be argued" stance, but I, of course, have a lot of arguments against it: 1. The Big Bang/Evolution are not creation stories. They are attempts to explain how everything got to be the way it is, yes, but they look for evidence, and are not set in stone. Very different from a creation story. 2. In light of # 1, I think that all of that stuff is really more like a world view. A subculture thing. For example, the entire Buddhist religion is said to be atheistic. They don't reject EVERYTHING spiritual, and I'm not so sure about their stance regarding those theories. 3. Basically, atheism is, as we all know, a single, shared belief that there is no God, or that it is extremely unlikely. Anything that is associated with it is not a "tenet," it is simply an idea adopted because it makes sense. 4. Back to the theories thing, there are theists who accept that stuff. Why? Because it isn't religion, it's SCIENCE. All things considered, though, I'm not too surprised that I have to be anal about this. I had a lot of hang-ups with the introductory vocab, afterall. Oh, & I know it was suggested that I figure out the teacher's religion once, possibly on the old forum. We actually all tried the other day, for no reason other than curiosity. He refuses to divulge the information unless it's in the hallway, & part of the general conversation. I don't know how widespread of a trend this is, but a lot of teachers in my school are really overcautious when it comes to divulging their personal beliefs. You can think about it like this: if theism isn't a religion, then atheism isn't either. In fact, there's nothing preventing atheists from believing in the existence of souls, afterlives, reincarnation, karma, etc. Jainism stands out as a religion with exactly these properties: it has no creator god, no destroyer god, no judgement god, or anything of the sort. Instead it regards all living things (trees, bugs, people, etc) as having souls which can potentially obtain a transcendent collective state of universal consciousness (or "god-consciousness", a very different concept from God altogether).
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Post by neonblue on May 18, 2009 23:33:44 GMT -5
Not particularly surprising, as there isn't a whole lot to know about the "Big 3." Don't let the fundamentalist mindset take away from your opinions of the "Big 3." The Philokalia will blow your hair back. Most Buddhists are atheists, but they probably would not like the label. I don't think Pure Land Buddhists could really be called atheists.
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Post by wmdkitty on May 19, 2009 20:47:37 GMT -5
To save everyone else the confusion, here's the wiki page for Philokalia
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Post by Admiral Lithp on May 19, 2009 22:51:49 GMT -5
A lot of people don't like the label "atheist." I've actually had to convince people before that, YES, not believing in any gods/goddesses makes them an atheist. And they fought it tooth & nail.
Bit surreal, really.
Shinto...I'm currently signed up to do that for my project for the class. Don't know shit about it, but I heard it had something similar to the collective conscious thing.
<_<
>_>
Alright, I won't lie, I heard it referenced as being a source of inspiration for the Lifestream in FFVII. -_-
Edit: I haven't found anything like the above, but the religion still seems interesting, so I'm going to stick with it.
Edit 2: It seems I have killed the thread, but what the fuck, why not? I see where the connection was made, here. They believe in kami, or souls that inhabit natural objects. However, it would have to be grossly misunderstood to connect back to a concept similar to the Lifestream. Kami in nature aren't deceased souls, and essentially, there's an passive and an active (responsible for natural disasters) one in each. Additionally, the religion is definately polytheistic, despite the fact that the person claimed it had no gods in a "western sense." Actually, it's really quite interesting: A bizarre hodgepodge of Buddhistic beliefs, ancestor worship, nature worship, and polytheism. And they have some pretty good stories, too. Tsukiyomi & Amaterasu, Susanoo & the Yamata-no-Orochi....
(I am really enjoying this project.)
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