Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Yash wrote:
“Another thing I realised that I overthink alot. Whenever I see people of different religions on YouTube talk about how their religion is true and everything else is false and if you don’t follow them, you will be burnt in hell forever. This is about abrahmic religions. These things kind of depress me and make me anxious and I feel like why do they say this? Whats the evidence for their such claims? Then on further research I found how every such religion has found a way to claim that their holy books contain all the scientific verses.”
“I understand that sir. But it happens automatically. That’s why I also tried to cultivate jhanas along with the dhamma to overcome such nonsense thoughts.”
Mind is a machine that runs on views. If you’re annoyed by the things that dogmatic people say, it is a reflection of your mental tendency (gati). Your views influence a subconscious algorithm that will automatically bring a reaction (output) when a corresponding input is provided. In your case, it sounds like your mind is attached with aversion (dosa). From my practice, I think that the only way of combating this issue is through the realization of right views.
Until the eradication of kama raga, we can only be tentative about the deep workings of the world. But we can do our best by carefully examining whatever worldview is presented to us. On the internet, you will find 100 different religion videos that say 100 different things that contradict each other. To list a few examples – “Accept Jesus or rot in hell”, “Believe Allah or die an eternal death”, “Chant Namo Amitabha to enter pure land”, “Hare Ram for good karma”, etc. They all claim that they’re speaking truth, but can they all be right? No, but they can certainly all be wrong. I remember getting into a heated fight with a few Muslims online when they praised the Islamic adultery punishment of 100 lashes. A girl (a minor!) was apprehended and lashed repeatedly and forcefully woken up even after she fainted to make sure that 100 painful lashes were delivered. Those idiots were not only praising such an inhumane action but insisting that they should be strictly enforced into all Islamic countries. I confronted them by asking who the hell are they to decide what a woman should do with her body. What rights do they have to impose their dogmatic beliefs onto others? They responded by trying to defend the authority of the Quran and one of the things that they told me was that it contains many “scientific verses” – one of which provides an accurate description of the human embryo formation. I decided to investigate it, only to end up laughing at their stupidity and mourning for those who have to put up with it.
“Man We did create from a quintessence of clay. Then we placed him as a drop of sperm in a place of rest, firmly fixed. Then We made the sperm into a clot of congealed blood. Then out of that clot We made a fetus lump. Then We made out of that lump bones, and clothed the bones with flesh. Then We developed out of it another creature. So blessed be Allah, the Best to create!” (23:12-14)
Religious people like to twist their interpretations to pretend that their holy books contain “scientific verses”. But do you think the above is even remotely similar to how embryogenesis actually works? Every single sentence above has an error.
“Man We did create from a quintessence of clay.”
A clay is primarily made up of inorganic compounds like silica and alumina, but a human body is primarily made up of organic compounds and water.
“Then we placed him as a drop of sperm in a place of rest, firmly fixed.”
A sperm cell continues to move until it fertilizes with the ovum, after which a zygote is formed and the sperm cell practically disappears. There is no “resting” for a “drop of sperm” and it is certainly not “firmly fixed”.
“Then We made the sperm into a clot of congealed blood.”
A zygote is formed by the coitus of the parents, during which the mother must be in season. In other words, there can’t be an embryo without the ovum but this crucial aspect is not even mentioned.
“Then out of that clot We made a fetus lump.”
A blood clot is a gel-like mass that is formed in the blood at the site of an injury, primarily to seal further blood loss. An embryo is not a “clot”. It is a multicellular organism that continually grows.
“Then We made out of that lump bones, and clothed the bones with flesh.”
The skeletal system forms gradually in 2 ways – Intramembranous ossification and Endochondral ossification. This process continues throughout the fetal life so it makes no sense to say that a lump of bones was created and stitched with the flesh.
“Then We developed out of it another creature.”
Embryogenesis shows that an embryo goes through 20 different stages within the first 23 days. Based on that, it is different at each stage, so what the hell does “another creature” mean?
“So blessed be Allah, the Best to create!”
Lol! Pregnancy is an utterly stressful process that puts the mother and the baby through insane risks and suffering. Even an accidental point mutation can have a devastating consequence. Some are even raped and forced into pregnancy (that includes children). And it is not just humans that get pregnant, animals do too and their suffering is even worse as they also need to bear with the risk of predators. So I DO NOT understand how anyone can be ignorant enough to think that this process is worthy of any praise.
This is just one example. The so-called holy books of the worldly religions are frequently littered with scientific errors like “earth being created before the stars and that they can fall from the heaven, disease caused due to demons, usage of geocentric model, implication of 6000 years old earth, etc.” (of course, I am talking about Abrahamic religions here but it’s not limited to that). A common excuse is asserting that they’re “metaphors” meant not to be taken literally. When the claims are factually false, they’re metaphors but when they’re somewhat right, they’re “scientific verses”. That is their hypocrisy.
I didn’t do the above analysis to waste anyone’s time but to attempt to provide some insights because I myself have gone through similar experience. I can’t control what other people do. But what frustrates me the most is that the mere existence of these people “blocks” the path of many others who could have the potential to comprehend the profound teachings of Buddha. A good example is the emerging studies of “Near Death Experiences” which is often discarded without a second thought by even the most well known scientists like Richard Dawkins and Neil DeGrasse Tyson. Any implication of the word “supernatural” can generate discomfort in many bright minds today because they are aware of how nonsensical the worldly religions are, and the last thing you’d wanna do is associate with zealots.
It is an absolute mess and I have personally given up on trying to fix any of it. I can’t change others but I can certainly work on changing myself. There is a very specific reason why a Bhikkhu gives up the lay life and fully embraces the monastic life. Detaching from the worldly mess is an important part of the process.
1 user thanked author for this post.
“Yet, some babies die within days. How is their destiny determined?”
By making excuses. If one is faith oriented, counterarguments are always secondary. But difficult indeed it is to justify the suffering of babies. Some blame the first humans (“original sin” in Abrahamic faiths) while others blame the babies themselves (“karma” in Hinduism). The former is often scrutinized for its injustice of punishing one for the sins of the other while the latter is criticized for it insinuating cosmic cruelty instead of evoking God’s benevolence.
But the other thing is how incompatible these “faiths” are with observation. Reports from Near Death Experiences clearly disprove the “heaven/hell forever” argument. Even agnostics report encountering dead relatives. How is this possible if they were supposed to be sent to hell or get annihilated? This supports paraloka way more than the “soul” argument. I am surprised to see that even some doctors in the west are dumb enough to endorse Christianity. But perhaps there is little one can know without exposure to Dhamma?
Dhamma rightfully views consciousness as a manifestation of causes and conditions (therefore, various kinds of viññāṇa), but other religions portray it as something continuous like a “soul”.
For example, the following are necessary conditions for eye consciousness (chakkhu viññāṇa) to manifest:
object (arammana) + light + physical eye + Peripheral Nervous System (PNS) + Central Nervous System (Brain/mana indriya) + chakkhu pasada + hadaya vatthu
Steps listed:
- Light reflects off the object
- Photons are received by eye ball
- Neurons from PNS transfer electric signals to Brain
- Brain converts it into a form that chakkhu pasada can receive
- Mana indriya sends ray signal (kirana) to chakkhu pasada rupa
- Chakkhu pasada impinges the hadaya vatthu
- If the person is attentive, awareness manifests at this step
- So far it is a plain awareness (vipāka viññāṇa). But if it is an object of interest, the initial attachment is automatic.
- Then the person can choose to generate conscious thoughts about the object or try to avoid it by distracting themselves. This can strengthen the perception of ‘I’ or ‘me’. But if a single condition above is removed, awareness of the object can not occur.
Do you see anything unchanging/eternal above?
And here is the empirical proof of paraloka. It appears that this is as close as we can get to understanding paraloka using the “mundane” approach (i.e. without jhana):
1 user thanked author for this post.
How come some 10-20% of ONLY Western societies have this issue now? As I said, it is a mental issue.
I’m not sure how true this is. People will freely identify as long as they don’t feel threatened but that hasn’t been the case for most of recorded history. For example, here’s what the Bible says about homosexuality:
If a man has sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They are to be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads. (Leviticus 20:13)
Many societies are now more liberal and tolerant which is why people feel more safe to share how they actually feel. That includes many Western societies AND some eastern ones like Thailand for example: Why are there so many ladyboys in Thailand?
But even nowadays, not all societies are tolerant of trans/gay people. Some even go as far as public executions: The Islamic State’s Views on Homosexuality
To be honest, I had been thinking about this issue myself as it wasn’t something I was used to in my country Nepal, which is still intolerant. I knew that such people exist but they often hid themselves as many only show up past midnight in regional city areas. It wasn’t until I moved to USA for college that I saw many LGBTs freely expressing themselves. Mental Health America succinctly states that LGBT is not a mental health issue, even though they’re prone to mental health problems: LGBTQ+ Communities and Mental Health
Many researchers argue that gender is likely a neurochemical phenomenon that is different from the biological sex which is a chromosomal phenomenon (see for example, Neurobiology of gender identity and sexual orientation). From the Dhamma, I have learnt that the gandhabba can undergo drastic changes even while inside the physical body. So even if one had a purisa gati at conception (hence, pulled into a zygote with XY chromosome leading to a male physical body), there could be (hidden) underlying causes that can surface into the (re)cultivation of itthi gati leading to female tendencies and behavior. Some appear to have a mixture of these qualities leading to them identifying as non-binary, etc.
But if one is a dedicated Dhamma practitioner, I think it is reasonable to say that they will worry less about their gender identity (and sexual orientation). When one removes kama raga, it becomes irrelevant anyway. And to my knowledge, Buddha neither condoned nor commended transgenders so perhaps it is not something to worry about but it is good to be informed indeed, especially in our contemporary world.
I think you made good observations. One of the issues I’ve had with the Hindu idea of “kali yuga” (and “satya yuga”) is how they try to tie it with a creator God (but fail to do so). Why would a supposedly benevolent cosmic order make it so difficult to escape lower births, especially when most animals don’t have the cognitive ability to accumulate good kamma?
Most Hindus think that they will be sent into a favorable birth (like heaven) because they followed the precepts, worships and generally lived a moral life, but others will be taken away by deity Yamraj. But if the Yugas represent moral and spiritual decay or purity, how does that apply to the countless animals that vastly outnumber humans? Like Abrahamic religions, it is ignorant of the suffering experienced by non-human species.
Furthermore, when viewed as a divine order, I also don’t understand the suffering of babies and toddlers who barely know anything about the world. If the individual doesn’t remember their past deeds, then the suffering feels arbitrary rather than meaningful. Punishment or reward only makes sense if the person experiencing it understands why it’s happening. Otherwise, it just seems like cosmic cruelty rather than justice (which very likely seems to be the case anyway).
This is another aspect that makes me think that Buddha Kassapa’s teachings were in fact distorted overtime and turned into a ritual bound religion.
Yeah, the sutta states that they appear “with the vanishing of their luminosity”. I can’t imagine what a brahma like early being would see but it seems like it emphasizes that the field of view is too bright/saturated for largely distant objects like sun, stars, etc. to be visible.
2. The other aspect is the formation process of a star. It happens gradually over millions of years. The star does not “ignite” until its mass reaches a critical density. You can search for “star formation” to find more information. Thus, in the early Earth, our Sun had not yet become a star; it was a giant gas cloud, and due to gravity, it started collapsing into a smaller size gradually. Eventually, it reaches a critical density needed for nuclear fusion and becomes a star.
That explains the later appearance of sun and moon. But what about stars and constellations? They should be visible without the ignition of sun, especially since those beings could see without light.
In #3 of the sutta:
Then those beings started to eat the earth’s nectar, breaking it into lumps.
But when they did this
their luminosity vanished.
And with the vanishing of their luminosity the moon and sun appeared,
stars and constellations appeared,
days and nights were distinguished,
and so were months and fortnights,
and years and seasons.
So far had the world evolved once more.
What I understand from this is that those beings were bright enough that the moon, sun and stars were not visible to them, not that they didn’t exist. While I am not sure what type of “luminosity” is being referred to here, these are beings who descended from the abhassara realm, which is referred to as the realm of “streaming radiance”.
3 users thanked author for this post.
Closing this thread because I’m not able to tolerate the distressful nature of this topic more than I already have.
I think this is a really bad argument, if you kill something for the comfort or sense of pleasure it’s even worse javana citta. Your logic would apply in the sense that I have no problem killing anyone because somebody is bothering me and killing that person will make me feel go away isn’t it the worst kamma to make?
This thread has got me confused. Who said anything about pleasure? I was referring to unwanted pregnancies – accidental (like failed contraception) & forced (like rape), not the ones where you impregnant yourself due to negligence only to abort the fetus. It would be easy for someone to say something like, “Don’t have sex if you don’t want the risk.” But this is totally ignorant about the true nature of human existence. Even a sakadagami craves sex.
Christian wrote: “I understand there are extreme situations like “the child will be dead anyway so let’s save the mother” as the best choice in a given situation, but Dhamma perspective is different from than mundane perspective and logic that often falls in the big picture of the world.”
An unwanted pregnancy is already an extreme situation. Why should a woman be encouraged to carry what’s practically a parasite in her womb for 9 months straight and risk not only her own but also the fetus life while giving birth, if she doesn’t want to go through that BS in the first place? If your sister was raped, would you let her give birth against her consent? I do not care if it is a “vipaka”. We are all guilty of committing innumerable moral and immoral actions anyway.
Dr. Lal wrote: “If Taryal was referring to aborting a pregnancy, I agree with Christian. Aborting a pregnancy is taking a human life, as I pointed out in previous comments. It is done with intention.”
Yes, but would you say that the “intention” here is the same as murdering a human who is already living independent of the mother and poses no harm to her? I know that intention is contextual. For instance, a policeman killing a criminal does so with a different intention than the opposite. If a wild animal kills its parent, that would not be an anantarika kamma, would it? The mental state and thus “intention” of an animal is different and not as potent as that of a human, since there is no such thing as “absolute morality” (as I understand it). This is why I said: “So I remain unconvinced that their minds will release javana citta equivalent to the strength of “murdering” a human that is already living independent of their mother.”
When one is infected with parasites, it’d be advised to take medicine to kill them too. Even if a tapeworm may not be on par with a human life, it is a sentient being that wants to live. I know about pet owners who decided to put down their pets because they were suffering from disease. The “intention” of aborting a human embryo in an unwanted pregnancy would be to protect the mother’s life & well-being, AND the baby from future suffering. So I remain unconvinced that their minds will release javana citta equivalent to the strength of “murdering” a human that is already living independent of their mother. Regardless, it is safe to say that it is not possible to live in this world without harming other beings, including humans.
