Here are two passages from The Dhammapada, translated by F. Max Muller, from The Wisdom of China and India, edited by Lin Yutang. These comes from pages 327 and 329 of my copy published by the Modern Library.

"He who lives looking for pleasures only, his senses uncontrolled, immoderate in his food, idle, and week Mara (the tempter) will certainly overthrow him, as the wind throws down a weak tree. He who lives without looking for pleasures, his senses well controlled, moderate in his food, faithful and strong, him Mara will certainly now overthrow, any more than the wind throws down a rocky mountain."

Mara is the Hindu goddess of death.

"By earnestness did Maghavan (Indra) rise to the lordship of the gods."

Indra is the king of the Hindu gods and goddesses.

If you do a google search for Buddhism + gods you will find that Buddhism accepts a divine reality, but attributes less significance to this reality than do Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

In a somewhat similar manner, Confucius taught that one should worship the gods and goddesses in the traditional manner, but that one should not spend a lot of time speculating about them. Confucius thought temple services were very important, and edited The Book of Rites. This is one of the classics of Confucianism. Those taking the Imperial exam were expected to know it intimately.

 

I take it, then, that you were not taught Newtonian physics in college, but were taught that he was completely wrong, misguided, a fraud, a poseur.

 

Lol, when did I say that? Your facetiousness doesnt suit you Kimiko.

 

I think we should start a new science thread where we can discuss theoretical physics. A place where we can discuss M Theory. We could try and completely unify general relativity with quantum mechanics and work out the TOE. Imagine the guys n gals at CERN, if they were beat to the chase by some horny peeps on a porn forum. However I would say that as I'm a total geek !

 

I think we should just have a Big Bang

 

Wow.

 

that sounds Hot

 

The exciting bit lasts less than a second :excited:

 

i don't know if my religion allows this kind of thing

 

Cut's both ways, I think. There are those antitheists (word that was given to me by an atheist I was discussing this with) who pretty much act like any other given fundamentalist in that their way is the way, that anyone who doesn't follow their way is an idiot/doomed, and they must bring the truth to the unbelievers, yada yada yada.

The "Yes, Virgina," sign, for example is pretty much confrontational, the antitheist equivalent of, "Convert or burn in hell".

Compare it to the various other signs that are more indicative of actual support groups, who put up signs like, "Don't Believe? Come to X, We're Here to Talk". Which is not only a better way of actually communicating your message, but doesn't aggravate the people the message isn't trying to target.

 

Well, not everyone jumped on the Galileo bandwagon, but the Pope was on Galileo's side and it doesn't get much higher than that in the Catholic hierarchy. Galileo's problem was that he wasn't any good at politics. He insisted on pissing people off, and after awhile not even the Pope could cover for him any more.

It was less the Roman Catholic church trying to deny the advances of science and more a few well placed priests stoking their own egos.

 

If that were the case, it wouldn't have taken the Church hundreds of years to recant its position, would it?

Read the section entitled "Modern Church Views" in this link.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_affair

 

Lessee, admits to heliocentricity by the 1750s...

Pope overturns a ban on heliocentricity directly in the 1800s...

And then Ratzinger admits the entire thing was politically motivated anyway!

Embracing the science while pissing on the man is hardly the most hypocritical thing the Catholic church has ever done, though this case is particularly one of the more famous... That said, trying to use a stance the church held 300 years ago and got over 250 years ago to shame it today is a bit much, I think.

 

Sometimes I like to touch things.

 

yes

 

By the very definition of the word, atheism can not be a religion. It is a word used to describe those who refute a theistic view. Rebuttal, no matter how rabid, can not consitute a 'religion' by any stretch of the meaning.

However, most (if not all) atheists do have some kind of belief (whoooops, sorry Kimiko! ) . . . some way that they think this universe operates. Since the "discussion" seems to swirl primarily around the dogmatic religion-centric viewpoint being mercilessly hammered, the viewpoint of the atheist is often left unprobed. In my experience, most of the angry & militant atheists avoid making any kind of positive statement about how they think this universe operates - and I suspect it is because it puts them in a position to be refuted as well.

Could an athiest have a system of belief about the nature of things? Why not? Could it be organized in such a way as to constitute a "religion"? Sure, no problem. But, if there is such a thing going on today I'm afraid I've not encountered it.

 

I'll take a crack at it.

Simply put: only what can happen, does happen.

That explains everything in beautifully intricate simplicity doesn't it?

 

oh lordy, young one - that leaves more holes open than siamese twin whores!

 

MMmmmmm...Siamese twin whores.....