A question for people who believe in Moral Absolutes

The majority of people who live in countries with large numbers of practicing Buddhists live in abject poverty, apart from India, where the numbers of people living in poverty are still extremely high in comparison to the West. Keep up.

In comparison to the activities of Christians and Muslims, your saintly "western" Buddhists are an insignificant number.

Yeah, JL, compare that to a real missionary like Setanta who went to Vietnam to help deliver those people to the hereafter. What a saint, huh?

Ad hominem is cheap.
I think you could transcend your vilification tactics given sufficient understanding.

Unless you carefully craft it like you do, right, Matt?

Setanta, incredibly, defends what he and the USA did in Vietnam and SE Asia. What understanding might be needed to change that?

I admit that I seem to be one of them, would you share with us what you think it is?

I have only seen a few of his videos but just as I think of yourself I also think he sees thing that I have not yet.

Maybe I have it all wrong but I try to push an idea of understanding morality somewhat opposite of how I think the Monte Hall problem should be observed to better understand it. The Monte hall problem is best understood for me by adding many doors and I think morality should be viewed somewhat the opposite meaning that we should start out as simple as possible and expand out using logical consistencies.

As I understand the word, upaya, it means skillful means, i.e, methods of bringing people to the realization of their own nature. I'm not aware of special relevance it may have for discussions of morality.

You seem to have a special skill for doing double posts, JL. Don't the hamsters get on your case?

I've never thought of Buddhism as an economic program.
What's the point of your reference to the number of "western" Buddhists?

This has been a problem for years. It happens mainly, I think, when I double-click. Not sure.

I don't care in what manner you think of Buddhism. It is a commonplace, as can be seen in these fora, that Buddhists speak of themselves as "enlightened," and often purport to be superior to other religions, including denying that it is a religious practices. Buddhists have no greater claim to "enlightenment" than any other religious superstition, and Buddhists have far less of a claim moral superiority than the religions who do enjoin their members to charitable works. The point about the number of Buddhists in the West is that the numbers are insignificant--for example, considerably less than one half of one percent of the population of the United States. So, even were every Buddhists in the United States an "engaged" Buddhist, that number would pale into insignificance when compared to the number of Catholics and Lutherans, for example--two groups who devote tens of millions of dollars per year (you know, almost as much as that pig the Dalai Lama gets each year in donations?) to charitable works, and do not require confessional adherence on the part of the beneficiaries.

The only thing i've been able to find online about your "engaged" Buddhists is that they work for world peace. While that is a laudable goal, it doesn't fill any undernourished bellies, a crying need of those parts of Asia where Buddhists predominate. It doesn't seem to have been very effective, either. The Sinhalese and the Tamils, both Buddhist adherents, slaughtered one another with reckless abandon for 30 years and more. Either your "engaged" western Buddhists failed to notice, or were embarrassingly ineffective in dealing with the slaughter of Buddhists by Buddhists.

I suspect that "engaged" Buddhism is just another example of the typical self-congratulatory character of Buddhists.

But buddhism is not a religion. If you think it is, you misunderstand.



See now, this is just plain ignorance when you think about it.
While working for world peace might not fill any bellies, you can be damn sure that depriving nations of resources, keeping them in perpetual poverty while we get richer, will ensure that those bellies don't get properly nourished any time soon. Western charity is a laughable affair. With one hand we take everything, and with the other we turn around and give back just enough that they survive.

So yes, those Catholics and Lutherans cannot hold a candle on anyone who has taken stock of the situation instead of rambling on in their familiar tracks. And doing so is not a religious act of any kind. But it is in keeping with the ideals that form the buddhist philosophy.

You may choose to quibble about the word religion, but it certainly is a superstition just as are the superstitions which are honest enough to call themselves religions.

Perhaps you can outline for me what western countries are taking from nations in which Buddhism is significantly large, or the predominant "religion." (There, i put it in quotes, just for you.) Be specific, please--vague bromides about the excellence of Buddhism is precisely what i am criticizing, and the basis of the hypocrisy which makes me despise them. Before the Chinese invasion of 1950, the poor of Tibet had the food which might have filled their undernourished bellies taken to feed tens of thousands of worthless monks, those who contributed nothing to society. If anyone here needs to get out of mental rut, it's you.

By the way, when i mentioned Catholic Social Services and Lutheran Social Services, i was referring to the tens of millions of dollars in aid which they provide to the needy in the United States each year. That kind of shoots your vague maundering about western exploitation right out of the water.

Set, I too have always been underwhelmed by much of the culture of Tibetan Buddhism. It has what I see as a strong superstition component and its theocratic character is, to me, undesireable. But capitalism is far worse despite its strengths.
With regard to Buddhism as a psycho-spiritual-philosophical approach to our existential situation I'm sorry that you totally fail to see what it has to offer. Sorry for your sake, not Buddhism's.

It's happiness that doesn't depend on causes and conditions.

Let me add to this a statement to me by Cyracuz in the forum on identity:

"JL.
In this thread, when I say religion, I mean it in the re-ligare, -return to a sense of connection, sense of the word. The rest, the organized religions and sects, I see as political organizations. The very thought of organizing religion defeats the purpose of religion, as I see it."

Interesting juxtaposition, JL...and in my opinion, one worthy of serious consideration. Arguably there are similarities between the driving forces of an advocacy for a particular religion over others…and the driving forces of an advocacy for capitalism over other economic systems.

Don’t think I’ve ever seen this presented this way…but it made an impression.

It has nothing to offer that any other religion has to offer, and it has no better basis for what it offers than any other religion. It certainly is no loss of mine that you cannot see that.

Knowing that you love Buddhism I appreciate that you are nonetheless still able to criticize it. In my eyes meditation is one of Buddhism strengths, the sort of clear your mind from noise advise that I give myself when trying to think on something more deeply...