From: muttiah@thistle.ecn.purdue.edu (Ranjan S Muttiah)
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc
Subject: Re: Buddhism - A religion of atheists?
Date: 26 Jan 93 14:45:43 GMT
Organization: Purdue University Engineering Computer Network

In article <1993Jan26.013917.2382@nuscc.nus.sg> cmtan@iss.nus.sg (Tan Chade Meng - with Dan) writes:
>
>BUDDHISM - A RELIGION OF ATHEISTS?
>Is there such thing as an "atheist religion"?  Surprise!  I found the
>answer to be "yes".
>To my pleasant surprise, I found one religion which is without any of
>the ills.  One of the amazing things about this religion is that many
>of its followers, even among its clergy, are atheists!  This "atheist"
>religion is Buddhism.

To my surprise, one of the amazing things about this religion is that
many of the followers do the same things as all the other religions:
worship idols, make war.  In other words, as soon as it is called a
religion, it has all the trappings of _a_ religion.

>The First Noble Truth states that sufferings and pain exists, and it
>exists in every lifeform.  The Second Noble Truth explores the source
>of (psychological) Pain.  Such pain, according to Buddhism, is caused
>by the negative states of one's Mind: Greed, Hatred, Delusions,
>Ignorant Desires, Jealousy, Anger etc.  All these negative states of
>Mind torments the man and causes his experiences to be full of
>sufferings.  The Third Noble Truth tells of cessation of Pain.  Since
>Pain is caused by the negative states of Mind, the way to cease Pain
>would be to develop the Mind such that all these negative states would
>cease and be replaced by positive states of Mind like Peace, Love,
>Compassion, Kindness, Wisdom etc.  The Fourth Noble Truth, also known
>as the Eightfold Path, is a systematic method of developing positive
>states of the Mind.  It is a complete package of spiritual and mental
>training.

The Fifth untold Noble falsehood is that your negative states of mind
might be my positive state of mind i.e., you have a model for the mind
without even knowing whether it is true. Quite irrational :-).  May
be the mind needs pain to function.

>world where the believe in God is not encouraged.  It is also probably
>the only religion where followers are encouraged to scrutinize its
>teachings and blind faith is frowned upon.  Hence, it was able to avoid
>the dogmatism, Holy Wars and other evils that plagued all other
>religions.  It is one of very few religions with no conflicts with
>Science, even though it is much older than Christianity and Islam.
>Indeed, Buddhism has more *positive* impact on modern psychology, for
>example, than any religion has on any field of science.

That's because Buddhism never enjoyed a power status.  Power corrupts.

>Einstein once said, "If there is any religion that would cope with
>modern scientific needs it would be Buddhism ..... [Buddhism] has the
>characteristics of what would be expected in a cosmic religion for the
>future: it transcends a personal God, avoids dogmas and theology; it
>covers both the natural and the spiritual, and it is based on a
>religious sense aspiring from the experience of all things, natural and
>spiritual, as a meaningful unity."

Sorry but it still assumes a model without knowing it to be true.
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