tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5043003269935490917.post6610035068448721168..comments2024-02-14T08:44:41.513+00:00Comments on Progressive Buddhism: God and BuddhismMyeong Jin Eunsahn http://www.blogger.com/profile/10324409234993116264noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5043003269935490917.post-88247617006617456172015-06-15T21:27:37.036+01:002015-06-15T21:27:37.036+01:00I have found the Kabbalah entirely consistent with...I have found the Kabbalah entirely consistent with Buddhism. Even though Isvara is better known through Hinduism thre are also Buddhist references, and I find "him " compatible with JHVH.BuddhiHermithttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09119595976272454045noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5043003269935490917.post-34816466100749878372015-06-15T20:14:10.082+01:002015-06-15T20:14:10.082+01:00Ha! I remember that post, Tom. 4 years? 4 years! E...Ha! I remember that post, Tom. 4 years? 4 years! Eeeash... I too have found myself uncomfortable with the word 'God'; but also, as I hang out more with Unitarian Universalists, find myself quickly translating it into 'Cosmos' or some such thing in my head when I hear it from a friendly (non-Republican sinners' head beating) source.Buddhist_philosopherhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14246929532585980356noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5043003269935490917.post-8940128730968601582015-06-12T17:21:06.592+01:002015-06-12T17:21:06.592+01:00Yo. I don't mean to drag a crippled horse out ...Yo. I don't mean to drag a crippled horse out of the barn, but allow me first to mention in passing that I wrote a blogpost for ProgBud nearly four years ago, titled "Confessions of a Skyhooks Buddhist" which has some similarities in tone if not in specifics with Denis's post, here, "God and Buddhism."<br /><br />I differ with Denis in being uncomfortable with use of the G-word. The Abrahamic religions have been such an enormous bother I like to step away from them and leave the G-word at their feet. My interest, which may well be God neutered of his meta-dimensions that are all-powerful, looking down at us from his box-seats outside the multiverse, is one of attraction to the Good, the True and the Beautiful.<br /><br />Now, I don't mean any of this in the Republican sense -- making use of Good, True, Beautiful as three cudgels to beat sinners' heads with. Rather, I think there is something about being sentient that allows G, T, & B to pull us up from the mire. Whether there is some real God of any depiction rattling around in space or in a spaceless space somewhere, I cannot know. I only know no "personal" God speaks to me. And that is not because I am not listening; it is because He is deaf, dumb and blind or, maybe, taking a very, very long vacation in Las Vegas.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13718601770472939313noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5043003269935490917.post-63315453870110160842015-06-11T21:29:37.942+01:002015-06-11T21:29:37.942+01:00An interesting post, Denis. Just a couple of musin...An interesting post, Denis. Just a couple of musings:<br /><br />'Supernaturalism not only enters into language it cannot speak' - well, yes, you are quite right, but so does mysticism and even radical scepticism. Nargarjuna himself was only too aware of the limits of language, and the Madhyamaka tradition is based almost entirely on the premise that linguistic cognitions are necessarily bound up with essentialist notions and are thus inadequate for expressing anything other than conventions (i.e. cannot express ultimates; of which god, usually understood, would be one). So I think that whilst you have a point in the very general sense, it is somewhat disingenuous to assert that supernaturalism is any less a thesis owing to its inability to express *everything*.<br /><br />It could be argued (and is, in fact) that if a supernaturalist doctrine were able to express *all that is expressible*, this would suffice. That would place any god outside of human conceptual cognition (as Eckhart, Pseudo-Dionysius, Maimonides would have us do) but still allow for what I guess is a concept of 'divinity' and 'divine experience' which jettisons all things anthropomorphic in principle if not in practise (how many mystics report visions of anthropomorphic avatars?).<br /><br />'The question now that I am begging is: is God necessarily a supernatural belief, and are all faiths that are theistic necessarily supernaturalistic? The obvious is no if one looks at an introduction to religious thought, or speaks to many modern believers. Yet, we must also not be under the misconception that every sensible person has the truth. (Not that I do....)<br /><br />Buddhism does not escape supernaturalism often and remains atheistic in the same occasion making it another example that theistic belief is not an necessary part of any supernaturalism. Now that we have dismissed God from the corruption of supernaturalism where does God go?'<br /><br />It appears to me that there is nothing obvious about dealing with this question, and it indeed has two sides: you first ask whether belief in God is necessarily supernatural but don't really deal with the question in any meaningful sense. The claims to be made are that supernatural belief can be rationally justified (or not), and/or that theistic belief can be rationally justified (or not). I think that these questions could be probed fruitfully from a Buddhist perspective, and I would personally be of the same opinion as tamizharasan above regarding theism. <br /><br />Second, you make a jump and say that 'theistic belief is not an necessary part of any supernaturalism' - whether or not this is true (and I'm not fully convinced that it is if we want to use 'theism' in any recognisable way), that wasn't actually what you initially asked. You first asked. Whether *belief in god is necessarily supernatural* (and so whether theism is necessarily supernatural) or whether *supernaturalism is necessarily theistic* are two very different things. I don't think we *have* dismissed god from the realm of the supernatural here and have rather conflated two different positions and confused the issue rather than clarifying it.<br /><br />What is interesting for me is the use of god-like symbols as archetypes. One could argue that the Buddha himself is held up as archetype to aid in the correct spiritual praxis. I have some sympathy for positions that make the case that gods-as-archetypes serve the same purposes in other religious traditions. This would make god-imagery contingent and conventional, not absolute.Babblisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08804586071890235666noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5043003269935490917.post-39646089259542034152015-06-11T21:18:34.128+01:002015-06-11T21:18:34.128+01:00I am inclined to agree with you. I am inclined to agree with you. Babblisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08804586071890235666noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5043003269935490917.post-83368582736450062592015-06-08T16:32:28.369+01:002015-06-08T16:32:28.369+01:00I agree with you Thomas, no "out-there" ...I agree with you Thomas, no "out-there" God is real and no human word or human conception of God will suffice in anyway to meet the criteria of what we generally accept as being "God." The reverse is also true, we accept a lot of qualities that are based on human interpretation of power and give it to God. I believe I made a decent case against a theism that is necessarily supernaturalistic but ultra naturalistic. Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11071300093599022906noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5043003269935490917.post-4697666776681802802015-06-05T18:07:11.370+01:002015-06-05T18:07:11.370+01:00Not that I think Buddha is the Supreme Court on th...Not that I think Buddha is the Supreme Court on the matter of God (or anything, really), but Buddha, as we know, had no opinion on whether there is or is not a God.<br /><br />I cannot believe that any of the Gods 'out there' are "real." Not Jehovah or Mohammed or Zeus or Poseidon. Any God who is all-powerful and allows three-year-old children to be run over by cars and die in agony, bleeding out on the road, ain't worth shit and can get no attention from me. But it CAN be that there is a silent God out there, but I don't see what purpose that serves. He could be the creator of the universe -- and, yes, would necessarily be supernatural -- but we are left with the problem of what higher God created Him.<br /><br />Like it is with turtles, I think there are (maybe) Gods "all the way down" -- which I think necessarily means there are no Gods. [One divided by Zero equals ... ]Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13718601770472939313noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5043003269935490917.post-48240972742208983752015-06-04T22:11:50.321+01:002015-06-04T22:11:50.321+01:00the god(s) the buddha spoke of are engaged in the ...the god(s) the buddha spoke of are engaged in the same endeavor as we humans, trying to penetrate to the truth of emptiness, that there really isn't an "absolute" reality. the experience, the experienced, and the one who experiences, all of these are mere conventional designations and ultimately unreal. imputing an "absoluteness" to them, so as to allow one to cling to belief in a truly existing God, doesn't seem to accord with the buddha's basic teachings. but whatever works for you. tamizharasannoreply@blogger.com