Atheism as a religion

[Rara]

 

Who really cares?

 

Most care, but usually only for the pack solely for self defense and procreation; but there are a rare few jem's who elevate them selves from this state of consciousness, to think of others and consider the bigger picture. Mostly it depends on birth circumstances, relating to the past and possible futures.

 

Theology is an out growth of this same dark energy; the deva are our emotions, they were there before we could label and pigeon hole them into any polytheistic doctrine.

Yes...I realise actually what I should have said is, why should people care so much?

[Rara]

They do believe in gods though ... and demons and stuff. At least that's religious canon.

 

Yes, lots branches/sects - and definitely many supernatural ideas.

 

The new kadampa guys that I spent some time with didn't like to talk about a god in the sky, and worked more with what I saw as psychology in their meditation classes. Deeper in the texts though, I then started to see some very wacky statements, especially about enlightened people.

 

Their marketing is quite sinister...they draw people in with what looks like nice, ordinary, sensible self help and community building and then a few month later it's "oh this is the book we believe in by the way"...and it all just becomes a circus show from there on.

 

I still didn't see any explicit god emphasis though, but they are ritualistic in the same way as other religious groups. Atheism doesn't have such ritualistic practices either way.

Edited October 27, 2014 by Rara

[Rara]

Before I go, just spent a good 20 minutes trying to find this film clip! It pretty much sums the silly debate up for me:

 

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/an-VrbMb22tmhbbbu/hot_fuzz_2007_town_meeting/

 

Marblehead won't find it funny though. It's British humour.

[iain]

Brilliant; I burst out laughing at the sight of the title!

[iain]

Maybe the best thing to do when someone asks you what religion you're is to just remain silent.

I'm now considering a vow of silence myself; before my mantra gets me into any serious trouble ...

[ThisLife]

 

Yes, lots branches/sects - and definitely many supernatural ideas.

 

The new kadampa guys that I spent some time with didn't like to talk about a god in the sky, and worked more with what I saw as psychology in their meditation classes. Deeper in the texts though, I then started to see some very wacky statements, especially about enlightened people.

 

Their marketing is quite sinister...they draw people in with what looks like nice, ordinary, sensible self help and community building and then a few month later it's "oh this is the book we believe in by the way"...and it all just becomes a circus show from there on.

 

I still didn't see any explicit god emphasis though, but they are ritualistic in the same way as other religious groups. Atheism doesn't have such ritualistic practices either way.

 

.

 

Rara,

 

I didn't realise you spent time with "the new kadampa guys" as well. I was part of that organisation for many years. To say that my experiences there were personally eye-opening and life-modifying, would be to make much more than a simple understatement.

 

From initially being a joyful member of an energetic, hard-working group of people intensely focussed on the Boddhisattva's ideal of 'becoming a Buddha for the benefit of all living beings',.... I watched the hierarchy transform the direction of the entire organisation until eventually, its only focus was expansion. "An NKT temple in every major city of the world" became the organisation's actual mantra. Awareness of what was happening was so curtailed by strict adherence to a twisted form of guru devotion, that right now they are sending their monks out in their hundreds to stalk the Dalai Lama's talks and shout out hurtful speech, divisive speech, and try to make so much noise with loud hailers that his Tibetan devotees cannot hear his teachings. All done under the smokescreen of a false, non-existent organisation's name created to protect their reputation as supposedly 'practising Buddhists.'

 

This whole slide from Boddhisattva ideal to guru cult, took place in less than twenty years. I was so profoundly disillusioned by my experience of this subverting of peoples' faith that I found myself drawn to a completely different view in hopes of understanding and rectifying the self-evident flaws in this Western interpretation of 'guru devotion'. For me, Non-Duality teachings that I came across from Richard Sylvester, did that job the best for me. I'll copy and paste an extract from one of his Question and Answer talks below, which for me seemed to be the best explanation of what I saw and experienced during my many years with this group.

 

*

*

 

{Q} : Your book says that there is no method for becoming enlightened. In that case, could it be said that every so-called 'master' who claims to be enlightened and who gives people a method to become enlightened, is not really enlightened himself? Or if they are enlightened, why do they give people these methods?

 

 

 

{A} : Enlightenment, or liberation as I prefer to call it, is only seen when the person falls away. It is seen impersonally, and this impersonal seeing can never have anything to do with any person. Therefore there can be no such thing as an enlightened master. Anyone who describes himself in this way is automatically disqualifying himself from having anything authentic to say on the subject.

 

However, people who think or believe that they are enlightened are often tempted to give methods to others. There are several reasons for this. For example, some so-called enlightenment methods are very helpful to people psychologically and are taught out of goodwill. Some methods may be given simply as a response to so many people desiring a method and requesting one because it can be very difficult to disappoint people and send them away empty-handed. It can be much easier to fulfil people's desire for help, hope and meaning.

 

If the master runs an ashram or other community, giving techniques for people to practise can also be an effective form of crowd control. Groups of people living together without enough to do tend to get up to all kinds of shenanigans. Devotees who are kept busy meditating, chanting and performing voluntary work for the guru for many hours a day while being fed a diet of rice and lentils are unlikely to have much time or energy for making mischief.

 

And let's not ignore the fact that selling people methods for becoming enlightened can sometimes be a very good business, as a brief time spent on the internet will show.

 

*

Edited October 28, 2014 by ThisLife

[Marblehead]

Before I go, just spent a good 20 minutes trying to find this film clip! It pretty much sums the silly debate up for me:

 

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/an-VrbMb22tmhbbbu/hot_fuzz_2007_town_meeting/

 

Marblehead won't find it funny though. It's British humour.

Yep. The whole thing went right over the top.

[Marblehead]

I'm now considering a vow of silence myself; before my mantra gets me into any serious trouble ...

I am not well known for keeping my mouth shut.

[Rara]

 

.

 

Rara,

 

I didn't realise you spent time with "the new kadampa guys" as well. I was part of that organisation for many years. To say that my experiences there were personally eye-opening and life-modifying, would be to make much more than merely a simple understatement.

 

From initially being a joyful member of an energetic, hard-working group of people intensely focussed on the Boddhisattva's ideal of 'becoming a Buddha for the benefit of all living beings',.... I watched the hierarchy transform the direction of the entire organisation until eventually, its only focus was expansion. "An NKT temple in every major city of the world" became the organisation's actual mantra. Awareness of what was happening was so curtailed by strict adherence to a twisted form of guru devotion, that right now they are sending their monks out in their hundreds to stalk the Dalai Lama's talks and shout out hurtful speech, divisive speech, and try to make so much noise with loud hailers that his Tibetan devotees cannot hear his teachings. All done under the smokescreen of a false, non-existent organisation's name created to protect their reputation as supposedly 'practising Buddhists.'

 

This whole slide from Boddhisattva ideal to guru cult, took place in less than twenty years. I was so profoundly disillusioned by my experience of this subverting of peoples' faith that I found myself drawn to a completely different view in hopes of understanding and rectifying the self-evident flaws in this Western interpretation of 'guru devotion'. For me, Non-Duality teachings that I came across from Richard Sylvester, did that job the best for me. I'll copy and paste an extract from one of his Question and Answer talks below, which for me seemed to be the best explanation of what I saw and experienced during my many years with this group.

 

*

*

 

{Q} : Your book says that there is no method for becoming enlightened. In that case, could it be said that every so-called 'master' who claims to be enlightened and who gives people a method to become enlightened, is not really enlightened himself? Or if they are enlightened, why do they give people these methods?

 

 

 

{A} : Enlightenment, or liberation as I prefer to call it, is only seen when the person falls away. It is seen impersonally, and this impersonal seeing can never have anything to do with any person. Therefore there can be no such thing as an enlightened master. Anyone who describes himself in this way is automatically disqualifying himself from having anything authentic to say on the subject.

 

However, people who think or believe that they are enlightened are often tempted to give methods to others. There are several reasons for this. For example, some so-called enlightenment methods are very helpful to people psychologically and are taught out of goodwill. Some methods may be given simply as a response to so many people desiring a method and requesting one because it can be very difficult to disappoint people and send them away empty-handed. It can be much easier to fulfil people's desire for help, hope and meaning.

 

If the master runs an ashram or other community, giving techniques for people to practise can also be an effective form of crowd control. Groups of people living together without enough to do tend to get up to all kinds of shenanigans. Devotees who are kept busy meditating, chanting and performing voluntary work for the guru for many hours a day while being fed a diet of rice and lentils are unlikely to have much time or energy for making mischief.

 

And let's not ignore the fact that selling people methods for becoming enlightened can sometimes be a very good business, as a brief time spent on the internet will show.

 

*

Nail on the head.

 

I actually can't add any more to this other than yes, I too saw all the Dalai Lama hate. There's a whole book I found being sold in their own book store - The Great Deception I think it was called. A whole book of figer pointing on how this guy must be stopped, that he's a charlatan etc etc.

 

Geshe Kelsang Gyatso claimed in the book Modern Buddhism that if you chop up and enlightened person and throw them down the stairs (I am paraphrasing), they wouldn't feel pain. That almost looked like an invitation to me...but at that point, I stopped reading haha.

[Marblehead]

Atheists do not recommend nor support the beheading of those who have beliefs other than their own.

[Rara]

Could you list a couple of examples? I'm curious just because it is easy for me to identify many examples of it being related to religion, but not vice versa...

 

Not off the top of my head anyway.

[C T]

count yourself lucky you still have one (a head ie). lol

[thelerner]

Atheists do not recommend nor support the beheading of those who have beliefs other than their own.

Like pointed out, (bad) people in power, will kill to protect it and spread there beliefs-  religious, nationalist or atheist.  In the 20th century you had hard core atheists from Stalin to Pol Pot executing millions. 

 

Atheism is a relatively new kid on the block, but don't kid yourself that mad men haven't bloodied there hands and caused horrible repression in its name.  It shouldn't be that way.. not for atheists or religious people of conscience and good faith.

[Owledge]

Like pointed out, (bad) people in power, will kill to protect it and spread there beliefs-  religious, nationalist or atheist.  In the 20th century you had hard core atheists from Stalin to Pol Pot executing millions. 

 

Atheism is a relatively new kid on the block, but don't kid yourself that mad men haven't bloodied there hands and caused horrible repression in its name.  It shouldn't be that way.. not for atheists or religious people of conscience and good faith.

And wasn't there also Mao with his policy of "religion is poison"? IIRC that was a theme in Opening the Dragon Gate, where the masters had to go into hiding because monasteries were basically stormed.

In any case, those are the examples of how the mindsets found in problematic theist people is not of theist origin. But it's so easy to find something superficial to blame so that one doesn't have to gain some enlightenment into the human psyche. It could be too worrisome to those people if they took a look at themselves with such an enlightened mind.

[Rara]

For some reason, these links send me back to page 1 of this thread when clicked on. I did manage to copy and paste them into my address bar when bringing your post up in "quote" form.

 

Ok, I see what you're saying. But Atheists dont tend to kill in the name of atheism, or "non-God". Not the way an Islamic extremist will kill in the name of Allah...

[iain]

Atheists do not recommend nor support the beheading of those who have beliefs other than their own.

 

After the separation of state and religion, political and financial excuses are then used to behead nations instead of individuals; higher means & higher stakes ...

 

Same old human nature.

[iain]

I am not well known for keeping my mouth shut.

There goes my vow of silence ...

[ThisLife]

Nail on the head.

 

I actually can't add any more to this other than yes, I too saw all the Dalai Lama hate. There's a whole book I found being sold in their own book store - The Great Deception I think it was called. A whole book of figer pointing on how this guy must be stopped, that he's a charlatan etc etc.

 

Geshe Kelsang Gyatso claimed in the book Modern Buddhism that if you chop up and enlightened person and throw them down the stairs (I am paraphrasing), they wouldn't feel pain. That almost looked like an invitation to me...but at that point, I stopped reading haha.

 

.

 

If you think that book was an extraordinary step of imagination for supposedly Buddhists to write, they published one that utterly trumped that when they recently wrote : "The False Dalai Lama: The Worst Dictator in the Modern World."

 

If that title isn't the ultimate stretch of credibility for the spiritually inclined to take on board, then I'd like to see anybody top it ! If you were to ask any normal person that you might find walking the streets of any Western country what their impressions about the Dalai Lama were,... well, the answers would undoubtedly be so complimentary that it would be an embarrassment to write them all down here.

 

Yet the members of this group have become so conditioned by years of training themselves to suppress all questions and accept without hesitation whatever their guru says, that the insanity of equating one of the most loved winners of the Nobel Peace Prize ( !) with the likes of Adolph Hitler, Josef Stalin, Mao Tse Tung, and Pol Potts -- doesn't even register with them !

 

Of course, someone high up in their publishing office is aware and suitably cautious, since they take great care to dissociate themselves from the stuff they write by creating a false name for the supposed author. On the cover it claims to be written by the "International Shugden Community." This group does not exist anywhere. Yet if you check Youtube for any videos, (like the one below), of their demonstrations trying to prevent the Dala Lama from teaching, you will see nothing but angry-faced monks, nuns and lay members of the NKT, raising clenched fists and shouting.

 

 

Any thinking person could only say that the behaviour of this group is just about as far removed from what most people would describe as 'resembling how the Buddha himself would behave', as is possible in our society.

After having watched from the inside this whole, sad transmogrification unfold, I still cannot begin to grasp how such beautiful ideals could nose-dive into becoming the antithesis of Buddha's teachings in just these few short years. However, I guess we do have had the example of what happened to the organisation led by Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh as a recent template of spirituality descending into paranoia and increasingly insane actions.

I suppose it's just that when your own life has been caught up for many years in a delusion, the fall to earth is much harder when the hypnotist snaps his fingers to suddenly reveal that the dream carriage you thought you were riding in,... is actually nothing more than a rapidly decaying Halloween pumpkin.

*

Edited October 29, 2014 by ThisLife

[Marblehead]

Atheists do not recommend nor support the beheading of those who have beliefs other than their own.

Well, you folks have submitted good arguments to what I said but I will still stand by it none-the-less.

[Rara]

 

 

.

 

If you think that book was an extraordinary step of imagination for supposedly Buddhists to write, they published one that utterly trumped that when they recently wrote : "The False Dalai Lama: The Worst Dictator in the Modern World."

 

If that title isn't the ultimate stretch of credibility for the spiritually inclined to take on board, then I'd like to see anybody top it ! If you were to ask any normal person that you might find walking the streets of any Western country what their impressions about the Dalai Lama were,... well, the answers would undoubtedly be so complimentary that it would be an embarrassment to write them all down here.

 

Yet the members of this group have become so conditioned by years of training themselves to suppress all questions and accept without hesitation whatever their guru says, that the insanity of equating one of the most loved winners of the Nobel Peace Prize ( !) with the likes of Adolph Hitler, Josef Stalin, Mao Tse Tung, and Pol Potts -- doesn't even register with them !

 

Of course, someone high up in their publishing office is aware and suitably cautious, since they take great care to dissociate themselves from the stuff they write by creating a false name for the supposed author. On the cover it claims to be written by the "International Shugden Community." This group does not exist anywhere. Yet if you check Youtube for any videos, (like the one below), of their demonstrations trying to prevent the Dala Lama from teaching, you will see nothing but angry-faced monks, nuns and lay members of the NKT, raising clenched fists and shouting.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Any thinking person could only say that the behaviour of this group is just about as far removed from what most people would describe as 'resembling how the Buddha himself would behave', as is possible in our society.

After having watched from the inside this whole, sad transmogrification unfold, I still cannot begin to grasp how such beautiful ideals could nose-dive into becoming the antithesis of Buddha's teachings in just these few short years. However, I guess we do have had the example of what happened to the organisation led by Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh as a recent template of spirituality descending into paranoia and increasingly insane actions.

 

I suppose it's just that when your own life has been caught up in the delusion, the fall to earth is much harder when the hypnotist snaps his fingers to suddenly reveal that the dream carriage you thought you were riding in,... is actually nothing more than a decaying Halloween pumpkin.

 

*

Jealousy? It can only be.

 

While I don't jump up and down for The Dalai Lama, hearing that he's been compared to Hitler etc is ridiculous.

 

Derailing here hehe, but thanks for sharing

[Marblehead]

No, the comparison doesn't work. Hitler was a Christian and the Dalai Lama is Buddhist.

[Zhongyongdaoist]

I pointed out earlier atheism with strong “religious” aspects:

 

Marxism is an excellent example of this.

Of course this implied “Godless Communism”, the “bogeyman” of my childhood.  Examples of which were provided by:

 

For some reason, these links send me back to page 1 of this thread when clicked on. I did manage to copy and paste them into my address bar when bringing your post up in "quote" form.

This restores the links:

 

 

 

Ok, I see what you're saying. But Atheists dont tend to kill in the name of atheism, or "non-God". Not the way an Islamic extremist will kill in the name of Allah...

If you are referring to the idea of “Islamic” terrorists, how about this for atheist/anachist terrorists:

 

One well known example of Anarchist Terrorism

 

and also the inspiration for these particular attacks:

 

Luigi Galleani and the "propaganda of the deed"

 

These militant atheists were content with bombs and guns for terror and assassination and when related groups took power, settled on firing squads, rather than beheading.

 

One possible example among many.

 

Of course these poor deluded folks are not examples of the real, true atheists/anarchists:

 

 

Atheists do not recommend nor support the beheading of those who have beliefs other than their own.

 

Well, you folks have submitted good arguments to what I said but I will still stand by it none-the-less.

 

 

to whom Marblehead is referring.

 

Oh, postscript regarding Hitler as a Christan:

 

The Religious views of Adolf Hitler were shaped by his upbringing at the hands of his anti-clerical, sceptic father and devout Catholic mother. Baptized as an infant and confirmed at the age of fifteen, he ceased attending Mass and participating in the sacraments in later life.^%5B1%5D In adulthood, he became disdainful of Christianity but in power was prepared to delay clashes with the churches out of political considerations.^%5B2%5D Hitler's architect Albert Speer believed he had "no real attachment" to Catholicism, but that he had never formally left the Church. Unlike his comrade Joseph Goebbels, Hitler was not excommunicated^%5B3%5D prior to his suicide. The biographer John Toland noted Hitler's anticlericalism, but considered him still in "good standing" with the Church by 1941, while historians such as Ian Kershaw, Joachim Fest and Alan Bullock agree that Hitler was anti-Christian - a view evidenced by sources such as the Goebbels Diaries, the memoirs of Speer, and the transcripts edited by Martin Bormann contained within Hitler's Table Talk.^%5B4%5D Goebbels wrote in 1941 that Hitler "hates Christianity, because it has crippled all that is noble in humanity."^%5B5%5D Many historians have come to the conclusion that Hitler's long term aim was the eradication of Christianity in Germany,^%5B6%5D while others maintain that there is insufficient evidence for such a plan.^%5B7%5D (Wikipedia on the religious views of Adolf Hiter)

[iain]

Oh, postscript regarding Hitler as a Christan:

 

 

The choice of the swastika and its Sanskrit name are quite self explanatory.

Edited October 28, 2014 by iain

[iain]

Then of course the ideal of an aryan, a tribe from the Rk veda; a gross miss translation, but never the less ...

[Brian]

Personally, I'd probably start my list with the French Revolution -- literal chopping off of heads in the name of the Age of Reason and the Scientific Revolution (the "real reasons" are more complicated than that, of course...)