- Hell and heaven realms where you can get reincarnated into if you've lived an especially bad or good life
- Various gods and demons
- A timeline spanning trillions of years and hundreds of Buddhas
- "Celestial Buddhas" that came from space
- Enlightenment is now impossible in this world because it's too corrupt. If you chant enough, this or that Buddha will reincarnate you into their personal realm where you can become enlightened.
The majority of Buddhists in the world believe and teach these things. The modern secular western Buddhist community is sort of like a Theravada-lite in my opinion. Theravada already doesn't have a lot of the above, but they do have reincarnation, different realms, magic powers, etc. In the west the Four Noble Truths and Noble Eightfold Path are emphasized while chanting, ritual, etc. as well as supernatural beliefs are downplayed.
So when you say that Buddhism is rational and consistent, you're referring to a westernized version of it. In my opinion, what Siddhartha Gautama actually taught, or at least what early Buddhism seems to have been, is somewhat close to the pared-down westernized version of Buddhism, just in a Hindu context and belief system due to the time and location of the teachings. But this set of teachings is NOT the same as the religion of Buddhism as practiced by most Buddhists.
All that being said, something real is in the core teachings. You don't have to take anyone's word for it. You don't have to have faith in anything. Just learn to look inside, and see for yourself.
I don't know much about Daoism and Buddhism, but I know a guy who compliments people in the West who claim to be Daoists on their excellent Chinese. Most of them don't get the joke (it seems many important texts have never been translated).
Concerning Buddhism, don't certain sub-branches of Zen buddhism come quite close to the Western "no magic" version?
In first millennium China, Buddhist monasteries owned up to 20% of the country's land. Enormous tracts of forest were cut down to supply the wood to build monasteries, temples, towers, and more. Buddhist monasteries even owned slaves to work their lands.
For much of this period, certificates of Buddhist monk-hood were sold by the state or sub-state actors like dukes and princesses to quickly raise money. These certificates got one out of forced labor, which was often used to build Buddhist structures. (Forced labor was a common state inducement for all sorts of reasons in this time.) The explosion of "monks" led to crackdowns, stripping those who couldn't recite sutras or hadn't shaved their head of their privilege. Those with certificates were often exempt from certain taxes, though this privilege was only certain for those at imperial monasteries.
Sources:
"Buddhism in Chinese Society: An Economic History From the Fifth to the Tenth Centuries" By Jacques Gernet
"The Buddha's Footprint: An Environmental History of Asia" By Johan Elverskog
The hells (there are many cold hot and cold hells) and heavens and other realms of the dharmaic cosmology are important metaphors making a lot of philosophical/psychological sense. You can easily tell where are you supposed to reincarnate if you are sufficiently self-aware. Once you practice enough you can become more or less free from the tendencies of your mind which are meant to put you there or there and this will improve your overall health, mood and productivity. You can even realize that you already are living in particular realm actually despite living in the same world everybody else is from the physical point of view.
> Enlightenment is now impossible in this world because it's too corrupt. If you chant enough, this or that Buddha will reincarnate you into their personal realm where you can become enlightened.
Also makes sense: it indeed is very hard (if at all possible) to become completely free from how your neural system is preconditioned to react to what happens around. And if you feel bad about this you better chant than panic or do unpleasant things other religions followers might believe they should to do.
Also, no matter how much mythology does Buddhism contain, that comes packed with very practical and objective goodies, readily available to everybody interested. Buddhists would teach you to maintain mental health and wouldn't label you a heretic if you ignore parts of the teachings or interpret them your own way (unless you start propagating your unorthodox views too aggressively). Isn't this nice?
What you're saying is sort of like reducing Christianity to "love thy neighbor" and wondering why that didn't catch on wherever people are nice.
I'm in a Buddhist country right now, and I really dig it, and I'm learning all kinds of awesome things about how people live -- but I'm not sure I'd say the locals are more rational than the Europeans. Nor would I say the Europeans are necessarily more rational than anybody else... maybe "performative rationalism" would be a good term?
I think it's been wrongfully misconstrued as irrational by people who don't really understand the religion, inside and out.
For a good historical look at Christianity, I'd recommend people look into the Religions of the Ancient Mediterranean podcast, the NT Pod podcast, or, for the old testament, the writings of Mark S. Smith (you can also find lectures of his on Youtube).
Even secular thoughts like simulation theory agree in some sort of force that is outside of the material space-time universe we exist in.
From a layperson's point of view, are the astrophysicists that much different than a priestly caste?
I believe the physicists, but I don't think that by itself makes me a particularly rigorous thinker. In the ancient world I probably would have believed the priests, because it was what made sense to people.
And for better or for worse we have lots of evidence that people can reject science and still enjoy its benefits. It's not like refusing to believe in the Big Bang gets you blacklisted from using rockets or microchips, or rejecting evolution means you can't get vaccinated.
I have yet to see an astrophysicists burn you on a cross because you don't "believe" in the big bang.
"Belief in creation by God" is not mutually exclusive with believing that the Big Bang model correctly describes the structure and evolution of the universe. Belief in creation by God is not another option among an array of cosmological models, since it is not even a scientific model.
Anyway, I'm trying to understand what you mean my there not being a difference in leaps of faith required…
"Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. […] By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible."
Perhaps there are scientists that depend on a certain model not being proven incorrect for their own research to be viable, then, they might hope for something that they do not see. If (<- not biconditional ;p) that model stands on a solid basis they might even have confidence and some assurance about its truth. Is this somewhat what you mean?
In any case, I don't think that believing that a certain cosmological model is correct requires someone to be confident with regards to it. The currently predominant model might not be 100% right and that's perfectly fine. Thus, "belief in other cosmologies" might not require one to have faith while the verse quoted above states that it is through faith that someone understands that God is behind the creation.
(Unless you want to say that confidence in the scientific method is required for belief in a scientific model, but then, confidence in history (or God!) might be required on the other side as well, and so on).
Then, at least 1 more leap of faith is required, wouldn't you say? I'm not sure, tbh. :-)
But then, faith being involved in a process is not necessarily wrong (nor necessarily good).
The premise of Christianity is "revelation". That a higher power revealed knowledge to humans that is not knowable by any other means.
That there is revealed knowledge has meant that Christians spend much of their time thinking about and working out the implications of their revealed knowledge and trying to fit it into the rest of the world.
How rational you find Christianity depends on willing you are to accept it's premise. If you are then it is completely rational. If you aren't then it is nothing but castles built in the clouds.
The eastern christianity still recognises sin, but treats it more like a disease, the priest is more of a doctor.
I find this more appealing from a philosophical point of view, yet I lack any reason to believe.
Many religions and philosophers understand the idea that humans are not basically good people. They are generally self centered and not sacrificial. So to say that Catholicism or Christianity is strange for placing emphasis on our "fallenness" is a little unfair IMHO.
The daily struggle of a Christian is to strive to rid one's self of their sinful desires (selfish / evil) and live as Christ commands. This a continual process, and one that cannot be stopped. If one just "gets tired" of being a Christian, and lives differently, then they are in danger of losing their salvation.
I only go into this detail to illustrate that there is more to "Catholic guilt" than a flippant "critique".
Thanks for your perspective. You're certainly selling it better than the Catholic Church is. (You won't be surprised to hear that I'm not buying into the whole thing either way.)
How is this not a vehicle of control? It steers you in the direction of behaving the way Christianity prescribes for fear of the ultimate bad consequence which is losing your salvation.
You mean by 99.9% of the people. I have no doubt there is everything one may need to get enlightened in Christianity also but Christians have seemingly done amazing job obscuring that. And I can't recognize Christianity as rational because it requires you to just believe all the way through (in Buddhism as I know it believing is considered harmful, you are meant to experience it yourself and even then you are considered a fool if you start believing).
I am relying on a rather common and uninformed understanding of Buddhism here, so I may be way off base.
EDIT: I had to look it up, but I guess European culture has contained some sort of belief in reincarnation (Plato's Republic, Book X / Myth of Er). I don't suppose this belief has much traction anymore, despite the strong influence of Plato (or Greek philosophy in general) on Christianity.
Reincarnation was the only thing to come into my mind when I heard "buddhism" when I was a schoolboy. I had zero idea of what else is Buddhism about back then. Later, as I learnt more I found out (or came to an opinion) "reincarnation" itself is a fairly unimportant concept. Perhaps it is only there to attract/repel public and to be another target for becoming indifferent to as you progress.
It may also be beneficial to imagine you being reincarnated in a particular realm of existence and contemplating what you would experience. Imagine you are going to heaven where you are going to live millennia never forgetting... that you are going to hell after that, inevitably, like for real, and try to come in peace with that. That would be an exercise.
Agree on the rest, but not sure about that. Buddhism is well known for inconsistencies.
https://scholarworks.smith.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1...
I feel poetic inconsistencies/contradictions are the ancient world's equivalent of clickbait.
A lot of irrational things happen at the cultural and state level in Europe, with an iron thumb of redundancy keeping those silly states in check.
Are you sure? Perhaps you ought to read about Sokushinbutsu[0].
I guess there are group of people who believe in Buddhism as philosophy rather than religion. Although comparatively speaking still very minor.