Soulfire

"Do not do unto others what you would find harmful to yourself." That's the Golden Rule, found in literally every religion on Earth in some form or another. Though the fully Enlightened individual would not perceive anything as being harmful to themselves, they would understand that, from the universal standpoint, that is, the standpoint of the in-Enlightened, this or that may be perceived as bad, and so, such a person would refrain from committing such actions. Every religion also has a code of law by which to live: don't steal, don't kill, don't commit adultery, and the like. That comes down to the Abrahamic religions at least from Hammurabi's Code, but the general idea is the same anywhere you go. Though individuals who have freed themselves from ego and identification of the "self that suffers" may exist, and would know that no pain is eternal any more than any pleasure is, those universal standards are required. Mr. Molyneux even talks about "universally preferable behaviour", which is basically the same thing: the non-aggression principle and the like. That's all based on the earlier codes of ethics that you get out of religious and philosophical systems, which in turn got their ethics from very ancient codes of law like the one made by Hammurabi in Mesopotamia. By the way, I'm not claiming to be Enlightened myself, here. There's a shitload more I'd need to learn and understand before I could claim that, though I think it would be pretty awesome for me to be the first female Buddha. LOL.

GoldenAges, the first half of your above argument sounds like the whole "Atheists just want to sin" thing, if you ask me. Living without God, they are depicted in the minds of the ignorant of just wanting to sin, free of consequence. I know that's a bit of a non-sequitur, but I promise I have a point. To say that there is no such thing, really, as good and evil is not the same as giving yourself a license to commit what would be perceived as evil by others who do not share your understanding, or as simply going along with your own whims. To understand that others suffer is to have true compassion, and you would therefore not want to cause them (what they perceive as) harm. That's why the Jain philosophy is to do no harm, that's why the Buddhist monks take a vow of nonviolence, even to animals and plants. Speaking of monks, though, I think you misunderstood my meaning: in the Zen tradition at least, the monks do work for what they are given. Did I not clarify that point? Many monks in other traditions are teachers as well, I mean like in schools in rural areas and such. They also perform ceremonies and rituals like any priest in the West would, so it's a full-time job, really. Also, as I understand it, it's not like they ask for a lot. In most orders, the monks will only eat one small vegetarian meal every day, so it's not like they're going from house to house asking for three square meals every single day. Plus you'll get the ascetic monks who will do even less than that. Heck, when he was practicing the Shramana path, the Buddha ate so little that, the story goes, he could stick his finger in his navel and feel his own spinal cord by one point. So it's not like they're being leeches on society.

I agree with you in that, objectively, Hitler's actions would see, exceptionally immoral. God knows I'm not arguing against that. I'm not a Nazi sympathizer and in fact I'd be one of the first they'd kill, despite being white. I've got a lot of disabilities and I'm very liberally-minded. That would be an issue for them. Anyway, in regard to Mahayana, the Doctrine of Emptiness does state that all things are empty, yes, but that all depends on what you mean by "empty". I posed the three characteristics of existence somewhere around here, and one of them is "Anatman", or soullessness. That is, all things are, in the Buddhist view, taught to be without a lasting essence, which may in fact be true. Are you the same "you" as the one who woke this morning? Possibly, in terms of your intellect, worldview, and other mental factors, but in reality you are not the same "you" at all, even in a scientific sense. Cells have died and replicated, innumerable chemical reactions have happened within you to very subtly change your interior anatomy, and so forth. In that sense, all things are empty. The Yogachara school argues against this, saying that consciousness is in some ways real, though NOT eternal. They do agree with Mahayana that nothing is eternal, or carried over from one life to another. On that note, by the way, I'm not entirely sure whether I personally accept the doctrine of Samsara. It's a possibility, certainly, but that's as broad a statement as saying that it would be possible to get to Neptune so long as you go far enough. Possible, but perhaps unlikely. Also, though, one does not accept the idea of Samsara in order to gain Enlightenment. That's not one of the conditions of gaining Enlightenment, though there is more than one way, I think, to skin a cat when it comes to that. Enlightenment, at least for me, is not necessarily the same as accepting the reality of the three characteristics of existence or the Four Noble Truths. There could be literally thousands of ways to gain Enlightenment, which is why I'm also a fan of Jainism. Strictest code of nonviolence, and that's it. Very simple and also very doable if you've got the right attitude. But I digress. PS: What do you mean by saying "Hitler's beliefs did not have a causal connection to affect the morality of his actions"? Of course one's beliefs will inform their actions. Unless I'm misunderstanding you?

PS: Hey, RichardY, I appreciate the "follow". Thanks.

Good insights, GoldenAges, but I do have a few corrections to make, if you don't mind. 1. The Parable of Good or Bad is largely based on one's perspective. It states that good and evil are a matter of perspective merely. Think about it: as an extreme example, did Hitler believe that what he was doing was evil? Likely not, either because he had no sense of conscience, which Buddhists would not advocate, or because he truly believed that what he was doing was for the better, and in the wider interests of his nation. As I say, that is an extreme example, but it's true for lighter things. The bad guys in movies don't tend to think of themselves as bad guys, you know? And who, anyway, are we to judge of another's actions, when we can't get into their heads and see their motivations? 2. Yes, monks in the Buddhist tradition do beg for their food, but that is only because it's unlawful for them to handle money, largely for the sake of suppressing avarice. Also, in the Zen tradition at least, the general rule is that a monk must do something to earn his food, and so many of them are farmers and councilors and the like. The rule is "You don't work, you don't eat", and their line of work must always be something beneficial to the wider community. 3. Buddhism is a philosophy, not a science. It is not the duty of the monks or of the Dalai Lama to come up with scientific inventions. However, there has been actual scientific research done on the brains of monks to show to the West the benefits of their lifestyle, with a heavy emphasis on their meditation practices. There is more than one reason why such things as Yoga and meditation have been brought over to the West. Yoga is a Hindu thing, mind you, but it falls under the same general category of "Eastern shit that's good for you". And I personally don't just mean the exercise-based Yoga that Swami Kuvalayananda brought over. I'm talking about the spiritual Yogas, but, again, another topic for another time.

If I may beg your pardon, your possessions, any place you loved growing up, your memories of happy times...none of these can love you back, and yet you yourself feel affection for them. There can of course be love without two sentient beings loving one another. The fact that we can love that which lacks its own individual consciousness is proof of this.

Divine actuality, my dear, not divine masturbation. Also, you're very quick on the response. I can appreciate that.

Well, in my own experience, let's use the example of the fact that I am a completely unabashed daddy's girl. I love my father to no end, and that has never changed. But the quality of my love for him has changed: when I was a child, I loved him as my apparently omnipotent protector, the guiding force. Now, knowing through experience that he is not omnipotent, as all children will eventually learn of their parents, I love him as my friend, rather than my guardian. In opposition to the Buddhist doctrine, therefore, in this particular example, I would say that the love itself is a constant, despite its changing nature. Buddha, though, would say that, because the love has changed in nature, it is not the same love, and therefore not a constant. So it boils down to a question of quality versus actuality of my love for my father, though I don't know what the Buddha would say regarding the fact of my feelings: the concept itself. I should ask my "guru". Emphasis on the quotation marks because he's actually my professor of Eastern Philosophy and doesn't like it when I call him guru. As for any other example you can yourself think of, it might come down to the same thing: the quality of the supposed constant versus the fact of it being there at all. I'm not sure how to make answer to that. I need someone smarter than me to help me out, hence asking my professor.

A fraud? No, love is truth. Love is the highest truth, in fact, because it can break down so many of our self-imposed barriers. Perhaps you aren't aware of your own love, but even in terms of petty, personal belongings, you must have some attachments? And the people in your life, you can't tell me you don't love your own people. I'm not asking you to love me or to love strangers, or anything of that sort, but to be conscious of love is to be conscious of your own Godhead. You are God too, remember. Everything is. That includes every person as well.

I think the issue here is that (with respect; I get that you have faith here) you still speak of God as something other. To say that everything is God is to assume that God is not separate, not "other", from everything that we can perceive with our senses. Look at your walls and you see God, look at a gun and you see God, look at yourself and you see God. Neutral, negative, and positive, all of it is God. Nothing is "other" from anything else because it's all of one piece in reality. Where did this all start? The Big Bang? As you see, all of what is came from that one moment of time, and from the "singularity" as science calls it, so it really all is one. You are as much me as you are the sky, the earth, everything. And I am as much myself as I am everything else. And that is all God. I don't know whether we can consider this without of course considering the inevitability of pain in life, because of course there is pain in life, but nothing is lasting, not even that. If there was a time before consciousness, and therefore consciousness of pain, then there was at one time no such thing as pain. Likewise, there will be a time after pain. God's existence is therefore not dictated by this, nor by any other seemingly lasting or inevitable thing. Pain requires consciousness, or at least a body to feel, and there are only an incredibly small minority of things that are capable of that sensation. Does the Earth feel pain when you walk on it? I would feel pain if you were to walk on my back, but not the Earth. Do you see what I mean at all?

What is meant by the soul in this case? The supposedly eternal and unchanging aspect of the self. The Buddha argues against the Abrahamic and Hindu understanding of the soul: that there is, somewhere located within you, a thing--essence, identity, or otherwise--that does not change over time, that lives outside of the body once the body dies, and lived before the body was formed. Buddha argues that there is no such thing and, some days, I'm tempted to agree with him. I'd love to believe in Afterlife, mind you, but that's my Christian roots coming out. In the West, we're taught to fear death. Mind you, of course, that's our survival instinct there to protect us, of course, but the Mahabharata (Hindu, I know, but I do have a point that applies to Buddhism here) says not to fear death. The Lord says not to fear for the body specifically, anyway, because in the Hindu view, there is reincarnation, as there is in the Buddhist view, but it's not "you" that reincarnated according to Buddhism, because there is no "you" as such. Think of it this way: we say "my soul" in the same way as we say "my couch" or even "my arm", but who is this "my"? It would be implied in the Abrahamic and Hindu views that this "my" is the soul, but you're saying "my soul" as if it were something other, if you know what I mean: just one part of "you". But if you look around for it, you can't really identify this "my", this possessor, any further than in your own mind, which of course had a beginning and will have an end. So, Anatman. No Self.

With respect to people's views on here, I do need to make the case for Buddhism NOT being totally nihilistic. I know that the first Noble Truth makes it look that way, but hear me out: when Gautama says that all life is suffering, he doesn't mean that everything is just terrible and you may as well bump yourself off. What he means is that, even when there is pleasure, there must be an end to pleasure, because nothing in life is permanent (see the end of this post for the list of the three characteristics of existence according to Buddhism). Well, if nothing is permanent, and pleasure must therefore of necessity have an end, well, one feels compelled to seek further and/or different pleasures, which are also fleeting, and this cycle continues. Rather, the Buddha suggests that we not be attached to a need for pleasure. He does NOT say that it is wrong to have pleasure, or that pleasure is exactly empty, per se, but simply that we should not believe it to be lasting, and that we should also not believe it to be the only purpose of our lives. An extremity of that is called hedonism and we all know how bad that is for us. Anyway, the three characteristics of existence... 1. All of life is unsatisfactory 2. All of life is impermanent 3. All of life is soulless (as in lacking a consistent "soul" or "self"; this one lines up with #2)

My, my, did I raise some SHIT! Oopsie. The way I practice Buddhism makes it a philosophy, not a religion, so I'm not looking for an explanation for God for one thing. God is everything. So whatever explanation you or anyone else has for everything being here, then that's the explanation for God that I would take because I'm open to all possibilities. Also, though, Buddhism does not deny reason. The Dalai Lama himself has said that Buddhism is a scientific philosophy and that, if science were to disprove any of the Buddhist tenets, even such engrained things as the Truths or the Eightfold Path, then Buddhists would have no choice but to abandon them, as Buddhism is a search, ultimately, for truth. But I won't argue with any of you: that isn't what I'm here to do. The world is so cynical now and I fully intend to retain my optimism. So, let's simply chat! That's much more fun. Besides, like I say, I'm malleable in terms of my own beliefs, so I'm all ears (eyes, because reading) for anyone who likes to discuss this stuff as I do.

This is for Mr. Molyneux to decide, whether he would like to address this, but I have a few questions for him regarding disability and social assistance. I realize that times are busy with politics and the potential for nuclear Holocaust likely taking up much of his time in terms of video content, but I've always wondered why he's never addressed this at all. 1. Stefan, my salutations to you as well as my appreciation, for though we differ on many points in terms of politics, I am an avid viewer of your content on YouTube and I can at least acknowledge the fact that you're an extremely intelligent man who has a great capacity for free speech. That's what it's there for, so please do continue to exercise your right to it. Firstly, though, I would like to ask whether you could consider addressing the topic of disability and social assistance, as I have literally never seen you do so and I would like to know your opinions. 2. I am not a Libertarian and I am perfectly willing to submit that I am ignorant regarding many points thereon, but from what I've heard from you regarding it, I have to wonder: if taxation were eliminated under a Libertarian regime, what of such programs as ODSP? Those are put in place for people who literally cannot work due to their physical or mental differences, and therefore, it seems to me that Libertarianism puts the disabled in a rather tight position. I may be missing a big point here, though, so if you could set me straight, I'd appreciate it. What I want to know is how such a program would be implemented, if at all, if taxation were ever to be eliminated? 3. With the population aging, you have addressed the fact that we, the young, will be responsible for supporting the elderly on the demographic chart, which is, in Canada, becoming increasingly top-heavy, with the Baby Boomers growing old and needing more help. However, I argue that age is not anyone's fault, per se. With age comes increasing levels of age-related disability, however, and so a thing like ODSP is, now more than ever, needful. What is your take on this? Are people "entitled" to social assistance by virtue of being disabled and unable to work? If not, what do you suggest be done for them? How does Libertarianism address this issue? So far as I see it, and I am sure you can correct me as I urge you to if I am wrong, Libertarianism appears to be a system under which the able-bodied and wealthy are more highly favoured, as these have much less to worry about in regard to the dispersion of money than the disabled or those born into poverty. As I say, I am ignorant of Libertarian philosophy in regard to this particular issue and don't know how it would be handled. Help me out? As I said above, thank you for your work and your continual efforts to make sense of things in the world. I'm happy to say that you're one of many: philosophy is in my blood like air is in my lungs, and I want to spread it too. I hope to be able to do some good on this website, actually, as I am a brand new member here despite being a long-time listener of yours. Cheers, Stef. PS: And if anyone else here has opinions or information regarding this, help a sister out, eh? Thanks all. ♥

Great...yet another country with nuclear potential, as if we need that. People need to learn to be good to one another and cut it out with the pissing contests. George Carlin (I know he's just a comedian but he's right when he says this) says that all of our weapons are shaped like phalluses for a good reason. "Mine is bigger than yours, my God could beat up your God, look how much further I can piss"...it's annoying. And it's not just a male thing, so don't get me wrong. Women do it too, just in a more petty and nattering sort of way. A professor of mine says that men have more strength but women have more power. I said to him, yes, he could take me out if he wanted to, but I could bitch him into an early grave. LOL.

Hello RichardV, thanks for your insight! Did I switch from "bad" to "evil" when I typed out that parable...? Didn't notice if I did. Oops. But I meant "bad" the way through. I agree with your point about STDs or the burning down of the village if caused by, say, lightning hitting the place and everything going "boom". That bad things happen without human intervention is harder to understand merely in terms of perception, in that there seems to be no real reason for the evil having occurred. However...science. Science and the laws of probability both admit that such things happen, and for something to occur in accordance with a natural law is neither good or bad, but neutral, as the laws of nature have no perception of their own, have no consciousness of the fact that they may be causing misfortune. Of course, to those who suffer it, who do have perception and consciousness, such things seem arbitrary and cruel, but there is little that can be done about nature. For all our power and technology, we are as infants and insects before nature. The Native Americans say in their teachings that, no matter how old one is, all of us are as infants next to the Earth, and that's perfectly true. We cannot, therefore, fault nature for acting as it acts. It has no intention of causing evil to anyone living here, as it does not know that there are sentient beings living on this planet. Nature follows its OWN nature, its Wu Wei, without consciousness, and therefore whatever comes as a result of unfolding natural occurrences cannot be seen as good or bad, any more than the scenarios provided in the Parable of Good or Bad. Also, where I ended the parable is where it ends. It could, in theory, go on in such a way for an indeterminate round of "good" to "bad", but that would just be redundant. And in terms of Buddhism, no, you can't escape Samsara just by bumping yourself off, or through any other mode of death. The only way to escape the eternality of life and death, and therefore suffering, is to break free of attachments and work towards true freedom. I can personally do that with stuff: I don't particularly care what happens with most of my possessions. But people? THAT is an entirely different issue. Four Noble Truths time! 1. All of life is dukkha (dissatisfaction or suffering) 2. The cause of dukkha is clinging (note: Buddha says nothing about HAVING things, just clinging to them) 3. There can be an end to dukkha (yay) 4. The end to dukkha is found in the practice of the Noble Eightfold Path Lots of "Noble" stuff in Buddhism: Noble Truths, Noble Eightfold Path...but the point of the Path is to purify your behaviour, your thoughts, and what you concentrate on in order to elevate yourself out of Samsara.

The root of all evil? Thinking that there is evil in the world. Allow me to explain: Now, likely enough, none of you above are particularly religious, but the perspective I would like to introduce here, from Buddhist origin, is not a theistic one, so despite the "ism", bear with me here for a moment. There is a parable in Buddhism that goes as follows... There was once a farmer whose horse ran away. His neighbour came to see him, and, upon hearing about the horse, he said to the farmer that he was sorry, and how bad his luck had been. The farmer answered, "Who knows what is good or bad?" On the following day, the farmer's horse returned, leading behind it a group of fine stallions. The farmer's neighbour congratulated him on his good fortune, but again the farmer said, "Who knows what is good or bad?" When the farmer's son saw the new stallions come to the farm, he attempted to ride the finest of all of them, and fell off its back, breaking his leg. When the farmer's neighbour heard the news of the son's injury, he comforted the farmer with such condolences as emphasized the farmer's bad luck, but once again, the farmer answered him, "Who knows what is good or bad?" Later that week, the army came looking for young men to fight for them, and the farmer's son was passed over due to his injury. Hearing the good news, the farmer's neighbour congratulated him that his son would be spared, but the wise farmer answered, "Who knows what is good or bad?" From the above parable, we learn that good and evil are constants in the world, but are arbitrary assigned a positive or negative association based on perspective. What we perceive will dictate the entirety of our world to us and for us, and therefore, if we perceive all things as being part of a flow of the forces of Yin (black, feminine, pulling, taking, healing, moon) and Yang (white, masculine, pushing, giving, destroying, sun), then we see that both are meant to exist together, and that neither can exist without the other. To understand up, you have to have down. To understand left, you have to have right, and so forth. Evil is merely a perception, and the discerning mind is aware of this. That, by the way, is where Buddhism and Daoism come together in the most beautiful form. You'll notice, too, that in the Daoist Yin Yang symbol, each contains a bit of its opposite, thereby bonding them more strongly, but also weakening the divide between perceived "good" and perceived "evil". Neither "religion", in their original form, were meant to be religions, but rather philosophies. The Theravada Buddhists, who, though not being the original school of Buddhism, are as close as we can get to the original form and they do not worship the Buddha as a deity. Likewise, there is a divide between philosophical and religious Daoism. In the former, one seeks merely to live by Wu Wei, or the way of nature, while in the later, Lao Tzu is held up as a divine entity, but neither in Buddhism or Daoism is this strictly necessary. If Atheists wish to know the real essence of any religion beyond the worship of God or Gods, look past those aspects and into the culture milieu that surrounds each various tradition, looking at the philosophy rather than the bondage to a particular deity, which is really just another name for the person at the top who controls the minds of all those who are, in station or intelligence, inferior. I don't give a damn if that person is male or female but if they take advantage and distort that which is good about religion, they're flat out wrong. And that's all I have to say about that.

I hope I'm not wrong in saying this, because I might be, but North Korea's recently failed missile was NOT nuclear, correct? I have little hope in their "government", however, and I really don't know how retaliatory efforts could go with the threat of potential nuclear war hanging in the air. Do they care about the idea of "mutually assured destruction" at all? Then again, this whole discourse merely serves to propagate the "us versus them" dichotomy, of which I am not a staunch proponent by any means. Are we not all just...people? But then, of course, we make the mistake of handing over our individual powers of choice to those who claim to represent us while merely lining their own pockets and acting through greed, aversion, and delusion, and that inevitably serves no one. That's not to say that I am necessarily an anarchist, but really, we're all big boys and girls. Can we not retain our own power and make our own choices? As to a nuclear threat, I wonder whether North Korea has the proverbial "balls" to do it with America's own arsenal trained on them, as I'm sure it currently would be. But then, even Trump isn't stupid enough to push the button first. I hope.

If I were an Atheist, I think life would be easier in some ways and harder in others. Easier in that I wouldn't have to worry about explaining my Pantheism to people, my particular brand of it, but harder in that people would likely scoff at me out of subconscious or unconscious fear of me being right. I don't scoff at the Atheists but I do fear that they are right: that there is NOTHING beyond this one, single, often dissatisfactory life, and that we ought to be grateful even for this, because we defied the odds by being born at all, despite the legions of others that could have been born if one thing had gone differently at any point during conception, or the millions of ways in which something might have gone wrong either during or after pregnancy, and I might not be here now. As incomprehensible as it may be to a scientifically-minded individual, however, I love my Pantheism. Where and how did God originate? Hinduism has the answer! Cycles: it always was and always will be due to the eternally expanding and contracting nature of the Universe, which God is, of course. God is the Universe, and everything in it: everything that ever was, will be, is now, or could be. God is the absolute potential for creation, sustainability, destruction, and recreation, which is the natural cycle of all things. Hindus provide the cyclical viewpoint and Pantheists the totality of God: God is not merely present everywhere, but truly is everything. Think of it, and it is God. Anything that can be conceived is God, and everything that cannot be conceived as well. Daoism holds this answer as well: the good, the bad, and everything in between, all things being arbitrarily or subjectively labeled as "good", "bad", or "other", all of that is God. Buddhism, then, provides the path for finding out this truth, which is to become one with everything in a state of perfect peace and understanding, knowing the totality of your own being, and therefore the totality of God. Think of it: before you existed in the body you have now, what were you? Nutrients and elements in your parents' bodies. And where did those things come from? Why, from the Earth, which has its origins in the Big Bang. We are the result of the Big Bang, as is everything else, and when we die and our bodies decay or are burned, we absolve into our natural state once again and become the totality without individual ego. This totality is God. And it's therefore not arrogant for anyone to say "There is no God", because there IS no God in terms of the eternally separate entity to which we could never be united, and which we could never understand. Likewise, it is not arrogant to say "I am God", because that is true in that you are a one-time formation of the elements which dissolve into everything at the end of your life. We are the Universe, we are God. There is no other. And that's my Pantheism. I welcome as many challengers as I may, "God" willing, receive. Challenge me, people: it's the only way I'll learn. Also, I apologize if this is excessively long. I only just got approved tonight to be allowed to come on here and speak to you magnificent people. I hope I am welcome.