Ditching Buddhism

[turoldus]

Good to see some cold water poured on the media's favorite religion (though Buddhists and friends maintain it's a philosophy)

www.slate.com/id/2078486/

[merkavah12]

"All religions, including Buddhism, stem from our narcissistic wish to believe that the universe was created for our benefit, as a stage for our spiritual quests. In contrast, science tells us that we are incidental, accidental."

The irony here is that Mr. Horgan derided certain practitioners of Buddhism as "behaving more like Nihilists than saints".

"Far from being the raison d'être of the universe, we appeared through sheer happenstance, and we could vanish in the same way. This is not a comforting viewpoint, but science, unlike religion, seeks truth regardless of how it makes us feel."

Spoken like a true materialist who has completely bought into the conflict thesis.

It would seem that Horgan turned from one faith only to embrace another.

[unkleE]

May 4, 2009 23:08:55 GMT merkavah12 said:

"All religions, including Buddhism, stem from our narcissistic wish to believe that the universe was created for our benefit, as a stage for our spiritual quests. In contrast, science tells us that we are incidental, accidental."

We have discussed this elsewhere - how does science tell us that? What experimental results can tell us the purpose (or lack of it) of everything? As far as I can see, all science can tell us is that the process by which we got here was long and involved and has some attributes that appear "accidental". But there are other attributes that make it appear designed and purposeful. And it won't be science alone that determines which we think is most probable.

To quote the professor in CS Lewis's The Magicians Nephew: "What do they teach them in their schools?"

[humphreyclarke]

Horgan writes:

'Buddhism's moral and metaphysical worldview cannot easily be reconciled with science—or, more generally, with modern humanistic values.'

Well that's not altogether surprising is it?. I mean most of those 'humanistic' values are re-branded Christian values. What next?. Islam's moral and metaphysical worldview cannot easily be reconciled with 'modern humanistic values'?. Hinduism's moral and metaphysical worldview cannot easily be reconciled with 'modern humanistic values'?.

Buddhism gets talked up a lot these days. There is some good stuff in there regarding compassion but I have to say I don’t understand the appeal of trying to get rid of ‘the self’; I’m rather attached to it. And, bearing in mind all these chaps that have a problem with the historicity of Christ, it’s worth reminding ourselves that the sayings of Buddha weren’t written down till about 300-400 years after his death. Despite being agnostic towards the existence of God there is the acceptance of various Hindu concepts such as Karma and reincarnation. Then there’s some interesting stuff about women. On the one hand, it’s the first religion to ordain them and exceptional women like Visakha are treated on an intellectual plane. On the other hand your birth as a women is due to bad karma and the aim is to acquire merit in this life so as to be reborn a man. Buddha frequently warns about the wiles of women, saying that ‘women are soon angered, and, full of passion, envious, and stupid’; but then he was a man of his times.

In fairness to Horgan his 'Undiscovered mind' was good, if a bit rambling and negative.

In contrast, science tells us that we are incidental, accidental. Far from being the raison d'être of the universe, we appeared through sheer happenstance, and we could vanish in the same way.

This is just one (rather contentious) interpretation of the scientific worldview. There's a lot of largely unproven assumptions in there and the presence of contingency at various stages in the process does not imply 'accident' and 'happenstance'.

[wraggy]

May 4, 2009 23:32:00 GMT unkleE said:

May 4, 2009 23:08:55 GMT merkavah12 said:

"All religions, including Buddhism, stem from our narcissistic wish to believe that the universe was created for our benefit, as a stage for our spiritual quests. In contrast, science tells us that we are incidental, accidental."

When I read the scriptures, I get the impression that the universe was created for the benefit of the Deity. See Revelation 4:11, Colossians 1:16, All things were created by him and for him. Heb 2:10, Prov 16:4.

[unkleE]

May 5, 2009 9:17:11 GMT humphreyclarke said:

'Buddhism's moral and metaphysical worldview cannot easily be reconciled with science—or, more generally, with modern humanistic values.'

Both US philosopher Mortimer Adler and UK scientist/theologian John Polkinghorne argue that most eastern religions are incompatible with science because they regard the world as an illusion - quite the opposite to the empiricism that much modern science is built on.

[turoldus]

One Daily Dish reader objects to Buddhism for being too religious enough in refusing to admit death is the end of everything and good people don't always get what they deserve:

I was ambivalent regarding your post on Buddhism. I am by no means any kind of expert; I've merely read a few books on Buddhism. I have a lot of respect for it because it is generally not attached to supernatural concepts, it is not dogmatic, and it encourages practitioners to side with their own judgment or logic if they find parts of Buddhist thought erroneous. The idea of dependence-arising (that nothing exists on its own) and that everything eventually ends are mature, true, profound, and often missing from religious thought. Buddhism accommodates itself enthusiastically to scientific knowledge and guides its followers to an understanding that not only are they very similar to other living creatures, but that they could have easily *been* those living creatures (human or otherwise).

However, ultimately I could not choose to follow that path for two reasons.

One, while it claims in some ways to teach acceptance that all things must end, it really ultimately dodges the issue through the conceit of reincarnation, which is scientifically baseless. Reincarnation means that Buddhism, like most religions, deals with the problem of death by pretending that it doesn't really exist. Its flimsy and pseudo-scientific explanation that consciousness must be caused by prior consciousness is false because short-term case/event chains cannot be extended through eternity; consciousness is an emergent phenomenon.

The second and most disturbing flaw, in my opinion, is that Buddhism essentially blames victims for their circumstances (karma). Good behavior and thoughts will earn us rewards the next time we're reincarnated. If we're exceptionally kind and disciplined we'll come back as safe, comfortable humans. If we're exceptionally bad, we'll come back as ants or fish or something.

When I read this (in one of the Dalai Lama's books), I thought: What does Buddhism have to say about the political prisoners and slaves in North Korea's death camps? That they were all very bad in their prior lives? I was disappointed that despite appearances to the contrary, Buddhism avoids the problem of death, and it also (contra its claims) avoids the problem of injustice by teaching that living creatures, to some extent, get what they deserve. I caveat all of this by saying that I've only read a few books by the Dalai Lama, and I know there are all kinds of other sects and kinds of Buddhist thought.

A form of Buddhism that deals honestly with death (all things - ALL - eventually end) and with injustice (people don't always get what they deserve) would be much more appealing to me. Perhaps I'm reading the wrong books. I'd love to hear that I'm mistaken, but so far Buddhism has struck me as a very incomplete and imperfect religion.

In short, a complete and perfect religion to this guy is a religion which is not religious at all. Sigh...

[turoldus]

Another reply in the same vein:

The readers' responses you posted were extremely interesting in the degree to which they tracked, often nearly verbatim, many of the more "rational", or "intelligent" criticisms of the Big Three "Angry Atheists". You know what I mean - Horgan must not be aware of this or that understanding of this or that doctrine; Horgan obviously doesn't understand what this or that adept was talking about; Horgan ignores the temporal good thoughts/works/results of Buddhism/Buddhists; Horgan (and Florien) are insultingly simplistic, dismissive and glib in the face of a vast and ancient philosophical tradition; Horgan is arrogant and Buddhists are humble; blah blah blah.

There was nothing at all insulting or dismissive in Horgan's six-year-old (!) essay.

Anyone with any exposure to Horgan - from Bloggingheads, let's say - would have to agree that he seems to be a perfectly nice, professorial guy. He didn't say that belief in Buddhism was evil, or that Buddhists were stupid, etc. He didn't even say, really, that Buddhism was wrong - all he said was that it is basically exactly like any other religion: it is supernatural, it posits human existence (or "consciousness" rather than "existence", if you prefer - and what consciousness could we possibly be talking about here other than humans'?) as the purpose of the Universe, it is pre-modern, and, thus and finally, it is irreconcilable with a scientific, modern understanding of things. This is not a very controversial thing to say, but just in your own small corner of the Internet it provokes a blizzard of denunciations against Horgan and defenses against accusations he didn't make (another interesting thing was how each of your respondents managed to get a dig or two in against your own preferred religion as well).

I don't recall a whole lot of pushback from the Eastern belief-o-sphere against Dawkins/Hitchens/Harris' attacks on the Abrahamic religions (note to pedants: I'm sure there was some here and there). It's only now that they perceive (again, in an article from six years ago that you linked) their own ox to be getting gored that they are stirred to respond. When you strip away the "insulting" tone, the sect-specific fisking, and the critiques of religious institutions and their actions of The God Delusion et. al., there is really only one basic argument being made, and it's the same as Horgan's with respect to Buddhism - that all these ways of believing, formulated before we knew anything at all about anything really, and being grounded in supernaturalism, are simply not sufficient or necessary anymore. But I'll bet your respondents didn't quite see it that way until you pointed them to Horgan.

I'm tempted to think that these strenuously- and minutely-argued responses are the product of an understandable, if unfortunate, insecurity about the truth or worth of the foundations of the beliefs people choose to build their lives around, but in the end that's not really for me to say. I just don't see why the whole lot of you can't just say "So what? It works for me" when things like this come up.