Buddhism - a religion for atheists

[Sheldon]

@rat_spit

My genuine apologies you made the split. Life goes on, I assume?

Thank you, it’s been a challenging year for a variety of reasons. If I end this year with any money left and a job, then I’ll be relieved.

[Whitefire13]

@Sheldon

I end this year with any money left and a job, then I’ll be relieved.

Oh god - I remember the feelings. Fuck! First the devastation and heart break. Then the self doubt of not “seeing” and doubting what I thought was reality in the relationship. Then the worry over the “who gets the kids”. Then the financial settlement (and in my case the baggage of a shitty credit bureau I didn’t know about in some joint debt). Then the “how the fuck am I going to make it, especially with the kids”. Then the loss of all “our” future dreams and goals - ahhhh what the fuck is my old age going to look like now???

Ah, the good ole’ days! Glad it’s in the rear view mirror AND I’m happy to say, I worked everything out and got to a place of “I don’t give a shit (emotionally) about him or the past” AND I can gleefully say that I am happy for the experience…I came out the better because of it.

[Sheldon]

What are the five stages of grief again?

Kübler-Ross model

• denial .
• anger .
• bargaining .
• depression .
• acceptance .

Yeah, I’m vacillating wildly between 1 and 4…

[David_Killens]

[Sheldon]

@rat_spit

And I apologize. Your comment “peer reviewed” ( strictly no journals involved) is still irrelevant to the nature and experience of suffering

It was relevant to your appeal to authority fallacy, and still is. What objective validation can you offer for your claim that the Buddha’s teachings are true?

@rat_spit

FWIW - I didn’t. It was a slight error of misreading and you have gone to great lengths to complain about it endlessly

Actually I only responded each time you repeated the false claim.

@rat_spit

Rhetorical. Your questions are rhetorical.

No, it wasn’t rhetorical at all.

@rat_spit

The Buddha was qualified to teach suffering and the end of suffering. That is why you should lend an ear.

To which I replied…

@Sheldon

Qualified how exactly, what independent authority objectively validated these qualifications? Was his work peer reviewed, if so then offer a citation more robust than the gushing praise of his followers, as adherents of all religions make these exact same appeal to authority fallacies that you made in your original post.

So we’re neatly back to your original appeal to authority fallacy. So now please demonstrate some tangible objective evidence that validates your claim that the Buddha is qualified to teach us.

[rat_spit]

@Sheldon

You said you could transcend your mind. How do you know this if you “put an end to consciousness”? Still sounds like woo woo to me.

To be precise, I put an end to “sense consciousness”. And, it is hard to express, but the intermediate state between having perception and feeling versus not having perception and feeling doesn’t put rule the continuation of bare awareness.

As you said earlier, “you know nothing of me or my meditative practice.”

The same applies here.

[rat_spit]

@Whitefire13

So, what was special about this particular 10,000 years before fire ? And what about the 10,000 before that 10,000…was it “good” or “bad”?

I’m being sneaky. I don’t honestly know what Homo sapiens we’re doing 10,000 years before the discovery of fire. I’m making the unsupported claim that fire likely complicated things.

Sure. It made food taste better, and it kept you warm - but “that which is not necessary for survival, survives unnecessarily.” - Winston Churchill

[rat_spit]

@Sheldon

So we’re neatly back to your original appeal to authority fallacy. So now please demonstrate some tangible objective evidence that validates your claim that the Buddha is qualified to teach us.

Okay. Here. We’ll take the Buddha out of the equation. That solves the crises of authority.

The real issue is if this makes sense. I am proposing it. I have verified it through personal experience:

1. There are sense faculties
2. There are sense objects
3. There is sense consciousness

A) When sense faculties make contact with sense objects, then there is sense consciousness

B) Likewise; it is possible to be in a waking state where sense faculties do not meet sense objects because there is no longer any sense consciousness in the mind.

The matter of “waking” without “consciousness” being impossible is a misunderstanding. The process of eliminating “sense consciousness” through concentration does not eliminate “awareness”.

[David_Killens]

@rat_spit

Sure. It made food taste better, and it kept you warm - but “that which is not necessary for survival, survives unnecessarily.” - Winston Churchill

Cooking food allows it to be more digestible and more calories can be extracted. Cooking and fire were not luxuries, but a necessity for modern man.

Please do not just utter pronouncements when you are ignorant on a subject.

[Cognostic]

@rat_spit

I put an end to “sense consciousness”. And, it is hard to express

No it’s not. Imagine seeing everything around you without knowing the names of anything. As if seeing everything for the very first time. You look at the world and no words come to your mind. No words for things, colors, smells or sensations. There are no thoughts about anything being observed. The actual state of mind is not woo woo but the meanings bullshit spiritualists, Buddhists, Hindus, et al attach to it are pure crap.

This brain state can occur in people experiencing sleep paralysis if they are able to open their eyes. Most people freak and try to move their hands, legs or head first. However, if you try to open your eyes first, this can be experienced. The brain receives sensations but interprets nothing.

Intentionally keeping the eyes closed and seeking this mental state really does put you in a place of nothing. No words, no thoughts, and yet, the only way you know you have been there is through the experience. To call it a suspension of all senses is not quite true. If all senses were suspended, a person would never know and have no way to describe anything. It would be like blinking. Human being off… Human being on again, and no way of knowing anything about knowing about a lack of feeling, sensation etc…

[rat_spit]

Well. At least we agree.

[rat_spit]

@David_Killens

Cooking food allows it to be more digestible and more calories can be extracted. Cooking and fire were not luxuries, but a necessity for modern man.

Modern man does not predate historical man. Our ability to digest raw meat and extract nutrients from it was just peachy before the arrival of fire.

[Cognostic]

No ratty… we do not agree… You think you are doing something special. You think you have found an answer to something. You are chasing the big chunk of cheese in the sky. And I am telling you that it is all bullshit. All you are doing is playing with your mind and discovering some of the things it naturally does. Nothing mystical. Nothing very meaningful. It’s all just chewing gum for the brain. There is NOTHING NEW here. Your life is not richer because you feel enlightened.

All the enlightenment in the world will not get you a cup of coffee if you don’t have a dollar in your pocket. Like the enlightened man who set his load in the street and stretched, You still need to learn it is all bullshit, pick up the pack again and continue on your way.

[rat_spit]

Hissssss I will be reborn in the realm of THE RADIANT DEVAS!!!

ALL BEINGS WHO REACH THAT STATE ARE BORN AMONG THR RETINUE OF BRAHMA!!!

AND I WILL BE AMONG THEM!!!

[Cognostic]

@ Everyone in the Forum…

And, at this point, anyone who thinks I have been hard on ratty or who even entertained the thought that he might be serious. should slap themselves silly in the side of the head.

[rat_spit]

No. No. Me apologize. Mescuzy I joke. I joke. Although I am a superior being I am not so conceited as to speak compassionately to those who might benefit

It is supernatural and it is not a brain state. The brain is form. In Nirodha Samapatti there is no form; no feelings; no perception; no volition; and no consciousness.

For comparison - it is like any empty vassal.

Come on Cog. You’re an astronaut, right? Is the astral plane journeyed through with the body or the mind-made body?

[rat_spit]

@Cognostic

No it’s not. Imagine seeing everything around you without knowing the names of anything. As if seeing everything for the very first time. You look at the world and no words come to your mind. No words for things, colors, smells or sensations. There are no thoughts about anything being observed. The actual state of mind is not woo woo but the meanings bullshit spiritualists, Buddhists, Hindus, et al attach to it are pure crap.

What is the scientific term for such a state?

[David_Killens]

The act of cooking food had a major impact on mankind, it was much more than a convenience. Since cooking allowed us to digest more efficiently, we did not have to grow more crops of spend time hunting for food. That allowed more leisure time. Why knows, without that, Aristotle may have spent his life out in the fields farming. Hannibal may not have been able to cross the Alps. The formation of large communities (such as the first “cities”) may have been delayed by many thousands of years.

[David_Killens]

@rat_spit

What is the scientific term for such a state?

The scientific term is “full of shit”.

[Whitefire13]

@rat_spit

I’m making the unsupported claim that fire likely complicated things.

You do this a lot … tsk tsk tsk

@David_Killens

The act of cooking food had a major impact on mankind, it was much more than a convenience. Since cooking allowed us to digest more efficiently, we did not have to grow more crops of spend time hunting for food.

BIG improvement was the preservation of the food via cooking. Cook the steak eat it later in the day… try doing that with raw meat … the fire could dry meats and voila - food for days.

It was a definite “step forward” …