I am a Buddhist and if anyone wants to question my beliefs then they are welcome to do so...

@FBM,

FBM wrote:

I'm not so sure it's so black-or-white, joe. In my experience with [Buddhism], there is definitely a religious aspect which attracts a great number of people. However, there's a philosophical side that attracts others who are less interested in using it as a religion than as a practical, applied philosophy for self-development.

The same could be said of Roman Catholicism, Judaism, and several other religions. If somebody was to ask you if Judaism is a religion, would you answer, "I'm not so sure it's so black and white"?

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@joefromchicago,

I'm involved in Buddhist philosophy, but I don't treat it as a religion. I don't revere the Buddha as an infallible, superhuman being, but I recognize - through direct experience - how the mental training has beneficial effects on my life experience.

With regards to insisting that something so complex must fit into one and only one (mental) category, your reference to alcohol is right on target. If you use it to relax a bit after a hard day's work and make your life experience better, no sweat. If you use it to escape from reality, it's a problem. Buddhism, like alcohol, is just a tool. If you decide to use it, you can either use it wisely to your benefit, or abuse it unwisely to your harm.

Incidentally, black-or-white thinking is characteristic of the adolescent stage of mental development. As one gets older, one becomes more aware of the wider range of possibilities. I'm not suggesting that you are at an adolescent stage of mental development; I'm just suggesting that you might find it more rewarding to recognize the complexity of the question and the range of possibilities, rather than insisting on an easy, black-or-white answer.

For example, are economics and psychology correctly regarded as sciences or as humanities? There's a great deal of overlap in both cases. Seems to me that the better approach would be to forget about labelling them and instead just work with the direction they're going.

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@Thomas,

Each of those religions requires blind belief in metaphysical assertions made for which there is no empirical evidence. Buddhist philosophy (non-Mahayana) doesn't require blind belief, but instead points in a direction of direct inquiry and experience.

Don't get me wrong, there is a great deal of anachronistic error in the Pali Canon. I was reading in the Majjima Nikaya today where the Buddha asserted that there were gods (small 'g', not a Supreme Creator god), but that doesn't pose a problem for me because that's what people believed back then, and it didn't occupy a position as one of his core teachings. In other words, it was trivial in context. I wouldn't reject Newton's explanations of gravity just because he was also an alchemist. You take the good and ignore the bad. Call it cherry picking if you like, but it's what we've done throughout Western history. Linus Pauling had some great achievements, but he was seriously deluded. Should we throw away everything that he said just because he had these weird ideas about Vitamin C?

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@FBM,

FBM wrote:

Each of those religions requires blind belief in metaphysical assertions made for which there is no empirical evidence.

That's not the impression I generally get from talking to Jews. To be sure, the ones I talked to were theologically liberal. But then, nobody ever asserted that only conservative and hassidic Jews are genuinely religious.

FBM wrote:

Linus Pauling had some great achievements, but he was seriously deluded. Should we throw away everything that he said just because he had these weird ideas about Vitamin C?

Of course not, but I don't see how that's relevant to the broader question. Linus Paulings ideas about Vitamin C were certainly mistaken. But they were not supernatural, and therefore not religious.

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@FBM,

FBM wrote:

I'm involved in Buddhist philosophy, but I don't treat it as a religion. I don't revere the Buddha as an infallible, superhuman being, but I recognize - through direct experience - how the mental training has beneficial effects on my life experience.

So then it's not a religion.

FBM wrote:

Incidentally, black-or-white thinking is characteristic of the adolescent stage of mental development. As one gets older, one becomes more aware of the wider range of possibilities. I'm not suggesting that you are at an adolescent stage of mental development; I'm just suggesting that you might find it more rewarding to recognize the complexity of the question and the range of possibilities, rather than insisting on an easy, black-or-white answer.

Well, then I suppose saying that "everything is complex" is characteristic of the evasive stage of mental development. The fact is that such black-and-white distinctions are common because they're useful. They are, after all, categories, and categories help us understand how the world works. If Buddhism doesn't fit into the category of "religion," then it is, ipso facto, not a religion. I'm not sure we gain a more sophisticated understanding of Buddhism by stating that it is sorta' like a religion.

FBM wrote:

For example, are economics and psychology correctly regarded as sciences or as humanities?

They're social sciences.

1 Reply

@joefromchicago,

Joe, I agree with FBM. The more I read your thoughts the more it seems that you are a strict absolutist, in fact I suspect you are the product of a Catholic education. Things are either black or they are white, rarely grey, unless they are a single absolute grey ("pure grey" not both black and white) and unreal if they are in the process of changing. And perhaps the only paradoxical "truth" is that of the Holy Trinity.

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@joefromchicago,

Joe, keep in mind that the world does not consist of categories; the mind consists of categories.

1 Reply

@JLNobody,

JLNobody wrote:

And perhaps the only paradoxical "truth" is that of the Holy Trinity.

The trinity is not a truth; it's nonsense, a contradiction in terms.

For what it's worth, I consider Buddhism a religion and thus disagree with joefromchicago on this point. But I emphatically agree with him that Buddhism can't be both a religion and not a religion. To suggest that it can isn't a sign of maturity as you want to make us believe. Rather, it's evasive and intellectually fuzzy.

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@JLNobody,

JLNobody wrote:

Joe, I agree with FBM. The more I read your thoughts the more it seems that you are a strict absolutist, in fact I suspect you are the product of a Catholic education. Things are either black or they are white, rarely grey, unless they are a single absolute grey ("pure grey" not both black and white) and unreal if they are in the process of changing. And perhaps the only paradoxical "truth" is that of the Holy Trinity.

I'm not sure what a "strict absolutist" is, but if you're saying that I think that some questions actually have yes-or-no answers, then I agree with you. Granted, that probably makes you a strict absolutist too, so it's not a very exclusive club and it certainly isn't solely the product of a Catholic education.

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@JLNobody,

JLNobody wrote:

Joe, keep in mind that the world does not consist of categories; the mind consists of categories.

On that point I agree with you. But that's purely irrelevant, unless you're willing to say that nothing that appears in the world can be placed into categories.

1 Reply

@Thomas,

Thomas wrote:

For what it's worth, I consider Buddhism a religion and thus disagree with joefromchicago on this point.

Well, I haven't made up my mind on that point. I'm inclined to view Buddhism as a non-religion, simply because it eschews any metaphysical teleology (I'd lump it in the same category as Confucianism), but I don't claim to know enough about Buddhism to arrive at any kind of firm conclusion. That's why I asked the question here.

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@Thomas,

I think that Buddhism can have characteristics of "a religion" and characteristics of a philosophy and a psychology, depending on how we construct those categories. I don't think it matters in practice. As Frank might say it simply is what it is and does what it does.
I believe, of course, in the intellectual value of paradoxes, and I can't see much value in the notion of The Trinity. But that does not deny that it can have value for others. Notice I use the term "value" rather than "truth". The latter is very problematical for me. I see no truths in the world; I only see our positive and negative evaluations of propositions according to criteria of our making.

Idea

The world is fuzzy. Rolling Eyes

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Joe says "I'm not sure what a "strict absolutist" is, but if you're saying that I think that some questions actually have yes-or-no answers, then I agree with you."
O.K. By "strict" absolutists I meant, hyperbolically, one who thinks that ALL questions have yes-or-no answers. I see such a tendency in you, but only a tendency--as a doctor once told me to my relief.

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@JLNobody,

JLNobody wrote:

O.K. By "strict" absolutists I meant, hyperbolically, one who thinks that ALL questions have yes-or-no answers. I see such a tendency in you, but only a tendency--as a doctor once told me to my relief.

Then your impression is mistaken. Not all questions have yes-or-no answers, but Buddhism is either a religion or it's not. I don't know how something can be kinda' a religion.

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@joefromchicago,

Simple. Buddhism contains multiple versions; it is not a cultural monolith. It may be seen to have properties--at least versions of it do--that fit into some conceptions of the category, "religion", and it may be seen to have properties that don't fit into such categorical conceptions.

1 Reply

@Thomas,

Thomas wrote:

FBM wrote:
Each of those religions requires blind belief in metaphysical assertions made for which there is no empirical evidence.

That's not the impression I generally get from talking to Jews. To be sure, the ones I talked to were theologically liberal. But then, nobody ever asserted that only conservative and hassidic Jews are genuinely religious.

Judaism requires a blind belief in the existence of a god.

Quote:

FBM wrote:
Linus Pauling had some great achievements, but he was seriously deluded. Should we throw away everything that he said just because he had these weird ideas about Vitamin C?

Of course not, but I don't see how that's relevant to the broader question. Linus Paulings ideas about Vitamin C were certainly mistaken. But they were not supernatural, and therefore not religious.

Doesn't matter whether or not it was religious. I could have used Gregor Mendel as an example. It was just an example of how a single person can do both logically solid and verifiable work while at the same time holding onto traditional beliefs for which there is no supportive evidence.

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@joefromchicago,

joefromchicago wrote:

JLNobody wrote:

Joe, keep in mind that the world does not consist of categories; the mind consists of categories.

On that point I agree with you. But that's purely irrelevant, unless you're willing to say that nothing that appears in the world can be placed into categories.

This seems to be another example of the all-or-nothing, black-or-white thinking. Nobody to my knowledge has suggested that "nothing that appears in the world can be placed into categories." Some things can be more easily categorized than others. A watermelon is a berry, not a reptile. Easy.

Is light a particle or a wave? Depends on which test you run. Categories are a product of the human mind. The rest of the world is under no obligation to conform to it. Rather the other way around, seems.

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@JLNobody,

JLNobody wrote:

The world is fuzzy.

That may be true, but it does not mean that our thinking about the world has to be fuzzy as well.

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@Thomas,

Thomas wrote:

JLNobody wrote:
The world is fuzzy.

That may be true, but it does not mean that our thinking about the world has to be fuzzy as well.

Actually, yes it does, for the brain is made of the same stuff as the rest of the world. Wink

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Fallacy: False Dilemma

Also Known as: Black & White Thinking.

Description of False Dilemma

A False Dilemma is a fallacy in which a person uses the following pattern of "reasoning":

Either claim X is true or claim Y is true (when X and Y could both be false).
Claim Y is false.
Therefore claim X is true.
This line of "reasoning" is fallacious because if both claims could be false, then it cannot be inferred that one is true because the other is false. That this is the case is made clear by the following example:

Either 1+1=4 or 1+1=12.
It is not the case that 1+1=4.
Therefore 1+1=12.
In cases in which the two options are, in fact, the only two options, this line of reasoning is not fallacious. For example:

Bill is dead or he is alive.
Bill is not dead.
Therefore Bill is alive.
Examples of False Dilemma

Senator Jill: "We'll have to cut education funding this year."
Senator Bill: "Why?"
Senator Jill: "Well, either we cut the social programs or we live with a huge deficit and we can't live with the deficit."
Bill: "Jill and I both support having prayer in public schools."
Jill: "Hey, I never said that!"
Bill: "You're not an atheist are you Jill?"
"Look, you are going to have to make up your mind. Either you decide that you can afford this stereo, or you decide you are going to do without music for a while."

http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/false-dilemma.html

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I am a Buddhist and if anyone wants to question my beliefs then they are welcome to do so...

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