Why are western liberals attracted to eastern religions?

>>2375451
They want to virtue signal about how cultured they are, anon.
It's literally this. You'd have no idea how many liberals shits I've seen who think doing yoga and believing in rebirth makes them a buddhist.

>>2375451
Cuck nature. This being said eastern religions are cool.

>>2375451
They're dumbasses who like "unique" things. That's why they do stuff like cut off their sons penis along with converting to Buddhism.

>>2375451
Aesthetics.

File: image.jpg (106KB, 429x392px) Image search: [Google]

106KB, 429x392px

Because they are not properly educated.

>>2375486
> circumcision
> unique

pick one

>>2375451
>>2375466
>>2375484
>>2375486

maybe there's something wrong with christianity

>>2375486
>only liberals do this
1/10

>>2375489
This is probably a significant influence for many,
but the way I see it, it would seem that westerners may turn to the east for such reasons, but the ones that stay with it do so for weightier reasons, discarding aesthetic preference as the workings of a less awakened/more deluded mind.

>>2375520
>thinks the West is a Christian society
You are mistaken, friend.

File: IMG_0721.jpg (118KB, 412x900px) Image search: [Google]

118KB, 412x900px

>>2375564

>>2375520
How is that related to my initial post?

>>2375559
Almost none of them actually take it seriously.
I only say almost instead of none because I presume they must exist even though I've never seen it.

>>2375451
because they'd do anything to separate themselves from their own culture
otherness is like a fetish to them

>>2375513
>>2375520
>>2375546
By cutting off penises I didn't mean circumcison. I meant stuff like sex change operations for people under 18.

File: Wew lad paint.png (87KB, 800x480px) Image search: [Google]

87KB, 800x480px

>My face every time a Western "Buddhist" tells me that "Buddhism" doesn't have an afterlife.

I'm a western nationalist and I'm attracted to eastern religions since they're less globalist and more traditional than Christianity is.

I don't know. My mum is in one of these cliques and it's incredibly fucking annoying.
Their choir sings nothing but african songs and songs about mandela.

>>2375451

Right wing does it too

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ren%C3%A9_Gu%C3%A9non

>>2375451
Wasn't the far right Hitler a weeb?

>>2375484
Cuck.

>>2375451
Because they reject western civilization as they see it.

Because, Liberals have a extra chromosome, that needs some reeducation

>>2375451
Better question, why do I keep seeing "Why do liberals/leftists X" threads every other day on this board?

Cuz they hate the west.

>>2375999
Because leftists are retards and we wonder what motivates them to indulge in seemingly pointless shit.

>>2376044
Even if it's the same thread over and over and over again?

>>2375999
because /pol/ has seeped into the board and internet itself. Containment board has broken loose

>>2375613

care to prove that it does?

cos buddhism is true and you don't have to be a christcuck or fedora to practice

>>2376036

how can they hate the west if they abandon hate and reaise "west" in an illusion?

>>2375564

The West, no matter how secular it claims to be, is still heavily rooted in Christianity. Christian ethics are the backbone of Conservative culture. Kantian ethics, which is the most popular ethical system right now, screams Christianity for a divine law such as the categorical imperative implies a divine being.

>>2376074

wrong. the categorial imperative operates without any divine being or law and kant stated that explicity. it's obviously based on "do unto others" but is a function of universal reason, not faith or god.

>>2375999
Never see any anti /pol/ threads do we.

>>2376082

Yes, he got it through tapping into "pure reason" that he arrived to the moral law, which suspiciously enough only he has managed to accomplish. Nobody else has been able to find such "pure reason" to really substantiate his claim. In essence, it was a miraculous event that led him to finding it.

>>2376118

>i'm smarter than kant
>i don't understand the ideas i think i'm btfo'ing
>i'm not using pure reason right now
>it was muh miraculous event even though kant himself said it wasn't

get the fuck off my board you delusional schizophrenic fuckwit

>>2376135

Just because he said that it wasn't Christian-based doesn't make it so. There's a clear Christian influence and the founding of the moral law is suspect.

>>2375451
Because msot of the Westerners are cuck and thus love Beta cuck religions in which you do not have to stand for your faith.

Few reasons:

- Xenophilia.
- Self-hatred.
- Need for transcedental belief system in their lives. That being said, at least Buddhism is a step up from leftist pseudo-religions like gommunism.

Etc.

The irony is that East Asian Buddhism, especially chinese, is spiritually vacant hollow rites bullshit. The idea of it as this inscrutable, unique thing is quite literally Meiji Japan propaganda.

>>2377403
Daoism is even worse. Before all the propaganda Daoism was basically more concerned with elixirs of life and other retarded material stuff like that than anything metaphysical.

Praise Buddha and Egg Fried Rice.

Why am I banned?

>>2375451
Cuz conservatives are almost all clinging to Christianity so they obviously won't convert to another religion. So naturally liberals are the only ones who might consider converting (keep in mind that the wast majority of liberals arr still either christians or atheists). Islam is too incompatable with liberalism, paganism is either for nationalists or larpers, judaism is hard to convert to so that pretty much leaves them with eastern religions. Buddhism in particular is popular because it's barely a religion in itself (yes, the Buddha still believed in a bunch of gods and didn't want to replace them) more like just a philosophy.

+it's actually a pretty useful philosophy for the modern age. We have the ability to fulfill many of our needs/desires but we still feel suffering, which basically proves the Buddha's point.

>>2377403
This.

Also it doesn't really demand anything of its adherents. So it allows you to go on being a hedonistic, promiscuous degenerate while also being able to rationalize away your shortcomings by claiming you are "deeply spiritual" or some other nebulous bullshit.

>>2376135
Everyone in the West whether they know or admit it, has been raised in a moral system largely informed by Judeo-Christian values; just as much as the West has largely been founded on the Greco-Roman world.

>>2375613

Correct me if I'm mistaken, but I thought the tradition was either rebirth or nirvana? Nirvana is largely undescribable, but does it count as an afterlife?

>>2375451
Eastern Religions tend have a much more accessible metaphysical core than Western ones. Whether you like the devotional element of Hindus, the more abstract, "God is inside" philosophies of the Vedantic traditions; or perhaps you want to forego the external all together and find your inner no-self through one of the many Buddhist schools. The East has offers spiritual paths for all kinds of people.

The Abrahamic traditions in contrast have largely obfuscated the metaphysical. Muslims have largely marginalized the Sufis, Christianity has similarly been dogmatized, and Kabbalah is not accessible to most Jews.

I haven't read in to it. But other anona are completely right. Buddhism is fucking bullshit.

There's no intellectual backbone to it. No morals. Just "hurrr peace and love just meditate and your a good guy hurrr".

It's fucking retarded. People who don't know about Buddhism as it really is should shut the fuck up before they go on Facebook to show off at how fucking spiritual they are.

>>2377532
>I haven't read in to it.
You make this abundantly clear with the rest of your post.

>>2377532
You're partly right. Chinese and Japanese Buddhism are largely spiritually vacuous. Indian Buddhism and Central Asian Buddhism are ok though.

>>2377532
While I will concede that most "new age" types who post on Facebook about it, don't truly know about the eastern traditions they rave about. However, it's clear from your post that you don't either.

>>2375451
>it's okay when Evola does it

>>2377743
Mainly because Evola didn't believe Buddhism was Peace & Tolerance: The Religion(tm) Liberal Edition(R)

File: daoist.jpg (51KB, 313x570px) Image search: [Google]

51KB, 313x570px

>2016
>not being a Daoist anarchist who lives beyond good and evil, being infinitely wise yet knowing nothing, being one with the dao, and enjoying a life of constant spontaneity.

>>2375451
Liberals attracted to western religions are invisible.
You only notice the odd ones, and you make the retarded conclusion that they all are like that.

>>2376074
>The West, no matter how secular it claims to be, is still heavily rooted in Christianity.
Respectively I disagree. The way I see, the West has been in a battle between Christianity and secularism since the French and American revolutions. The West was part Christian, part secular during this time. IMO the vatican 2 council was the final nail in Western Christendoms coffin.

>>2377532
>I am a white 20 yo man

>>2377994

For Catholics maybe, but what about those hyper evangelical proddies? They may have retarded beliefs but they do seem to genuinely care, but this is coming from an Orthodox perspective so idk.

>>2375451
They aren't.

B coz mom is gonna FREAK!

>>2378028
They don't really have any power though. They're essentially the republican voting block. Beyond that they have no real power, especially to impose their religion on the outside world. At best they manage to starve off removing a copy of the 10 commandments from some random court house for another 10 years.

More complete answers to important questions and more philosophical than a father god doing everything.

>>2376055
>>2377515
Many sects of Buddhism believe in Naraka, which is basically a karma-based hell with several levels and various punishments.

>>2378163
If you go beyond Sunday school level knowledge of GOOD Christianity (Catholicism or orthodoxy) you'll find they have more complete levels to important questions as well.

>>2375451
They are?
I don't know too many "Western liberals" that are into various Eastern systems to any degree of seriousness.

The dude I know IRL who is into Vajrayana as much as I am happens to be a Reaganite conservative, but w/e.

>>2375451
They only know Western/Christian history, so they're attracted Eastern religions, because they don't know their history or about anything wrong done in the name of those religions. So by following an Eastern religion they can be spiritual without feeling guilt.

>>2377532
>There's no intellectual backbone to it.
Have you read the Abhidhamma?

>No morals.
Have you read the Vinaya? The long/short discourses?

>love
Crack open your Tripitaka and tell me how many times the word "love" appears.

>People who don't know about Buddhism as it really is should shut the fuck up
I UTTERLY agree.

>>2377751
He may be correct in that respect, but I also doubt that Buddhism was representative of his particular brand of Neoreactionism, and I'm incredibly skeptical of anyone who throws a big public fit about how pagan they are only to convert back to Christism and shut up.

>>2377515
Technically speaking, no. However, there are states prior to nirvana under the heading of "stream entry" that imply heavenly abodes, but you still have a goal of hitting nirvana after that. This would only be for a certain few types of stream enterers.

>>2377403
>is spiritually vacant hollow rites bullshit
Just because you don't understand or disagree with their methods doesn't mean they're devoid of semantic meaning.

>>2377501
>Also it doesn't really demand anything of its adherents.
Lemme know how your 108,000 prostrations complete with Guru Yoga are coming....or how much you're adhering to the Vinaya.

>So it allows you to go on being a hedonistic, promiscuous degenerate
So, you've not even read the Vinaya, let alone codes for lay practitioners, have you?

>by claiming you are "deeply spiritual" or some other nebulous bullshit.
The aspirant is barred from making claims about the depth of their understanding, with the assumption being those making claims are the least self aware.

File: duomo[1].jpg (241KB, 1140x760px) Image search: [Google]

241KB, 1140x760px

Isn't the question more why have they rejected their own spiritual heritage, which is as rich as any other culture?

>>2378799
Because the majority of people in any religion are idiots about it and only follow Hollow Rites (Chinese religions are just a bit more blunt and pragmatic about it).

Without a literal Skydaddy to babysit them, they leave. There's no point in not wallowing in hedonism if wallowing in hedonism has no downsides after all, so they drop the basics without seeing what more they can get.

That and ethnomasochism is hip and trendy.

>>2378818
>Hollow Rites
Is this the new way of accusing people that you moderately disagree with of LARP?

>>2375999
because there is better ideological discussion here than /pol/

/pol/ should be changed to /ce/ - Current Events

>>2375451
Spiritual bankruptcy and rejection of the Judeo-Christian religion.

>>2378186
>buddhism
>sects
You mean the 4 dharmic traditions right? Don't talk about stuff you have no idea about anon.

>>2375451
>People are sick of Abrahamic death cults.

Can't imagine why.

>>2377994
>the West has been in a battle between Christianity and secularism since the French and American revolutions
Why do people pretend like the 19th century wasn't the biggest century of Christfaggotry ever, more so than ever in late antiquity or renaissance?

File: bonaparte-napoleon-large.jpg (14KB, 250x250px) Image search: [Google]

14KB, 250x250px

They don't have any sort of awareness of their own culture, so they resort to foreign sources.

>>2379110
>Why do people pretend like the 19th century wasn't the biggest century of Christfaggotry ever,
Because it wasn't?

>>2375520
Christianity is an Eastern Religion

>>2379144
>it's physically impossible to appreciate more than one ethnoculture at a time
Neat.

File: MTI2NTgyMzIxOTcyMjU5NDU5.jpg (230KB, 1200x1200px) Image search: [Google]

230KB, 1200x1200px

>>2379154
You illiterate nigger. If they had any knowledge of our metaphysics and philosophy they wouldn't resort to eastern religions at all. Now go learn to read.

>>2375451
People were big on Hindu stuff in the 60s because it (at least their perception of it) fitted the zeitgeist.
I remember even 15 years ago all libraries had some form or other of would-be Lama (if not the Great Lama) on display. I haven't seen it recently.

>>2379147
I guess it depends on the country, but here in France it was not merely official religion, but you had movements for the conversion of people both worldwide and in France. More churches were build at the time than any other time. The influence of the Church was overbearing and people made sure that from urban centers to the most remote villages everywhere people were singing the psalms. I would be at a loss to find a more Christian century. Certainly neither the 20th, 18th, 17th (debatable), 16th, 15th or 14th.

File: 1345289541554.jpg (67KB, 363x363px) Image search: [Google]

67KB, 363x363px

>eastern religion that TO THEM looks more applicable to their naturalism and uninterested in actions of their lives compared to western religions
>also many like to think they are cultured and appear this way to others and so will appeal to that applicable religion
>xenophilia leads to a mystifying of the orient, as it has for centuries

>>2379154
That's largely true though. Preference is in the end the only criterion of appreciation that goes beyond surface enjoyment or really-makes-you-think arguments.
I can believe some people having genuine non-pleb interest in like two, perhaps three cultures, depending how you divide the world. The rest they know as general knowledge and light curiosity.

Most of them are totally ignorant about eastern faiths. I cannot tell you how many times I've heard some limpwristed faggot tell me Buddhism is superior to Christianity because all Buddhists are pacifists. I told him to take a vacation to Burma and visit some Buddhist temples and tell me how peaceful he thinks they are after that.

>>2379166
>You illiterate nigger
Nigger, yes.
Illiterate? Not at all.

>If they had any knowledge of our metaphysics and philosophy they wouldn't resort to eastern religions at all.
What makes knowledge of one mutually exclusive to knowledge of the other?

Do anthropologists simply not exist, in your worldview?

>Now go learn to read
Already did, but should I get on it with Schiller's "Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Man" or Augustine's confessions?

>>2379207
Then what's your explanation for the academic discipline of anthropology?

plenty of fascist types love hinduism

File: daoist.gif (235KB, 635x405px) Image search: [Google]

235KB, 635x405px

>>2379166

Western metaphysics is dead and Kant has killed it.

Eastern metaphysics is more interesting, infinitely more nuanced, and gets to the root of reality while Western metaphysics revolves around nonissues and Christianity.

>>2379385
>Eastern metaphysics is more interesting, infinitely more nuanced, and gets to the root of reality while Western metaphysics revolves around nonissues and Christianity.
This seems just as subjective as saying "West is best and anyone who has interest elsewhere is an uncultured illiterate cuck".

That also includes atheists
I never seen an atheist criticize eastern religion they only criticize Abrahamic religions
for example, Sam Harris is like a crypto-buddhist

>>2379388

Being a subject involves having subjective opinions. I wasn't giving an objective account, as objectivity is beyond human comprehension. The closest that we could ever get to objective is scientific data, which again still must be continually tested in order to maintain its status as being as close to objective as possible.

Subjectivity is inevitable and inescapable.

>>2379430
Sure, IJS the whole "people should only be interested in their own culture" or "your own culture is insufficient" seems like a circlejerk in the face of comparative religion and ethnohistory.

>>2379364
It's an horizontal discipline looking at a few things all over the world. It rarely tries to give a integral view of different, specific, actual cultures and when it does it's memetic like Toynbee or Braudel. They will try to fit many cultures into their interpretative scheme rather than understanding different cultural lives.
Even if you assumed some few people could do it (I can't give a single example) the thread is about relatively mass phenomenon. I'm talking about people going to India and reading some few "wisdom" sentences. When they go back they think they've had some transmystical über experience when they were in fact tourists. I would take years of living there before being somewhat seriously immersed.

>>2379459
>It rarely tries to give a integral view of different, specific, actual cultures
Um, what? When's the last time you cracked open an ethnography, because that's exactly what an ethnography is.

>They will try to fit many cultures into their interpretative scheme rather than understanding different cultural lives.
-isms died in anthropology long ago. I don't think I've seen a serious decent publication from a specific theoretical -ism in a long time. Whitehead sure didn't. Good doesn't, etc., etc., etc.

>It would take years of living there before being somewhat seriously immersed.
The people I know who have gone to India did in fact do so for years, for immersion.

File: 1472243033432.jpg (42KB, 500x488px) Image search: [Google]

42KB, 500x488px

>>2375451

They're alienated from traditional western forms of spirituality (mostly through bashing religion for generations and associating it with backwardness, plus for whatever reason religion's become associated with a political standpoint) but still have spiritual needs to fulfill, hence they turn to Eastern religions which haven't been shit all over yet.

Vegetarianism

>>2378471
>autistic tripfag with autistic reply chains is a buddhist
not surprised

>>2379483
>They're alienated from traditional western forms of spirituality
But I'm interested in not only everything from Uttara Kaula Trika through Vajrayana but also the Western grimoire tradition (Verum, Lemegeton, Cyprian) and early Western pagan forms (GMP) as well as Christian mysticism (Beguines, etc.).

Can't people just, y'know, have interests?

>>2379491
vegesataryanism

>>2379497
Also:
>Thelemite
>Tantrik in general
>Gnostic
>Practitioner of traditional witchcraft(s)

>>2375451
they know islam is the only redpilled choice

Because Buddhism is the most natural and simple religion.

The main goal of Buddhism is to reach Nibbana, to reach it you must concentrate on various thing like your body, mind, breath, heartbeat, and so on. Meanwhile, other religions require that you pray and accomplish various superstition to go in Heaven.

>>2379501

>Can't people just, y'know, have interests?

You're not typical and don't try to pretend that you are.

I have never met a leftist irl who fetishizes eastern spirituality without trashing western spirituality (namely Christianity) as being too proscribed, morally corrupt and so on.

>>2379553
FWIW, it seems the bodily method only really worked best for Vangisa among the early disciples, and among later practitioners. Otherwise, Abhidhamma clearly indicates most people were set to contemplate on various mental constructs.

>>2379501
You're a special snowflake.

>>2379558
>You're not typical and don't try to pretend that you are.
Every bit as typical as any other academic interested in the occult.

>I have never met a leftist irl who fetishizes eastern spirituality without trashing western spirituality (namely Christianity) as being too proscribed, morally corrupt and so on.
I've yet to meet a "leftist" (whatever this happens to mean in this context) who practices an Eastern religion with a modicum of sincerity, let alone one who practices one religion while bashing all others.

>>2379573
I'm the *specialest* snowflake, get it right.

>>2379354

You're missing my point. Liberals seek out eastern thought because they believe that it provides them with a stable framework to live, so to speak. This unnatural overreach to the East, , is a product of the decadence of teaching and overall culture in the West. Therefore, if Liberals had proper knowledge of Western thought, e.g the pre-Socratics, they would not have to resort to the relatively simpler, although in itself very pleasant, Eastern thought.

>>2375466
fpbp. This guy gets it. Nowadays I tell women I go to church, and they roll their eyes. These are the same women who go to Bali or Nepal for a week and praise the local beliefs as so advanced and "real".

>>2380385
Man, I love the pre-Socratics, but I'm not exactly sure how one could call the Abhidhamma "simpler" than most other system of phenomenology of perception.

>>2375451
It's not that liberals are attached to them, but that they reject the racist bullshit that makes you dismiss religions and philosophies with outsider origins as being false offhandedly.

>>2379558
>I have never met

And you base your view on this?
I've never met a Canadian. I guess Canada isn't real.

>>2375613
>mfw people think all the various sects of buddhism that vary based on cultural differences and superstitions under the one label of "buddhism"
>mfw no face

>>2375979
>a extra

File: 1448779289479.gif (14KB, 680x489px) Image search: [Google]

14KB, 680x489px

>>2375451
Vague philosophies and pseduo-religions attract moderns because they have no institutional hierarchy, fixed rules, or obligations. Mysticism does not require rational proof or internally consistent metaphysics to be believed. These "faiths" are believed half-heartedly and have a code reducible to vague and uncertain platitudes like "be nice", or "follow your heart". Some attach themselves to a limp eastern pseduo-religion, others become political ideologues, and the edge lords become Gnostics or Occultists. """Atheism""" is a cop-out because people just end up replacing God with Stalin.

They fall into the same trap as Ayn Rand, and Karl Marx, which is in the process of trying to unspook themselves they become MORE spooked.

>>2382789
A lot in these threads appears to be abstraction, reduction, and non-comprehension. As a matter of fact, see:
>>2383242
What's vague about the Abhidhamma?

Vajrayana and Theravada both have historically massive institutional hierarchies, fixed rules in the Vinaya, and obligations for both lay and monastic followers.

>Mysticism does not require rational proof or internally consistent metaphysics to be believed
To be believed? You're right. To be practiced coherently and widely, it pretty well does. Again, I'd ask what about Tripitaka is not internally consistent.

>and the edge lords become Gnostics or Occultists
>Gnostics
Sorry, anon, but /fringe/pill memes about the Demiurge =/= Gnosticism.

>>2375613
>pureland buddhism

wew lad, its like your not even trying, stop pretending like you know anything about it

>>2383505
What's wrong with Pure Land?

Despite Theravada protest, the concept does actually appear in the Tripitaka, specifically dealing with high level attainments in stream-entry before total Emancipation.

>>2383242
>bringing a certain attiude to any situation is more spooked than blind obiedence to an higher authority
Plus you seem geniunely ignorant of Buddhism and Gnosticism.

>>2375451
Simply this https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-mindedness
I'm a religious biologist and I have been influenced by many eastern philosophies, specifically Jainism, I'm not a Jain but I can look at what they believe and form my own believes from it.
Shit, Laozi knew about the enslavment principal thousands of years before synergetics came to be.
There is something to be seen from every perspective, and no one can see it all, liberalism in its true meaning, without all the idenitarian nonsense, is openness to change.
>>2375466
>>2375484
>>2375486
>>2375597
>>2375617
>>2375851
>>2377395
>>2377403
exceptio probat regulam in casibus non exceptis
Go get half a pound of shrooms and trekking bike and live alittle. If not for you, then for the sake of everything that has to interact with you.

>>2383790
Very cultural sensitive of you.

>>2383548
>you seem geniunely ignorant of Buddhism and Gnosticism.
I think he was more referring to how most western converts see it rather than what the religion actually, or I may just be giving him too much credit.

>>2383859
>cultural sensitive
What

>>2383790
>I'm a religious biologist and I have been influenced by many eastern philosophies
>There is something to be seen from every perspective

To appear cool or original. None of them actually understands what they're speaking about, it's just to appear cool.

>>2375451
>Why are westerners attracted to eastern religions?

>>2375520

The whole point of virtue-signaling worldliness is to fetishize the alien. Christianity is too local for a left-wing white woman.

>>2384072
That's an interesting question, though.

For those asserting it's nigh impossible for the Western citizen to comprehend/understand Eastern systems, do you hold the same of Easterners and Western systems or religious thought?

>>2382779

>It's not that liberals are attached to them,

Yes they are. Asians are not traveling to US campus's to proselytize to students walking out of their critical theory class. These liberals seek it out.

>>2384127
?
I mean, it's not like every college student is liberal, and it's also not like courses unpacking "Eastern" modes of thought aren't relatively easily accessible in a well rounded uni.

>>2375451
Jung talked about this in general. It has to do with the symbols of the western religions loosing their power and people attempting to fill that void. As science and technology progressed it robbed western religions of their mythic qualities.

>>2375451
second option bias

>>2384127
And you think there aren't people in Asia that become Christians in a similar way? You're so obsessed with authenticity and group identity that you just dismiss these people as "trying to be cool" in order to invalidate them. The notion that some people might be open to wisdom from foreign traditions is not even considered, you're just keeping up a snide act to feel superior to some caricature of a liberal.

>>2375613
Rebirth is not reincarnation in the traditional Hindu sense, although it's sometimes treated as such.