Believing in God makes you a better person

[Mr. Veech]

I think practicing Buddhists are perfect examples of how one can become a better person without the aid or belief in God. Ironically, becoming a better person in Buddhism means relinquishing the very notion of personhood itself.

Quote Originally Posted by Mr. Veech

I think practicing Buddhists are perfect examples of how one can become a better person without the aid or belief in God. Ironically, becoming a better person in Buddhism means relinquishing the very notion of personhood itself.

Yeah, but most schools of Buddhist ethics are in tandem to securing a better rebirth through improving quality and quantity of karma (note, each school explicates this differently -- but I can explain the traditional Ch'an/Zen approach). Karma and rebirth after cessation of bodily functions give justification to the principle of "Ahimsa". A naturalized Buddhist system without rebirth after cessation of bodily function delegitimizes its ethics.

There's no such thing as a good or bad person in a naturalized world. The "Nietzschean Death of God" could also apply to Dharmic faiths when you remove rebirth (i.e., rejection of belief in an objective and universal moral law).

[Mr. Veech]

Quote Originally Posted by Mithras

Quote Originally Posted by Mr. Veech I think practicing Buddhists are perfect examples of how one can become a better person without the aid or belief in God. Ironically, becoming a better person in Buddhism means relinquishing the very notion of personhood itself. Yeah, but most schools of Buddhist ethics are in tandem to securing a better rebirth through improving quality and quantity of karma (note, each school explicates this differently -- but I can explain the traditional Ch'an/Zen approach). Karma and rebirth after cessation of bodily functions give foundation to the principle of "Ahimsa". A naturalized Buddhist system without rebirth after cessation of bodily function delegitimizes its ethics. There's no such thing as a good or bad person in a naturalized world. The "Nietzschean Death of God" could also apply to Dharmic faiths when you remove rebirth.

I agree. However, rebirth itself is not construed in Buddhism as "the transmigration of souls" given that there are no "souls" or "persons" to begin with, so it's not something which is naturally prone to demythologization. In other words, it doesn't strike me as something that is metaphysically dubious, or something which requires considerable faith to be believe in. As far as I'm aware, traditional notions of good and evil, being and non-being, simply don't apply to Nirvana - the Real.

"Evil" is the result of conceptual distortion, i.e., ignorance.

Quote Originally Posted by Mr. Veech

I agree. However, rebirth itself is not construed in Buddhism as "the transmigration of souls" given that there are no "souls" or "persons" to begin with, so it's not something which is naturally prone to demythologization.

Yes, there is no soul in Buddhism given Shunyata or anatta, but there is still rebirth after the cessation of bodily functions. The consciousness in the new person is neither identical nor entirely different from that in the deceased but the two form a causal continuum or stream. The Pali canon discusses this.

In the past, Ch’an Buddhists encouraged practitioners to disentangle and detach themselves from karmic residues in the storehouse consciousness (alayavijnana) so that it may be purified: by being “purified”, presumably in deep samadhi or satori, the storehouse consciousness no longer leaves seeds (bija) to cause the formation of new volitional formations (sankhara), no longer bridging two existences; thus, it being purified ends in perpetual parinirvana, the Tathagata-garbha. All of this is taken from the Lankavatara Sutra, which Bodhidharma handed to Hui-ko while calling it the “essence of Zen”.

My point is though, the principle of Ahimsa is justified by the belief in rebirth after cessation of bodily functions.

However, many newer Western Buddhists have abandoned the belief in rebirth after dying because they opted to naturalize Buddhism. Thus, one is still left with the predicament of reconciling naturalism with normativity, which isn't a possibility to me.

[Mr. Veech]

Quote Originally Posted by Mithras

Quote Originally Posted by Mr. Veech I agree. However, rebirth itself is not construed in Buddhism as "the transmigration of souls" given that there are no "souls" or "persons" to begin with, so it's not something which is naturally prone to demythologization. Yes, there is no soul in Buddhism given Shunyata or anatta, but there is still rebirth after the cessation of bodily functions. The consciousness in the new person is neither identical nor entirely different from that in the deceased but the two form a causal continuum or stream. The Pali canon discusses this. In the past, Ch’an Buddhists encouraged practitioners to disentangle and detach themselves from karmic residues in the storehouse consciousness (alayavijnana) so that it may be purified: by being “purified”, presumably in deep samadhi or satori, the storehouse consciousness no longer leaves seeds (bija) to cause the formation of new volitional formations (sankhara), no longer bridging two existences; thus, it being purified ends in perpetual parinirvana, the Tathagata-garbha. All of this is taken from the Lankavatara Sutra, which Bodhidharma handed to Hui-ko while calling it the “essence of Zen”. My point is though, the principle of Ahimsa is justified by the belief in rebirth after cessation of bodily functions. However, many newer Western Buddhists have abandoned the belief in rebirth after dying because they opted to naturalize Buddhism. Thus, one is still left with the predicament of reconciling naturalism with normativity, which isn't a possibility to me.

You're already a step ahead of me when it comes to our respective understanding of Buddhism.

I would, however, look into the following the work by James O'Shea, a leading scholar of Wilfrid Sellars. I know I've mentioned Sellars before, but he is obsessed with reconciling normativity with naturalism. This stuff is incredibly dense, but you're too inquisitive to let anything hold you back.

James OShea | University College Dublin - Academia.edu

The key is understanding normativity in purely functional, not ontological, terms. There is no ontological interaction between the "logical space of reasons" and the causal world explained by science, so there's no actual reconciliation required, at least according to most Sellarsians. The best point of entry for understanding what Sellars is getting at his account of linguistic meaning as non-relational.

Sellars on meaning and language (a) - YouTube

Now, a "good" Sellarsian must explain our concepts of "good" and "evil" in evolutionary terms, a project initiated primarily by John Dewey, at least within the tradition of American pragmatism, which Sellars considered himself a part of. But the concepts in question must ultimately be given a functionalist explanation. There are other questions Sellars tries to address. For instance, his account of "picturing" as a replacement for the standard notion of truth as representational sidesteps Plantinga's famous argument against naturalism as self-refuting.

Yeah, I'll buy and read this book very soon, since these questions have been driving me nuts lately:

Amazon.com: Wilfrid Sellars: Naturalism with a Normative Turn (Key Contemporary Thinkers) (9780745630038): James OShea: Books

 

Amazon.com: Wilfrid Sellars: Naturalism with a Normative Turn (Key Contemporary Thinkers) (9780745630038): James OShea: Books

[qcrisp]

Quote Originally Posted by Mithras

Quote Originally Posted by Mr. Veech I think practicing Buddhists are perfect examples of how one can become a better person without the aid or belief in God. Ironically, becoming a better person in Buddhism means relinquishing the very notion of personhood itself. Yeah, but most schools of Buddhist ethics are in tandem to securing a better rebirth through improving quality and quantity of karma (note, each school explicates this differently -- but I can explain the traditional Ch'an/Zen approach). Karma and rebirth after cessation of bodily functions give foundation to the principle of "Ahimsa". A naturalized Buddhist system without rebirth after cessation of bodily function delegitimizes its ethics.

This is something I've pondered myself. In his Nobel-Prize acceptance speech, Kawabata Yasunari gives the opinion that Buddhism is spoiled only by the doctrine of reincarnation. However, at least as I understand it (for instance from lectures at a meditation retreat), the Buddha only refrained from suicide because he was afraid of the karma that would create rebirth. In other words, anything with moral repercussions that he might have done, would not have had such repercussions without this. Also, if he had simply committed suicide, Buddhism itself would not exist, because he would not have sought an alternative means of release.

Finally, from my reading I gather (one can take this story how one likes, of course) that after the Buddha achieved enlightenment, he was going to slink off into Nirvana in relief, having concluded that there was no point in telling anyone because they wouldn't understand, but then a deity of some kind appeared to him and persuaded him to hang around and try and communicate his discovery.

[DarkView]

Only insofar as the believer believes he is good.

[paeng]

I don't think it makes one a better person, but I think the more important point to consider is that the human mind is a combination of the rational and irrational. I see this, for example, in Lovecraft, who for me is a materialist but also includes ancient ones in his stories. I also see similar in secular ideas such as capitalism, which in many ways is a secular religion.

[qcrisp]

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