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An important distinction to learn as an agnostic

2 people were talking ...

Western Evangelical - "Well, we cherish certain values and preserve them through a code of conduct that we follow because God said to ..."

Eastern Mystic - "Interesting, we cherish the same values and use many of the same actions because it is the best thing to do for our world."

Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Taoism ... none of these beliefs is a religion. They are "ways of life". Christianity, Islam, Mormonism et al are religions. The difference is vast, but resultant beliefs are the same.

And, of course, the difference is cause and effect. Western belief sets use "god" to fill in the black box of world machinations they have yet to understand. Otoh Eastern belief sets use cause and effect to describe ALL actions and a back box stays there because we know the end result without knowing the cause. Plus they're taught to not get overly attached to prior explanations if another more reasonable one comes along. So you'll not see a Scopes trial in India.

The gods in Hinduism still serve a purpose, and a major one. They model behavior and virtues that we value as a society and the reverence shown aids us mentally and socially and circumstantially. But it falls short of causation and they're fine not knowing or accepting some faux explanation that's later disproven. They also might just say some deity caused it and later recant because they already know the end result and that's what they consider the most important.

So ... east - more scientific. west - more mystical. This seems to fly in the face of what people believe on this site so I thought a little explanation would help.

JeffMesser 8 Aug 21
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15 comments

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Watch out, stating the truth is antithetical to the left's ability to reason. You will be attacked for asking any question that is "unreasonable" and will then be labeled as phobic.

Stating the truth is antithetical to the right’s willingness to reason and their fear of the future, or their paranoia, takes control.

@yvilletom I am a classical liberal centrist. The "left" and the "right" are equal in their stupidities.

Democrat ≠ democrat ≠ Liberal ≠ liberal ≠ left ≠ progressive ≠ regressive ≠ alt-left ≠ radical ≠ left-pole

Republican ≠ republican ≠ Conservative ≠ conservative ≠ right ≠ trumpite ≠ extreme ≠ alt-right

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Merriam-Webster defines religion as: " the belief in and worship of God or gods."

You cannot have Hinduism without a belief in and worship of its gods.

really? then why are no Hindu deities worshipped in Ramakrishna Worship centers? In their centers their holy trio Ramakrishna, Vivekananda and Sarada are worshipped. Where are the gods? You said a religion must believe in and worship gods. Who is the god worshipped in Buddhism temples?? Buddha was a man, not a god. I think you should learn more about Hinduism before making such claims.

I never said Buddhism was a religion. I don't believe it meets the definition. Nor do I believe that Jainism or Taoism meet the definition.

But, as you just wrote, in Ramakrishna Worship centers their holy trio Ramakrishna, Vivekananda and Sarada are worshipped. I would contend that by worshipping these three they have elevated them to the level of deities.

@mcgeo52 they're not deities. you don't get to call them that just to make your claim. you have such tunnel-vision about what a "god" is and what worship means that you can't see the forest for the trees. dude, you have to open up a little bit and take things in.

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It’s OK to have beliefs AND speak kindly to others with differing views, Jeff. I’m not sure where your anger and I’m-right-you’re-wrong-fuck-you attitude is coming from, but we deal with enough of that from Christians and come here to get away from all that.

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Buddhism Taoism and Jainism are religions even though they have no gods, though many types donsince these often blend with Hinduism Shinto etc.

Hindus absolitely believe in gods and if you think they don't have dogma try convincing them cows arent sacred.

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Are you just trying to get points or what? I like how you come on this board acting all high and mighty and are so rude to the people commenting. Maybe if you want a real discussion you might consider how rude you are coming across.

I know, right?! What an ass. I can’t believe his replies to people who are asking genuine questions.

@Apunzelle a genuine question? please lead me to the genuine honest questions that aren't "no, you don't know what you're talking about." It's all like deno below here "well I think blah blah blah". No attempt to learn anything new, no attempt to actually understand. The entire OP is about mysticism vs. cause and most of "genuine questions" you're referencing here don't even try to comprehend the distinction. Anger on my part? That's probably a fair assessment. I've found that the only thing as close minded as a Texas Southern Baptist is a Sri Lankan Buddhist with agnostics on this site taking a close 3rd. Learn something about the subject before acting like you're an expert.

@JeffMesser I believe you’re being too closed minded and combative to notice the genuine questions. Anger is seeping through everything you say. As the Buddha would say, “Let that shit go, homie.” 😄

As a side note, I’d turned to Buddhism in the past and found it a brilliant philosophy. However, the more I got involved in it, the more it became religion-like, with all the accompanying pomp and tradition and tenets that I had to agree with.

You’re really talking semantics and definitions that work for YOU vs. work for everyone else. If something FEELS like religion, well, if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck .... 🦆

@Apunzelle do you understand the difference between mysticism and cause & effect?

@JeffMesser All I have to say about that is I really don’t care. And I don’t mean that in a mean and hateful way ... it’s just literally how I feel, with no anger or negativity associated with it.

We’re all on our own path and need to find what works for us. If it’s an important distinction for you, by all means, explore it and find your inner peace. I’m just saying to maybe chill with being so combative with others who have differing views. We get enough of that off this site, ya know?

@Apunzelle it's a real simple question - do you understand the difference and it's implications?

@JeffMesser Dude, really, nobody cares. You’re on the wrong site for this. We DGAF about the nuances of Hinduism or any other religion or religious-like philosophy. 🤷♀️

@Apunzelle then you're just as blinded and close-minded as the christians you purport to dislike.

@JeffMesser Mmmmm, K. 😂

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If mythical beings are involved it is all religion to me. The main difference is that bible believers actually think that these beings will show up some day and take them to another place. They will live there and the ones who have died are already there if they believed.

"Yes, old Charlie is in Heaven now. It's strange though because I just saw them lower his body into the ground a few minutes ago."

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All religions have a burden of proof, they have to prove any of their gods are real. When they can prove a god is real, then we can talk about other things.

how does anything you said there make any sense vis a vis this conversation?

@JeffMesser
Before you can talk about any code of conduct, you have to prove the god it comes from is real.

@xenoview if it's a model and not considered causation then WHY would we need to prove it is real?

@JeffMesser
So it's okay to say the code comes from a god, without proof the god is real?

in eastern beliefs codes of conduct come from the vedas, not gods. the specific actions are located in the samhitas at the beginning which in the rig veda have practices going back as far as 75,000 years and the philosophy/ideas behind the actions are discussed in the upanishads or later in brahma sutras as people learn more.

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Thank you for posting this! Totally breaks down what I often try to explain and fail due to lack of ed on the subject. Cheers!

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An important distinction to learn as an atheist; all religion, spiritualism, mysticism, occultism, new thought, new age, intuitional religion etc is crap! Feelings, nothing more than feelings. 🙃

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Neither Western monotheist religions or Eastern mysticism/philosophy/religions interest me in the least, none of them are credible because they are not science or evidence based. You don’t need to believe in any philosophy or mysticism to understand that we need to look after the earth and all living things within. We are temporary custodians of our planet, and doing a damned bad job of looking after it at present. We need to fix this not by modelling our behaviour on Hindu deities or burning incense and meditating like Buddhists (both of which are most definitely religions), but by persuading our fellow humans to stop consuming and procreating, and just generally fucking everything up. The problems are all manmade, the solutions must be manmade too, deities and religions are just a distraction at best and an actual hindrance to humanity at worst,

why did you even bother to answer if you didnt read a thing said? make your own thread if you want a sounding board.

@JeffMesser I read it carefully...that is my reply,

@Marionville when you find a narrative that encompasses modern theoretical physics and biology and social psychology then I will give your argument the credence it deserves. As it stands the only one that does is advaita vedanta and I will stick with it.

@JeffMesser I don’t wish to argue...I just don’t agree with you on any point.

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Do these "ways of life" depend, acknowledge, or endorse the supernatural in any way? Do you need something they have in order to become better or something else? Are science and academia forced to acknowledge these "ways of life" as scientific or plausible? Are their teachings extremely evident in reality, fact, and science? What is the need for them, what is their purpose, and can we do without them? Are they easily discarded as man grows in knowledge? Are other fields just as much or more effective in creating these "virtues and values" apart from these "ways of life"?

nope. not supernatural. cause and effect,

@JeffMesser So, "nope" to everything I mentioned? And, you admit we don't need them?

@nogod4me go answer your own questions. you obviously think you have some point to make then just make it.

@JeffMesser evading is characteristic of believers. My point is we don't need these "ways of lies", Oops, I mean "ways of life", whether they are religions or not.

@nogod4me no evasion. I just don't want to answer your laundry list of bullshit baited questions. If you have an actual question then ask it ... otherwise just make your close-minded obtuse statement and move on.

@JeffMesser I already made the point: "My point is we don't need these "ways of lies", Oops, I mean "ways of life", whether they are religions or not."

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I agree with the spirit of what you are saying. Christianity wants you to BELIEVE, and if you don’t, woe be unto you! And damn it, you are SINFUL!

The eastern traditions want you to be aware, to attain Self-Realization, and to live in harmony, in peace and compassion.

I do think there is a religious side to eastern traditions though, especially to Hinduism. Maybe in every tradition there are those who blindly follow dogma, and others who actually experience.

even those little villages understand these are merely avatars. the idea of bhakti is to properly align your reality to the realities of the thing you seek.

are there those who blindly follow dogma? well sure. but that's not its' intent. It doesn't rely on faith for efficacy. thats pretty much the point.

@JeffMesser Are you saying that good might come even from blind faith?

@WilliamFleming yep. karma is created by all the things that surround the faith exhibited even if the true origins are misunderstood or even unknown. I used to think you had to understand, but you don't. I struggle to admit it's like strother martin telling paul newman that he needs to get his "mind right". the reality we create with our thoughts and our actions brings other aspects into our lives that affect us and those around us. I can show you literally dozens of avenues biologically, psychologically, socially, economically - such is the power of bhakti. For example: if you think about happiness all day long you will actually be more happy. and pleasant. and the more you do that the more happiness will occupy your base thoughts. it doesn't matter if you understand why or not. Who knows why a posi-trac read end works? it just does!

@JeffMesser Funny video. 🙂

I get what you are saying. I tend to be analytic—probably too much so for my own good sometimes. I have to try to figure everything out, but for some questions there are no answers. It just does.

@JeffMesser Eknath Easwaran, in his booklet on how to meditate recommends using the prayer of St. Francis as a mantra. I’ve never been a Catholic, and I’m not even a Christian by usual standards, yet there’s nothing in the prayer that greatly clashes with my views. I can see that it would make a great mantra, and I have in fact started using it.

I like Easwaran’s translations and interpretations very much.

@WilliamFleming you hafta be careful with easwaran's stuff. his translation of the Gita is heralded by many Hindus, but his work on the Upanishads is really biased and self-confirming. It's almost like Mueller's horribly biased translations of the vedas wherein certain views were intentionally suppressed to promote british imperialism over indian self-sufficiency. I actually started learning sanskrit myself to read isaupanishad and do my own translation because I found a completely different meaning than Eaknath. I've heard similar complaints from others. Not about his Gita translation though.

@JeffMesser I just finished his Gita version. What is your favorite translation of the Upanishads, well, other than your own? Are you going to publish your version?

@WilliamFleming me? LOL no way! Here is my new version of the upanishads ...
Jaget Mitthra
Brahman satyam
ayam atma brahma
prajnanam brahman
ayam prajnanam
aham brahmasmi

Now you know it all!!

As for the version I prefer? I would recommend reading the Vivekachudamani by Sri Shankara.

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No sorry, it all depend on how you define 'religion' , and if define it as most people on this site would I suspect do, as any belief system which includes an element of the supernatural, then they are all religions except perhaps Toaism to a degree. The difference you mean, is that between religion and theist religion, and even then Hinduism certainly falls into that group, though it may be polytheist rather than monotheist. It maybe that some who regards themselves as sophisticate Hindus, see the Hindu gods as only mythical beings with symbolic roles in philosophy, but that is also true of the Abrahamic god for some, but for the great majority of Hindus there is still much literal belief.

You're still missing the point in nt about cause and effdct.

@JeffMesser I am not very interested in the cause and effect issue, my only vcomments were on the isue of whether these belief systems are religions. However when it comes to Scopes trials, there is a growing anti-science and anti-history movement within the Hindu world, which has to be taken into account. [theguardian.com]

then you don't know what you're talking about when it comes to hinduism - both astika and nastika. I don't care if you don't choose to define it that way or not ... the eastern beliefs are based on cause and effect and not mysticism. it's that simple. the entire idea of karma is cause and effect. and there are no vendatics clamoring for "non-science" and "more religious".

@Fernapple case in point:

"The Indians came closest to modern ideas of atomism, quantum physics, and other current theories.

The Rig-Veda, is the first Indian literature to set down ideas resembling universal natural laws. Cosmic law is connected with cosmic light, with gods, and, later, specifically with Brahman. It was the Vedic Aryans... who gave the world some of the earliest philosophical texts on the makeup of matter and the theoretical underpinnings for the chemical makeup of minerals. Sanskrit Vedas from thousands of years before Christ implied that matter could not be created, and that the universe had created itself. Two thousand years before Pythagoras, philosophers in northern India had understood that gravitation held the solar system together, and that therefore the sun, the most massive object, had to be at its center." "Twenty-four centuries before Isaac Newton, the Hindu Rig-Veda asserted that gravitation held the universe together. The Sanskrit speaking Aryans subscribed to the idea of a spherical earth in an era when the Greeks believed in a flat one. The Indians of the fifth century A.D. calculated the age of the earth as 4.3 billion years; scientists in 19th century England were convinced it was 100 million years."

Dick Teresi, Lost Discoveries: The Ancient Roots of Modern Science

@JeffMesser So it does do cause and effect then.

6

Not sure what you are attempting to "explain", or why you seem to think
an explanation is necessary?
Nor what it is you seem to think the people on this site "believe".

Because it's silly to be ignorant first of all.

@JeffMesser That response doesn't answer anything.
Not sure exactly whom you're accusing of being "ignorant"??

@KKGator if you don't know what you're talking about then you'd be "ignorant" on the subject. I thought that was rather clear.

@JeffMesser Enjoy your circular "reasoning".

@KKGator you're the one admittedly without understanding yet you accuse me of a reasoning issue? why don't you guys get over your hate and actually LEARN something about the universe? So tired of this copout "your proof isn't enough to satisfy me so I believe in nothing. I have nothing else to offer, I am just a naysayer without knowledge."

@JeffMesser wow. Okay.

@JeffMesser Crumbs! Samskara really sprung from nowhere in there! Perhaps let moksha kick in and let samsara takes its course. Then you can be at peace for a while and not bother yourself wth any soteriolgical concerns

@Geoffrey51 word soup. moksha is the path to get away from samsara (rebirth).

@JeffMesser There was quite an attachment to KK’s response. I concede my Sanskrit is not up to it. I clearly need to learn.

@Geoffrey51 jagat mitthra. ayam brahmasmi.

@JeffMesser Tathaastu

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