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Name: Keno
E-Mail: keno@fairpoint.net
Subject: RE: RE: RE: E: Buddhism...nsc
Date: Monday, December 11, 2017
Time: 2:02:33 PM
Remote Address: 66.36.114.222
Message ID: 312859
Parent ID: 312857
Thread ID: 312816
Yes, I can see you know Buddhism well enough. I myself have only gotten into Tibetan Buddhism myself, which does fascinate me to a certain degree.
(Now the next bit isn't me being a preacher to get others to believe in what I believe, since I don't care what others believe. It's just me simply writing here my feelings and nothing more. So please don't read anything more into what follows, you just believe in what you believe, as I'll do the same, just don't dislike me for being different, or censor me as some would do just because I don't think or believe in what they believe.)
I think the main thing that turns be off to Buddhism is the rebirth thing, as it's just a little too hard to believe for me. Yet it's more believable than how say Christians or Muslims believe in their afterlife. For Buddhists it really is a reborn thing, and starting over, not so much an afterlife. But then there's that time in between before they are reborn that I find interesting. I believe that my friend Yeshee in part took her life because of that, she really felt she would just be reborn again sooner or later. The two of us talked a lot about stuff like this, she was a monk afterall. She could only remember 2 of her past lives, and told me that in her last life that she was a stage actress in London around the 1920s, and she had died young. Okay. She insisted that I too had a prior life, well lives. So I asked her why I didn't have any memory of this, and of course I was told I just needed to meditate more and open up my mind to believing it is true. But to me that's just opening up your mind to better daydreaming and no more.
But I do like how the Buddhists have an answer to a question I always asked those who believe in a afterlives. Just how do they remember their past life, or how if say you are Christian, how will you recognize your family in Heaven if you brain is dead and rotting away down on Earth? My Christian parents and friends never could answer that question for me, other than a simple answer like "it just happens, it's all faith". Sure. But Yeshee could and almost made sense with her answer, that you do take a part of your brain and its knowledge with you, just a part of all that, into your next life, as a part of your brain doesn't die when your body dies. Yet Buddhists don't believe in a soul, either. But deep down they do, they just don't call it a "soul".
I guess to a point I can understand Yeshee's suicide, as she didn't feel she was dying at all when she took her life, she really believed she would someday return to this planet as another person in time. She clearly, like most if not all Buddhists, didn't fear dying and death at all. Whereas most Christians seem to, and I never understood that. If they really believe in their religion and know in their own minds that they will go on into Heaven and keep on living there, then why fear death at all? Why even mourn the dead if you will see them again?
Yeah, I would love to believe in all that, but it's just all so unreal to me and in my mind so unlikely and just not so. But if any one religion got this afterlife thing correct, I would say it's the teachings of Hinduism, where they believe that you only may come back as a different person/human, but more than likely you will come back as a totally different living thing, like an animal, or as another form of living thing.... you may come back as a small bug. Heck, I say if that's so, then maybe you just might also come back to life somewhere else on another planet, light years away from Earth, too.
I know that the reason religions are everywhere is because we are all mortals and most people are scared of dying, so religions, all of them made up by mankind, are believed. If we all were true divine beings who never died, there would be no need for any religions at all.
As an Atheist, I don't have to worry about that at all, about some powerful God controlling me and everybody else to be good in the way any one religion claims is a good way. I just look at it in this way, if I'm wrong and there is a afterlife, great, but that still don't mean there's a god (so the Buddhists would have at least gotten that part right). I'm 100% sure in my own mind that there isn't any Christian god, or Hindu gods, but I'm only about 90% sure the Buddhists got it wrong too (on the rebirth thing). It would be cool if they were correct, I mean, deep down who wants to turn into dust and just never exist again? Nobody is the answer, and that is why we have religions, since most humans just can't accept what more than likely will happen to them when their time is up. But that doesn't mean you can't enjoy your life and you have nothing to live for if you don't believe. I say "bull" to those who claim that! Or that if you don't believe in some god, that you can't be a moral person. That is the biggest lie and crap yet that I hear from church going believers. Plus me saying this here is only what I as a person believes. I am not preaching this, you go and believe what you want, just don't force your beliefs on me, and don't go hating me because I'm different than you (like so many Christians do). Don't tell me you can't be my friend or hang out with me anymore because I don't believe in the god you believe in (this BTW, just happened the other day with a Christian Gasser who emailed me. He's not gonna post here anymore for that reason only. But that kind of thinking just separates people and nothing more). You just live your life and I'll live mine, but the best way to make everybody's life work best, is to still live together and get along, and don't shun others just because they have a different life or have a different god (or no god) than you.
I don't believe in a god, but that doesn't mean I'm gonna force my beliefs on you, but I can talk about it too (too bad your preacher forbids you from reading what I have to say. Just what is he/she afraid of?). It's sad and totally wrong that your preacher says you can't be friends with me because we are different in this way. Preachers are just afraid that you might see the true light that is shinning, IMO, and their church might lose you as a member (aka - lose money for them and their church). Deep down I don't think most of them really care about your soul, they only care about themselves and their need to control others.
I was born into the Christian religion and I was forced to go to Bible classes as a preteen. It was the best thing that happened to me because it let me see the true light on how wrong all those teachings were. I knew it all was in error as young as age 10 and I was kicked out of Bible study by age 12 for speaking out in class and telling the Brother that he and his teachings were all wrong, and all of this to the horror of my parents, especially when they found out and also learned that I hadn't been to church in 2 years, even though I still attended the Bible classes, since I found all of that interesting, even if I totally didn't believe in it. Unlike most believes, I have read up on all of the major religions out there, as I do find them interesting, even if I totally don't believe in any of them. But the worst thing about Christians and Muslims, is that they are taught that only they are right and everybody else is totally wrong and should either have catechism forced on them, or that people like me should be abandoned and totally ignored and stayed away from. Well IMO, they are all the ones who are wrong in believing that, I'm not a bad person just because your prejudice preacher says so or because I'm different then you.
Okay, so now I guess that a few more of you perhaps just decided to leave Gasland for good because of what I just wrote. What can I say but "goodbye and enjoy your sheltered life". But there is one thing I know that you don't realize, that there really is no difference in how we lead our lives; the same thing that happens to me when I'm gone - will happen to you too when you're gone. It don't matter if you are a good person or a evil one, in the end, that ending will all be the same for everybody and all of us will end up in the very same place regardless of what gods we believe in... or don't believe in.
I'll close with what I said to my mom once, one day when we had a talk just like this. Her answer to me was, when we die we will see if her beliefs were right, or if mine were correct, and my answer to her was, no mom, we won't! Common sense shows us that death is just gonna be like when we're sleeping, but just with no dreams, and we never wake up from death (more than likely). Yes, that's why so many fear death and look to religions, as oblivion isn't something to look forward to.
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