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I felt a bit sympathetic to Buddhism up to the point when I actually visited a Buddhist temple and listened to the speeches of monks.

The amount of brain rot disguised as wisdom has made me feel Christianity ain’t that bad after all.

Sorry in advance to any Buddhist out there, but it struck me how the common perception of it differs from the actual thing.

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pineapplelover@lemm.ee ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
It depends really. I grew up Buddhist and things were chill. Speeches I heard at temple were just telling us to be good people, be nice to people no matter their race or gender stuff like that, don’t do harm to people or animals.

Even Abrahamic religions have good and bad spiritual leaders, some are cult like and others are just trying to get people to have decent morals.

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- Allero@lemmy.today ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Fair point!
  
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drre@feddit.org ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Late to the party, and no offence to buddhism, but i always loved this quote from Terry Pratchett

“Master, what is the difference between a humanistic, monastic system of belief in which wisdom is sought by means of an apparently nonsensical system of questions and answers, and a lot of mystic gibberish made up on the spur of the moment?"

Wen considered this for some time, and at last said: “A fish!”

And Clodpool went away, satisfied.” ― Terry Pratchett, Thief of Time

(copies the quote from www.goodreads.com/work/…/46982-thief-of-time?page… but i’m rather sure its correct, so i didn’t check my copy).

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FenderStratocaster@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
That’s like saying, “I used to be a fan of pizza until I had one in Altoona, PA.”

There’s better pizza out there.

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- sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Wow, that’s an actual place. Is that Buddha’s favorite pizza joint or something?
  
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  - FenderStratocaster@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Look up Altoona pizza.
    
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    sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    American cheese? What’s wrong with those people…
    
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    UltraGiGaGigantic@lemmy.ml ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    
    Altoona pizza
    
    Their body, their choice.
    
    More power to them, but that is NOT what i would choose lol.
    
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superkret@feddit.org ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
I kinda lost my interest in Buddhism when I learnt that according to traditional Buddhist lore, women can’t reach Nirvana.
When they’ve collected enough good karma, they are reborn as a man.

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- Cordyceps@sopuli.xyz ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  I mean aint that different from what the old testament teaches. Not saying the choice is between Christianity and Buddhism, but I’d assume most religions have patriarchy vibes baked into them. Not that I agree with religion, I see them all as means of various levels of crowd control for the masses, and somebody trying to benefit from it, be it a spiritual leader or an orange clown.
  
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  - kittenzrulz123@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    As a Jewish person what on earth are you saying? Im pretty sure the words say that women have souls that are acturally closer to god (which is why they have less commandments). That obviously doesn’t mean Judaism (or the old testiment) isnt patriarchal, it is (extremely) but its not comparable.
    
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- sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Surely that’s not all sects of Buddhism.
  
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- hardcoregek@reddthat.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Good for them!
  
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  - teamevil@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    I hate you for making me laugh
    
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deathbird@mander.xyz ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Out of curiosity, which Buddhist tradition was this temple out of? I’ve had similar experience, but I get the feeling like Buddhist thought might be about as diverse as Christian.

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- Peruvian_Skies@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  It’s m8ch more doverse than Christianity, actually. Buddhism isn’t so much a religion in the judeochristian sense as a characteristic that many religions have. There are Buddhist traditions that worship gods, there are godless Buddhist traditions that worship the Buddha, and ones thay don’t even wirshio the Buddha but just think he was a pretty wise dude. Some require you to meditate daily, others to chant some mantras, and there are Buddhist traditions like Zen that worship nothing and are all about getting your head out of your ass.
  
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  - MDCCCLV@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Plain Buddhism was kind of a downer so they made stuff like pure land buddhism that is more of a fun afterlife version instead of hardcore OG Buddha which is like kill yourself and stop existing forever because the world is just an eternal cycle of pain and reincarnation into more pain forever.
    
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    Peruvian_Skies@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    The Buddha never said to kill yourself, though.
    
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    UltraGiGaGigantic@lemmy.ml ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    I get it, life sucks. but I ain’t giving up. This world is gonna have to stop me.
    
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  - sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Yeah, Zen Buddhism kinda rocks.
    
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  - deathbird@mander.xyz ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Aye, perhaps not in the “Judeo-Christian” sense, but a religion nonetheless.
    
    But actually it strikes me that “Judeo-Christianity” is more about theme or literature than form. The Christians claim a common God with the Jews, but that’s mostly it. In form Christianity seems more Greco-Roman than Judaic to me.
    
    “Greco-Romo-Christan” maybe?
    
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    Peruvian_Skies@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    How does a monotheistic religion whose prophet explicitly claimed to be part of the succession of Jewish prophets and to have “come to confirm” their teachings seem more like a polytheistic religion where gods aren’t known for using prophets to send messages to the people to you? Serious question. I’m intrigued.
    
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  - tetris11@lemmy.ml ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Isn’t that just like the various branches of Christianity? Unitarianism, Quakers, etc.
    
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    Peruvian_Skies@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Sort of but not really.
    
    All branches of Christianity believe that Jesus was the Messiah and the Son of God and that the Bible was written under divine inspiration and is the literal Word of God, among other dogmas. They only differ in how they interpret the sacred scriptures.
    
    Not only is there no centralized textual source for Buddhist teachings (there are several different sutras and each “kind” of Buddhism gets to pick and choose), and therefore no dogmas universal to Buddhism other than “what the Buddha said was true”, but as I said some believe in the Hindu gods, some in other local gods and some in none; and some believe that the Buddha himself was born special like Jesus (though not from a virgin) while others believe he was just a regular Joe for his caste but who was brilliant enough to figure out a way to cease suffering.
    
    So you could make a case for there existing Buddhist Hinduism, Buddhist Shintoism and even “atheist” (in the literal sense of not believing in the supernatural, not in the acquired sense of not being a religion) Buddhism. This last kind views the Buddha’s teachings as basically brilliant psychology lessons masked in mystical language to be more accessible to the audiences of the time.
    
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- Allero@lemmy.today ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Tibetan, it’s a mix of Mahayana and Vajrayana
  
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  - deathbird@mander.xyz ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Yeah, the way you said it my first thought was “Tibetan”.
    
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Donkter@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
A classic cult tactic tbh. Convince people that they can divine meaning from random nonsense and they’ll convince themselves that they are more enlightened and above those around them who don’t understand.

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_____@lemm.ee ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Care to give any examples ?

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- Allero@lemmy.today ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  I’m not super good at remembering things I don’t need or accept, so I’ll speak a bit generally, but, for example, the cosmology and all the quasi-gods are extremely intertwined, excessively overcomplicated, but actually simple and repetitive;
  
  Also the pretentious way it poses as a way to direct you in life (monks went so far as to say Buddhism goes far beyond modern philosophy and psychology and is at the forefront of knowledge in life of dignity and happiness), while really it can be condensed to “endure pain and man up, feelings don’t matter, just do what needs to be done”, which is super toxic and not really effective (and I wonder ifit’s also contributing to the toxic work culture in the Far East).
  
  Also, as in many religions, it’s full of stories about miracles happening every day (like, the man who was terminally ill, was set to die within a month and barely walked, but then decided to go 8000km by foot through entire Eurasia to the main temple, and he lived, and succeeded, and lived as a monk ever after).
  
  Etc. etc.
  
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rainrain@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Don’t blame the religion, blame the people.

Buddhist or Christian, people love brainrot.

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ocean@lemmy.selfhostcat.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
As a Buddhist it definitely varies like any religion. There are some bozo temples out there

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- Allero@lemmy.today ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Must be true indeed
  
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