The Dangers of Secularism

Robin,Popular Buddhism is indeed a religion. The educated version is more a philosophy, or schools of philosophy. The core version is neither. Huxley called the nondual the perennial philosophy. It is not about concepts of mind but rather a transfomation of minds experience as the subject to the universe of other objects. The sense of subject disappears and with it the sense of objects, of duality. The phrase attributed to the Buddha is in my rough paraphrase; the turning about of consciousness in it's deepest seat.This "awakening" is not an insight or peak experience that happens momentarily in a state of heightened consciousness with the ego function temporarily overridden. It is a profound radical reorganization of the brain. This is not about what happens after death, or the end of the universe, or the beginning of the universe. It is about what is now, who I am NOW. What Is Now.This Awakening is recorded by practioners of different religions though it is the basis of Buddha's teaching and hence Buddhism. But in Islam this teaching is preserved by the Sufi's, and in Christianity by the contemplatives. It also happens outside of formal religion.The Buddha sought an answer to suffering so in that sense it could be called a therapy but so could going to chuch or praying. It is not a pyschological therapy. It is not a philosophy though it can source philosophy. It is not poetry though it can be expressed in poetry.In the following lines by Hakuin, the opening of the gate refers to that transformation. Buddha called it the opening of the mind's eye, or awakening.

Isn't samsara the cycle of birth and rebirth, involving reincarnation? I would consider living many different lives as being supernatural. Siddartha was said to have lived tens of thousands of lives.I toyed with following madhyamika when I was at uni about ten years ago.Brian

What I figured was that an experience is either psychological or religious. You can't have a "philosophical" experience.I'm familiar with Huxley's book. The perennial philosophy is mysticism.

Well, that's more karma. Samsara can be extended to reincarnation, and most likely usually is, to include literal death, and literal birth over and over, yes. But the births and deaths also refer to the cycle of hopes, disappointments, successes, and failures and so samsara can be taken to refer to our ordinary life and the suffering entailed in living it. Reincarnation and karma do appear to me to require some supernatural process.I think one question might be how did Buddha and people of his time construe their ordinary lives. Did they assume reincarnation? Reincarnation can be very challenging in Buddhism because the Buddha taught there is no permanent self and this has led to the question of what reincarnates. I think it's possible strip Buddhism of it's popular religious concepts and the core of what is left is natural though not the same as contemporary science sees the natural order. I think the issue is consciousness.lfen

I'll have to look at the book again then. Mysticism covers a range of attitudes and beliefs. I know Roberts makes a distinction between contemplatives and mystics. I tend to think of mysticism as intense religious experiences but then the mystic returns to ego consciousness. Contemplatives are more grounded in the present reality but learn to see through the apparently realness of the ego.It's been decades since I read Huxley and have no idea how accurate my recollection is of the book. I had thought he was talking about the nondual. There is philosophical Taoism and religious Taoism. The latter has stories about as wild as any religion's, whereas the former is grounded in present reality.lfenedited typosThis message has been edited by lfen, 05-22-2005 01:40 PM

Ifen it's been a long time since I read the book also. So I might be wrong.Most of your comments you've made in the last few posts I agree with, and your knowledge of Eastern "religions" is far above mine.But what I am trying to do here is pin down a definition of religion.Did not mean to be snippy.

Well if by pin down you mean get an agreement as if something is or isn't religion that is probably doable.I think religion has complex sources and at the edges shades into philosophy and psychology. So a definitive definition may not be possible, only a provisional one.I was thinking earlier if the concept of anomie has any bearing on your arguement? Religious based societies would be low on the anomie scale. I myself don't know how to factor out all the impacts from diverse changes.Religion has been a large part of human culture for a long time. I think we are seeing only the beginning of changes. I don't know how to predict the outcome.I'll just sum up my position as religion can be for good or bad as can secularism. I've never held the position the religion is only bad, but I don't hold that about secularism either.lfen

"anomie"?Dictionary: a state of society in which normative standards of conduct are weak or lacking.I guess you mean that religious based societies would have very little anomie.Now that is interesting.A lack of normative standards would mean chaos, would it not?This message has been edited by robinrohan, 05-22-2005 06:49 PM

Oh man, Robin,I hope all the exercise EvC is giving my memory staves off Altzheimers! I keep going back to my youth trying to dredge up information, books, authors. I'm trying to remember the name one of the founders of sociology who wrote about anomie studying such things as suicide. Guess I'll have to fall back on my Borg memory aka Google. Emile something, and not Zola... Durkheim? Yeah! You can Google up links if you like. It's a way some sociologists measure society and correlate stuff with it like suicide, crime, I don't know what all. Only took that one intro course in sociology.Come to think of it you are asking kinda sociological type questions, and there must be someone doing sociological impacts of religious beliefs.lfenThis message has been edited by lfen, 05-22-2005 05:09 PM

I was sitting here a few hours ago reading through the posts, and my wife said, "What is this stuff you keep reading?"I just happened to be reading your post about Buddhism, and I said, "Well, like this guy--pretty interesting what he says here."And she sat down and read it and said, "Yeah. Maybe I should get involved in this."Now my wife calls herself a "Christian with Eastern leanings" (she says that when evangelists come to our front door, God help us), but if you question her you will find out that she is not a Christian at all; however, she grew up in the Catholic church, and that's not easy to shake. She's a believer in reincarnation, and she's got all these stories about me and her in the past.And--to be frank--I have a few stories myself. Recurrent dreams.For example, there was this time I was in Italy during the Renaissance . . . [etc]Now I myself grew up without any religion, so perhaps those dreams helped stave off the "anomie."My point is that the anomie is something that people fight against.So maybe we are saying that religion of a sort is inevitable.This message has been edited by robinrohan, 05-22-2005 07:41 PM

I actually did a presentation on this a few years ago. The talk was on Nagajuna's 'sunyata' (emptiness) and how everything is interdependant, nothing has inherent existence.The 'anatman' (no self) is an issue within this philosophy and it tackles the question of what is transient from incarnation to incarnation.The answer is 'consciousness' because Buddhists don't believe that there is a 'soul' to move on. What there is can be described as one long continual existence and each incarnation is a stage within that one existence. It is described as a river that changes constantly but is ultimately still the same river. If I throw a stone into the river, then that river has changed, but it is still the same river.Needless to say, I only took one Buddhist philosophy unit! Brian.

If we define "religion" as a belief in something supernatural, not necessarily a being, however, Ifen has argued that Marxism is a religion. What is this something supernatural that a Marxist believes?I suppose the answer is an evolutionary force in human society in which there is a movement from feudalism to capitalism to communist revolution to dictatorship of the proletariat to the state withering away and then presumably everyone lives happily ever after. The idea that this evolution is destined is apparently what makes it "supernatural," as though there was a sort of Will behind these changes in society.This all goes back to my earlier point, criticized by Holmes, that there is a relationship between Darwinism and Marxism.What happens is that a new scientific concept comes along and is popularized, lifted out of its scientific context, and applied to other aspects of the world: an obvious example is "social Darwinism."Now it is true that the non-scientific idea of "evolution" was in the air before the publicatiion of "Origin of Species," but that book added a great deal of impetus to the philosphical version of evolution.

I think religion is a system of individual and collective actions aimed at practicing one's faith. On the other hand, faith is, as Paul Tillich defined it, "the ultimate concern" of a person or a group of people. For example, if my ultimate concern is the spread of Jeffersonian democracy over the world, than that is my faith. If my ultimate concern is to "dwell in the house of the Lord forever," that that is my faith. Practicing, living out faith in democracy is, IMHO, a religion, as much as practicing or living out faith in the Lord and in "dwelling in His house forever" is a religion (Judaism or Christianity). A person may have more than one religion, because there might exist several (at least two) competing "ultimate concerns." The supernatural may or may not be the ultimate concern.

I liked the candles metaphor. You light a candle and when it's burnt all the way down use it to light a new candle. Is the flame now burning on the second candle the same or different from the flame that burned on the first candle?lfen

Not Marxism IS a religion, but rather fervent and fanatical Marxists and Communist party member used it as a religion, as the way they understood the totality of life and gave their lives purpose and meaning.I think the rest of your post sums up well my points.I really should try to find some time to read what Durkheim said about religion. It turns out he was interested in the role religions played in societal functioning.lfen