Neat!

hmmm. some food for thought.
personally, i NEVER believed in ... well anything. and it hasnt been such a bad life. ok, love or something. certainly art. i believe in some things. i believe drugs should be legal. but these are real things. santa claus, god, the rest of it.,.., ive just never had it, or needed it.

i am buddhist too, by the way. _and_ atheist, imaginet that. its not unsatisfactory, its GREAT! for all the reasons you said yourself. and more.
i dont feel empty and discontented , thank you very much. Indeed, it is Zen that has taught me the most about this and to feel clear in mind about this.
by the way, i mean, i didnt write a book about zen, but id always heard and thought that Buddhists as a general rule dont believe in god. certainly most of the ones i know dont.

well, gasho, and thank you for your words.

Wow.

There is no such thing as Hannukkah Harry in the Jewish religion or any of the American reform adaptations - or any of its cultural folklore.

It is a recent term that extended from a sketch comedy skit on a television program that seems to be becoming adapted by those that try to make parallels between religions to justify their own ignorance - (and its also quite funny).

In fact, in reality, Hannukkah is not a holy holiday, as Christmas is, but it is celebration a of a historical biblical event - an event ironically founded in a true test of faith - the whole one day of candle oil lasting for 8 days thing while the persecuted waited out the war to rededicate the temple.

Other than that offensive attempt at comedy - good article.

Dude, watching you in the skit made me realize how much of a dumbass you are, like me. I don't think you belong on the pedestal which is good news for both of us
Make more dumb movies.

Believing is clinging to an idea and is actually a mistrust of something you sure about whereas faith is having doubt when your not sure.

Peaceout to everyone.

You let me down dude!!

I totally thought this article was going to have some mention of the Canadian guy who crucified a life-size Santa on his lawn.

I found out about it watching CNN.

I think you make an important point here on the difference between arbitrary faith and common-sense faith, the latter being what I would consider 'Buddhist faith'.
To me, faith does not contain superstition, and it's scary sometimes to find so many people than believe all forms of religion place such 'faith' in such high regard.

As you point out, having faith that zazen works is not unlike having faith that when you drop a rubber ball 99 times, its going to bounce the 100th time too.
It works, so you use it, and you know it works cos you try it and it does.
Now that's a faith that makes sense!

you know, I have no recollection of the moment at which I ceased believing in Santa Claus. I have no recollection of when my son ceased believing in Santa Claus. We both still believe in God, however. I guess it's not as traumatic as you want it to be.

as for "faith breeds psychopaths", that is just bad pop psychology.

you seem to have a lack of faith in the resiliency of the human psyche. How easily you bat around phrases like 'massive crisis' and 'faith turns people into psychopaths. And to claim that buddhism is somehow above spooky myth, ritual and language is horseshit. I mean, I love a good Chod as much as anyone. I have no problem with having butter replicas of my body being fed to hungry ghosts in order to speed my journey, but lets call a spade a spade. Every religion is going to have elements that serve the consciousness off the masses, and elements that serve the serious practitioners.

"...atheism is such an unsatisfactory alternative to religion. When we try to completely give up on faith and belief we feel empty and discontented."

You smug asshole. How dare you presume to know the inner lives of people who don't share your needs? Might it not have been better to say that when you tried completely to give up on faith, you felt empty? For those of us who feel no need for religious practice, life is filled with real, tangible things to experience and enjoy. We do not go through life "empty and disconnected", nor are we incapable of devotion to abstract ideas such as liberty, democracy etc. We don't have God-shaped holes in our hearts either (do evangelicals still use that line?) A life given to reason does not preclude fulfillment or peace of mind. There is transcendent joy and meaning to be found in the stuff of this world that religious people so disdain - in art, music, food, love, sex, drugs, poetry, chocolate cookies or whatever. The live, 3-D world we can touch with our 5 senses is quite enough; to paraphrase a line from Douglas Adams "isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe there are faeries at the bottom of it too?"

I realize that I'm unfairly conflating your spiritual practices with the dogma of people who do things like burn witches and fly planes into buildings, and that you probably didn't mean that remark to be as offensive as it was, and if your Way works for you then that's swell, but Jeezus, there's more than one Way.

Thanks for the fascinating link to the thing on Christians who don't believe in Xmas, btw, and Merry Christmas.




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If you lack belief in a god or gods, you are an atheist.

Welcome to the club. Name tags are on the table to your left.