Atheists... Your life is pointless

However, I don't seem to have much trouble finding love among members of the opposite sex.

Compassion is a strength, not a weakness.

The reduction of injustice since Pagan times is a measure of Christianity's success in that regard but getting rid of injustice altogether, which is where the sophistry of Setanta's question comes in, is a long way off.

FBM wrote:

The problem for me is that with religion as the placebo, there are people so addicted to it that they demand that the rest of the world believe that the placebo is real medicine, and that those who don't use it - because they don't need it - are bad people deserving death and damnation. Furthermore, they want to prevent people from using anything else but their brand of placebo, again, punishable by death and damnation. I have a problem with those people not because they're using the placebo, but because they're hostile and aggressive to the rest of us.

Of course should that happen then it would be reprehensible and you'd be right to condemn it seemingly in my opinion. What's important is what the Buddha taught and why because that may well be the best criteria on which Buddhism should be judged.

Of course if we don't 'fully' understand what the Buddha taught and why then our opinions may just be mistaken but for those uninterested in such things then of course... that is as it should be.

Nothing transcendental or cosmic about it at that level of understanding. Just training the mind, replacing unskilled thinking habits with more effective ones. Not too terribly different from Cognitive Behavior Therapy, except in terminology, imagery, etc.

Exactly. You have hit the nail on the head.

Quote:

Nothing transcendental or cosmic about it at that level of understanding. Just training the mind, replacing unskilled thinking habits with more effective ones. Not too terribly different from Cognitive Behavior Therapy, except in terminology, imagery, etc.

But only at those times when the TV cameras are on.

Check out the cognitive behaviour patterns in Lola's Coffee-House but have a few tissues by you to mop up overflowing saliva.

With regard to "Western Buddhism" I think the concept most popularized starting with Herman Hess is that of Atman is Brahman.
The "self" is coextensive with the "divine self".
This is an understanding flowing into some Buddhists teachings which originated in the Hindu Vedanta tradition.
As I said before:
Show me what your "God" looks like, and I will show you how you wish "you" were.

...When they are seen & heard,
people are called by this name or that,
but only the name remains
to be pointed to
when they are dead.