The mother of all backahnded compliments for the Dalai Lama

**Skullheadhq** · 05-31-2012, 16:18

Originally Posted by Philipvs Vallindervs Calicvla

Even if his successor is chosen by the Chinese, the 14th Dalai Lama may have left as his legacy a nation that has no need of a 15th. That's real progress in religion, for which he deserves to be honoured in St Paul's Cathedral this afternoon.

Buddhism isn't even a religion but a philosophy and a way of life.

**lars573** · 05-31-2012, 17:55

Originally Posted by Skullhead

Buddhism isn't even a religion but a philosophy and a way of life.

Nope it's a religion. Philosophy's don't have monastaries priests and monks. Or belief in spiritual evolution and divination.

**Hax** · 05-31-2012, 17:58

Buddhism isn't even a religion but a philosophy and a way of life.

Please refrain from assuming. It's probably the other way around, it's a religion with a lot of philosophical aspects.

**Skullheadhq** · 05-31-2012, 18:36

Originally Posted by Hax

Please refrain from assuming. It's probably the other way around, it's a religion with a lot of philosophical aspects.

Name one buddhist god.

Originally Posted by lars573

Philosophy's don't have monastaries priests and monks.

They have priests?

Originally Posted by lars573

Or belief in spiritual evolution

Seneca rings a bell? Proficientes and such. Unless you mean reincarnation, then you should probably look to Plato.

**rajpoot** · 05-31-2012, 18:50

Originally Posted by Skullhead

Name one buddhist god.

Actually Buddhist Gods are the same as Hindu Gods. If viewed in today's context, Buddha was what one would call a Hindu, before he received enlightenment/true knowledge and started preaching his ideas and it took shape of a religion.
Buddhism is more like a....offshoot of Hinduism (although that's putting it very...loosely) as far as I've always understood it. Over the years customs and practices changed and got moulded according to region.

Edit:
Another similar religion is Sikhism. They have no deities of their own. Only ten gurus who preached their own ideas.

**HoreTore** · 05-31-2012, 20:20

Originally Posted by Skullhead

Buddhism isn't even a religion but a philosophy and a way of life.

Look upthe word "etnocentric", and please reconsider your statement.

Religious concepts are different in the west and in the east. Buddhism(and confusianism, taoism, etc) is of course a religion, but it is different from the abrahamists religions(and the extinc euro religions as well). Not just in preaching, morals and rituals, but the very concepts are different.

**Philippus Flavius Homovallumus** · 05-31-2012, 22:05

Originally Posted by HoreTore

Look upthe word "etnocentric", and please reconsider your statement.

Religious concepts are different in the west and in the east. Buddhism(and confusianism, taoism, etc) is of course a religion, but it is different from the abrahamists religions(and the extinc euro religions as well). Not just in preaching, morals and rituals, but the very concepts are different.

I suggest you look up "ethnocentric" yourself. Buddhism does not conform to the defition of a "religion" and slapping a Latin word on it simply serves to obscure its alienness.

The closest you could come to describing it would be to say it is between a philosophy and a belief system - but that does not make it a "religion". For one thing, it is not about the individual's relationships half so much as about the sense of self and if I recall the Buddha himself was distainful of those who clung to such primitive concepts as "Gods".

**HoreTore** · 05-31-2012, 22:35

Originally Posted by Philipvs Vallindervs Calicvla

I suggest you look up "ethnocentric" yourself. Buddhism does not conform to the defition of a "religion" and slapping a Latin word on it simply serves to obscure its alienness.

I am not surprised that it does not conform to *your* definition of religion.

**Philippus Flavius Homovallumus** · 05-31-2012, 23:15

Originally Posted by HoreTore

I am not surprised that it does not conform to *your* definition of religion.

Why are you trying to put a Western lable on it?

It doesn't need one.

**HoreTore** · 06-01-2012, 00:06

Edit:

Come to think of it, I have no idea what you mean. I can think of at least three possible meanings, and so I can't respond.

**Philippus Flavius Homovallumus** · 06-01-2012, 01:45

Calling Buddhism a "religion" is innapropriate, because it has almost none of the peculiar charactaristics of a "religion" as it is understood in the West and Near East - insisting on calling it a religion is an attempt to fit it into a mental catagory which is anachronistic.

Calling it a "philosophy" is also wrong - because a philosophy is a way to find truth, and Buddhism is clearly more than that.

Using it to bait me RE: "*your* definition of religion" is pointless.

Buddhism is not a religion - I do not say that to cheapen it as a way of thinking or a belief system, but merely as a recognition that it is unlike anything we generally call a religion.