It’s also kind of a Western thing, I think. I’m no expert on Buddhism, but as a practicing Zen Buddhist I suspect there’s a fair amount of bullshit in there if you look deeply. But Zen is mostly meditation and attention to the present moment, activities which have been clearly established to have positive benefits for many people (not all people.) And I don’t need to believe in the absolute infallibility of Buddhism in order to practice Zen, however the more I practice Zen the more I feel I’m starting to understand Zen concepts and ideas that once seemed impenetrable. Understanding is often gained through experience. But my understanding isn’t a universal understanding, it’s just my own personal journey, and Zen masters throughout the centuries have made it pretty clear that their direction is just one means to reaching understanding but that ultimately it’s something we have to figure out for ourselves. As Dogen said, “Put no head above your own.” (Which means many things, but I’m taking it at face value to begin with.)
To the extent that Zen is not logical, I don’t care. I’m not doing it to be logical, I’m doing it because it works for me.
But in Buddhism you don’t usually have this idea of evangelism that permeates many sects of Christianity, so there is less pressure to try to force it to make sense. I don’t feel the need to convince anyone about Buddhism. I don’t need to try to build an airtight case.
And in Buddhism there is less cultural impetus to square everything away. Zen at times seems to revel in contradiction.
I’ve never been bothered by contradiction in religion or philosophy. A lot of cultures aren’t. And it’s important to keep that in mind.
Art, maybe. Sports, probably not. And government, certainly not. Government not being logical causes big problems, as we see all the time.
Charity might not depend on evidence, but it certainly does not go against evidence and logic, since I think you can make a good argument that charity improves the world in general, whatever its motivation.
I can imagine a religion that is logical and works on evidence. None of ours do, however.
I think if it’s logical and evidence-based, you call it a “philosophy” rather than a religion. There can be a lot of overlap between the two, but they don’t address the same emotional needs.
I was thinking of a religion whose tenets were evidence based and logical. Abraham’s belief in god was utterly logical, after all he talked to the guy. A lot of the emotional needs religion addresses involve answers to questions we don’t have logical answers to. And absolute answers. The answers from philosophy are tentative. The answers from science are “we don’t know” untl the evidence comes in.
My point is that something like government, etc, is not a simple thing that can be talked about in general.
Exactly. Just as one can’t say “religion is good” because some religious people do good things like charity, one also can’t say “religion is bad” because some religious people do bad things. Details and specifics matter.
Yes. People seldom call something a religious belief unless it’s illogical, destructive or contradicts reality, and need to use “faith” or “it’s religious” as a shield for their unjustifiable position. Often because they also want to force it on other people.
If it’s based on facts or logic, or they are willing to say something like “I just like it”/“it’s just my opinion”, they they aren’t likely to sticking the religion label on it. Because then it doesn’t need to use our self-destructive attitude towards religion as a shield.
(late response) - I am a full body donor, so I hope my bits and pieces contribute to the ecosystem when I die. My liver may not make the cut, but I have a heart, lungs, kidneys and a large amount of skin.
The rest can go to compost, although I have asked our premier student medical training hospital to take my body as a training tool for dissection.
So I will likely end my time on earth in various parts, and the rest being incinerated in a medical waste furnace.
The ashes are returned to the family after a body is dissected by medical students. If you want a physical symbol to “say goodbye”, you still have one.
Both my parents were cremated. We held a funeral (technically a memorial service) and then much later we scattered their ashes. My mother’s covid-era remote service lacked a lot of the emotional support of opening your home to all your friends and family (which is what Jews traditionally do when they mourn) but that was because of covid, not because we lacked the body.
This. People have always had to deal with situations where for one reason or another a person’s body was irrecoverable, lost or destroyed. They held ceremonies anyway.