/atheism/ - Atheism

It has more potential than christianity, because reincarnation would apply to everyone regardless of their religion. Heaven only applies to the faithful.

I like the idea of reincarnation a lot more than heaven although if it were up to me I'd choose total annihilation.

I think the idea of eternity is absolutely terrifying and the people that desire it haven't thought long about what exactly existing forever would entail. But that might just be me and my neurosis.

>>7007

You might already know, but the goal of Buddhism is to escape from reincarnation since it is believed infinite lives causes eternal unease and suffering. So you can choose to stop existing in Buddhism which is not an option in Christianity.

On the other hand if you are exceptionally good you can also be reincarnated into a God, and experience some kind of sensual paradise, but you will then steadily lose karma until they're reincarnated into a human or something lower. Only humans are able to break out of the cycle of reincarnation because animals are too stupid, and Gods are too drunk on sensual pleasure to focus on doing it.

I would like to have my personality forever, if I wouldn't, it wouldn't be me anymore. You can't be yourself, after reincarnated, if you are a totally different person. It's either you, or someone else.

You can't be everything, this is why I don't think reincarnation makes any sense. It only makes sense if you like the foolish idea of a soul, the only way you could have different thinking and bodies yet still be the same person is to same the same soul, but soul is a idea and it's silly in the first place.

You are the person thinking right now, if you were to die and be born again, but be totally different, you would not be yourself, that would be someone else.

I'd like to exist forever, thanks.

Also, what an assumption, what a big one would you make if you think everyone would be terrified of eternity. You haven't lived 100 years to know if you want to live more or not, you think there aren't old people that are old and still want to live? Some people end their lives at 20 because they are tired of life. Not everyone is.

You don't even know what lies beyond our solar system, what great wonders could be explored if you were to live to "eternity", it's so selfish to think everyone would like to die at some point. I like the idea of living, the universe is not small.

>>7013

A couple thousand years of additional life would be all fine and good but unending existence would be a curse if anything. Death gives you meaning you fool.

>>7015

That is such an arbitrary number, you know jack shit about what is going to happen in the future, and maybe some people would kill want to live 2500 years, some 5000 years, you don't know what people want. You don't get to think for someone else.

Assuming there is even the possibility to live forever, you have some amazing abilities, so you could also choose to end your own life when you want too.

Death doesn't give people a meaning, it gives them a time limit to rush on life, or else. You fool.

>>7018

You don't get it dude. You're pursuing an engineering degree.

You could also be reincarnated as a pig to be slaughtered or a fly to be squashed or a tree that does nothing but stand in one place for thousands of years.

>>9113

If that happened you'd be too stupid to be troubled by it at the time.

>>9089

Buddhism is a bit too life denying for me. Hinduism has been my favorite religion for a while now. According to the Hindus god has nothing to say about your genitals. Which is a big plus in it's believability for me. I can't imagine any higher being giving a shit about that.

Ultimately while some religions are cool or appealing I find little reason to take them as fact over more unpleasant ones like my native catholicism.

>>9117

The caste system and the former tradition of widows lighting themselves on fire (sati) makes Hinduism less humane than Buddhism in my eyes. I do like polytheism, and the way Indians personify their Gods though.

>>9118

The caste system is mostly unrelated to hinduism actually. That's one of the biggest misconceptions. There was a caste systen of sorts mentioned in some vedic texts but it was based on merit.

I love looking for abundant Buddhist themes in this anime.

>抜き出して抜き出して、悲しすぎる運命から。

>Slip away, slip away from the fate that is too sad

>あなたは奈落の花じゃない。そんな場所で咲かないで、咲かないで。

>You're not a flower of hell. Don't bloom there.

Notice the song uses the word naraku for hell. (Or naraka in English.) That's the category of Buddhist hellish purgatories you hear about the most (ranging from hot hells, to cold hells, to hells where you are tortured in various creative ways). But there there is an even worse hell than naraka that is comparable to Christianity's, called avici. The kanji seems to suggest it's a place of unusually long punishment (無間地獄), but there is no indication it is eternal.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Av%C4%ABci

There are 5 ways to go to the especially long and most painful hell called avici. They must be bad to deserve that, so what are they?

> 1 Intentionally murdering one's father

> 2 Intentionally murdering one's mother

> 3 Killing an Arhat (enlightened being)

> 4 Shedding the blood of a Buddha

> 5 Creating a schism within the Sangha, the community of Buddhist monks and nuns who try to attain enlightenment(eternal happiness).

So yeah, murdering your parents EVER, poking Buddha accidentally with a stick, or trying to reform corruption in a Buddhist institution lead to billions of years of damnation. Buddhist karma follows pretty inflexible morality huh?

>>13405

http://pastebin.com/i9RT0HQn

Btw I have translated the full lyrics here for fun, and it explicitly references karma. It's funny when Christians see Christian themes of salvation in this anime, because they know jack-shit about Buddhist themes. (At the same time the anime deals with breaking out of tradition & superstition, so it feels Atheistic.)

>>13405

>So yeah, murdering your parents EVER, poking Buddha accidentally with a stick, or trying to reform corruption in a Buddhist institution lead to billions of years of damnation. Buddhist karma follows pretty inflexible morality huh?

It makes sense considering religion is all about control. At least is still much better than damning people for not believing.

>>13407

Try hard and you might remember your past lives though.

Btw I love how scientific Buddhist geography is:

>The Buddha told the bhikṣus, “There are 8,000 continents surrounding the four continents [on earth]. There is, moreover, a great sea surrounding those 8,000 continents. There is, moreover, a great diamond mountain range encircling that great sea. Beyond this great diamond mountain range is yet another great diamond mountain range. And between the two mountain ranges lies darkness. The sun and moon in the divine sky with their great power are unable to reach that [darkness] with their light. In [that space between the two diamond mountain ranges] there are eight major hells. Along with each major hell are sixteen smaller hells.

Too bad this isn't true. The Earth would be huge with tons of continents, and we could mine diamonds from those diamond mountains, and put geothermal power plants in hell. I guess you could even visit your relatives in in hell if you crossed enough land.

See also:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jambudvipa

And we wouldn't need a space elevator with a mountain this high. We could just build a railroad to carry astronauts into space.

The concept of reincarnation serves only to accomplish the same thing as the concept of heaven, i.e. negating the unpleasantries of the present by investing in an intangible false hope for the future.

There are the laws of conservation of matter and energy that we have observed, yes, but to count the consequences of those as reincarnation is to stretch the word "reincarnation" to almost Goatse proportions.

Reincarnation sucks ass because you are expected to fulfill your social caste in order to be rewarded in the next live. So a street sweeper is expected to be sweep streets all his life.

There is no incentive for vertical social mobility.

I take protestant work ethic over anything.

>>13425

Is this real Buddhist also a true Scotsman?

but hey, you at least have the authenticity of tradition on your side, which is the same as saying that you'd rather eat a coprolite than a fresh turd: either way you're full of shit.

Fun fact: there are bodhisattva (basically ascended saints that are like Buddhist gods) who attack the enemies of Buddhism.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wrathful_deities