The idea that Buddhism rejects belief in gods is a misconception of Westerners who lose their Christian faith, but feel the need for some sort of religion in their life. Buddhism emerged from Hinduism. The holy writings of Buddhism frequently mention Hindu gods.

These are a few passages from The Dhammapada. I am taking them from The Wisdom of China and India, edited by Lin Yutang.

"He who lives looking for pleasures only, his senses uncontrolled, immoderate in his food, idle, and weak, Mara (the tempter) will certainly overthrow him, as the wind throws down a weak tree."

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

"He who, seeking his own happiness, punishes or kills beings who also long for happiness will not find happiness after death." [This of course implies the existence of life after death.]

"The uncharitable do not go to the world of the gods."

Mara and Indra are Hindu deities.

The Dhammapada is only one of many Buddhist writings. It not only asserts the existence of a super natural reality, it has passages like this, "We live happily indeed, not hating whose who hate us! among men who hate us we dwell from hatred."

If you visit the inside of Buddhist temples you will notice statues of Buddhist deities.

 

How do we disagree about science and history?

 

a concise explanation of religion

Religion is millennia old and so to understand why we have religion you have to understand why it was created all those years ago.

The answer to this is fear. Fear of the unknown and fear of death. Man had fuck all idea of what the world was like or what made it tick and death has always scared people for very good reasons.

So religion was the panacea to all that fear. A comforting explanation to life's mysteries and reassurance that death isn't the end.

Clever people soon understood that with religion comes power and they used religion to gain that power and increase their power. It's the same with any dictatorship (communism, Nazism, Roman Catholic papacy) people with ambition and lust for power get to the top and enjoy their superiority at the expense of others. Wars then ensue due to personal desires, whether that be for wealth or fame.

Yes people do get comfort from religion but it is a bit like taking a tranquilliser, designed to take the edge off reality. I honestly believe that people who do good in the name of religion would be the kind of people who would do good without it.

So no, I don't think religion is worth the pain it causes.

Be brave accept you only have this one life and do the very best you can with it just for the sake of doing what is good and right, not to please some imaginary God. :rose:

 

Top post Yaz :rose:

 

You have some theories on biology which I do not share. For history, this thread raises a couple of points.

We will save that discussion for another thread, this one is about religion.

 

+1

 

Yaz is smarter than he looks..

 

They already know, if they bother to read any news reports. Al-Qa'eda was an supporter of the US up until the point where bin Laden's offer to relieve Kuwait was turned down in favour of American involvement. He only started to hate Americans after that point.

 

His hate got him dead...

 

I find it ironic that despite all the bashing the Christian faith
takes it's always their relief organizations that are first
on the scene in cases of natural disasters. I know this
from being born,raised,and still living in "tornado alley".
The Salvation Army and Catholic Relief Services are always
there when other groups are still standing around with a
thumb up their collective ass getting "organized". I'm
quite sure that NO ONE who had not had food or water
for a couple of days in some cases would refuse a food
parcel or bottle of water from a "Nazi Catholic" I'm
convinced that not even the delicate sensibilities of
religion haters would preclude them from accepting said
aid from a group of "Nazis".

 

One does not hear about charities and hospitals established by atheists.

 

Like Stephen Jay Gould you use evolution as a stick to beat Protestant Fundamentalists with, but you ignore the evolutionary implications of evidence that individuals differ profoundly in terms of innate ability levels, personality, and character, and that racial groups differ as profoundly in terms of average innate ability levels, personality, and character.

Attacks on Charles Murray resemble Fundamentalist attacks on Charles Darwin in their anger and in their refusal to recognize obvious facts. This anger indicates clandestine agreement. People do not get angry when beliefs they are confident of are questioned.

 

or maybe you and many others block your ears and eyes and only hear/see what you wish to see.
http://www.squidoo.com/Atheist-Charities

Although I guess that you've never heard of the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation either. Bill Gates isn't that well known really so I wouldn't expect you to know about him or his foundation.

I'll wish you a pleasant goodnight from me and hopefully you'll open your ears and eyes a little bit.

 

can we get some stars going on this thread.:excited:

i think i have opened a can or worms and got no answer

 

I don't dispute that genetics play a part in intelligence, I don't dispute that different racial demographics on average score differently on IQ tests. I don't dispute that some racial demographics are more involved in some types of crime than others.

However, personality and character is at the very least as much down to the environment as it is our DNA. There is a much tighter correlation between poverty and crime in the world, than there is race and crime. It just so happens that wealth is not evenly distributed between demographics leading to an overlap of data.

You haven't described to me a compelling biological mechanism explaining a genetic predisposition among certain races that cause certain behaviours. Or why it may be more prevalent in some races than others. That doesn't mean there isn't one. But there are a lot of other factors which you are quick to disregard. Centuries of culture for example.

 

I could just be ignorant here. This is not in my field of science. There may well be science agreeing or disagreeing with you. But it is not an area I take much interest in.

 

Quite a few countries with much lower per capita gross domestic products than the United States have much lower murder rates also.

https://www.cia.gov/library/publica...hina&countryCode=ch&regionCode=eas&rank=27#ch

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

Inequality is a third factor that should be considered. China has a lower per capita gross domestic product, than the United States, more economic inequality, and a much lower murder rate.

https://www.cia.gov/library/publica...hina&countryCode=ch&regionCode=eas&rank=27#ch

In the United States Orientals have low crime rates even when they are poor. I am confident that it is the same way internationally.

--------

"The notion that economic deprivation necessarily leads to lawlessness is widely believed but is not supported by empirical evidence. Human history is replete with examples of impoverished people—of all racial and ethnic backgrounds—who have endured extreme poverty without descending into criminal activity. During the 1960s, for instance, the residents of San Francisco's Chinatown were among America's poorest people—with the most unemployment, the worst housing conditions, the least education, and the highest rate of tuberculosis in their city. Yet despite such hardships, only five people of Chinese ancestry went to jail in the entire state of California in 1965."

- James Q. Wilson and Richard Herrnstein, Crime and Human Nature (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1985), p. 473.

Jews also have low crime rates, even when they are poor.

"The majority of these immigrants had arrived penniless, all their worldly belongings wrapped in a bundle.... Most of [them] arrived in New York. Some made their way into other cities,... but the majority remained in New York, settling in the Lower East Side of Manhattan, [which was] a neighborhood of the poor. Sociologists, with their impressive charts showing the number of toilets (or lack of the), the number of people per room, the low per capita income, paint a dismal picture of the Lower East Side Jewish slum. But their charts do not capture its uniqueness. Though it bred tuberculosis and rheumatism, it did not breed crime and venereal disease. It did not spawn illiteracy, illegitimate children, or deserted wives. Library cards were in constant use."

- Max I. Dimont, Jews, God, and History (New York: Penguin USA, 1994), pp. 373-374.

http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/viewSubCategory.asp?id=1636

 

I have posted scientific evidence that agrees with me about the relationship between race, intelligence, and crime. Because my interest is in political science, I do take an interest in it.

 

Different races have evolved for thousands of years in different environments. These different environments have not only selected these different races for cosmetic differences, but for differences in ability levels and behavior. A paleolithic way of life does value superior intelligence, or the human intelligence would not have increased so dramatically during the six millions years since we separated from chimpanzees. However, it values intelligence less than it values physical ability and aggressiveness.

In civilized nations those who are more physically aggressive are gradually removed from the gene pool by criminal justice systems, while those who are more intelligent tend to be more prosperous, and consequently more prolific.

This explains why racial groups that have emerged more recently from a paleolithic way of live have lower average IQs, and higher murder rates.

Culture seems more important in effecting crime and sexual behavior than IQ levels. Even here racial differences are evident. In the United States rates of crime increased from 1960 to 1980, and have been declining since. Rates of violent crime increased from 1960 to 1991 and have been declining since. Nevertheless, blacks have always had a much higher crime rate than whites.

In the United States illegitimacy rates have increased dramatically since 1960. Here again blacks have always had a much higher rate than whites.

Scores on various mental aptitude tests have changed much less over the years, but a significant race gap has always been obvious. Although the mental aptitude tests were developed by and for whites, Orientals tend to do better than whites.

 

Bill Gates on Religion

You win half a debate point. Bill Gates is an agnostic, rather than an atheist.

------

Gates was interviewed November 1995 on PBS by David Frost. Below is the transcript with minor edits.

Frost: Do you believe in the Sermon on the Mount?

Gates: I don't. I'm not somebody who goes to church on a regular basis. The specific elements of Christianity are not something I'm a huge believer in. There's a lot of merit in the moral aspects of religion. I think it can have a very very positive impact.

Frost: I sometimes say to people, do you believe there is a god, or do you know there is a god? And, you'd say you don't know?

Gates: In terms of doing things I take a fairly scientific approach to why things happen and how they happen. I don't know if there's a god or not, but I think religious principles are quite valid.
http://www.celebatheists.com/wiki/Bill_Gates