Basis of Buddhism in relation to Science

Also, modern philosophers and scientists love to use the Buddha's insights into non-self (anatta) which explains the various aspects of being without resorting to a concept of an essential self, but they rarely cite their sources. People like Daniel Dennet, Derek Parfitt, etc read as if they just finished a 20 year personal study of Buddhism and decided to repackage what they learned without any reference back to Buddhism. They want the insight without the corresponding discipline for ending rebirth; they reject the concept of rebirth but keep the concept of insubstantiality.

If Buddha lived today, would he accept the claims of modern science, which deny rebirth? Would he accept that he had a spontaneous birth and that his death is cessation, whether he lives a highly disciplined life or entirely indulgent life? Or would he defy the scientists and still uphold the concept of rebirth and the necessity of living the holy life?

I don't believe the claims of secular Buddhists that the original teaching was secular; I think it's inseparable from the idea of rebirth and the early texts prove it.

>>17680560
>The whole basis of Buddhism is that you cannot escape the cycle of rebirths just by dying, you must complete the spiritual path, which by its nature is rather ascetic and anhedonic, a lifelong undertaking that requires a serious commitment.

Why take birth and rebirth literally? Your ego is born and reborn. You are now what your past actions have made you and your actions now determine what you will be in the future. The ego is constantly forming and reforming, but habit makes the latest much like the one before.

How bout dat?

>>17680588
How bout dat? Well, it's not historical, it's not textual, it's a modern watered down way of understanding it. I would ask, what does it matter, if death is cessation for all beings? Who cares about ego and whatnot, if life is just this brief experience before annihilation?

I think once you pull the rug of rebirth from under Buddhism, the whole thing crumbles apart.

In case my writing is not clear enough, I'll try to restate my points again:

1) the basis of Buddhism is the concept of repeated births and deaths; birth is not the absolute beginning, death is not the absolute end, both are just points along a cyclical continuum so to speak. just as within a single lifetime one's actions alter the quality of life, one's actions (karma) shape the rebirth. a Buddha is said to have lived many lives seeking enlightenment and doing good deeds so their final birth is in a very noble form.

2) Buddha declared that life within this cycle of rebirths is suffering, since no lasting happiness can be found in an impermanent world, so he taught a discipline for cutting off the causal links that generate rebirth. If rebirth is just a process perpetuated by certain causes and conditions, then by removing those causes and conditions, the process is brought to cessation.

3) if this basis is actually fundamentally incorrect and there is no such thing as rebirth, then the disciplines and ideas of Buddhism fall flat, since it would not matter at all if someone lived a highly disciplined life or the complete opposite, both would be annihilated by death anyway.

So in understanding the Buddha as a historical person, he was motivated personally by a revulsion towards birth, aging, dying, rebirth and personally wanted to be finished with the whole process. In talking about himself or other Buddhas, the texts always maintain that ordinary beings die and are born again, while Buddhas attain final extinction. The whole of Buddhism is couched in these terms of ordinary beings being trapped in samsara and having to renounce the world, become monks, etc to escape rebirth.

Take away rebirth and Buddhism is just Indian Stoicism.

>>17680604

Because your idea of yourself stands in the way of reaching your full potential. And I don't think Patanjali watered anything.

>>17680624
>Patanjali

shows how little you know then, since patanjali basically began the watering down process, and has zero to do with buddhism.

>>17680634

Which tells me you haven't very far with Patanjali. That's what amuses me about your line of reasoning.

Also, you have to argue convincingly that Zen isn't really Buddhism.

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699KB, 850x880px

>>17680614
My dude, we are all sources of concentrated energy and substance in a great big machine. When your die all of you goes elsewhere as something else. Energy can't be destroyed, only displaced. That's science, and spiritually, that's rebirth.

The Buddha was ahead of his time, and you're clouding your mind by sticking to your hypothesis so adamantly. Don't be so literal. Be like water, etc.

But that's just, like, my opinion man

>>17680614
I think you are misunderstand the concept of samsara in Buddhism. In Hinduism it is very much what you are describing, but in Buddhism - as I understand it - there is no soul. There is nothing passing from one body to another, that is not the Buddhist concept of reincarnation. Thus the idea that a single person is created at birth and ceases to exist at death does not negate the Buddhist conception of rebirth.

In Buddhism, the rebirth is awareness itself. Not that a soul is in one body and moves to another body, but that this body is conscious and another body will be conscious and this conscious keeps arising again and again.

But yes, I think it is fair to say there are heavy similarities between Buddhism and Stoicism.

And where did Patanjali come in? What does he have to do with Buddhism?

Haven't read these walls of text but imho I think science actually confirmed reincarnation in a way. The discovery of atoms and subatomic particles, studies on the movement of energy... When you die, your body decomposes and becomes the building blocks for millions of other living and non living things. Whether or not you know it is happening is anyone's guess lol, right? Being a skeptic and basically searching atheist, I can't help but say that reincarnation does actually exist when I think about it this way. I'm not a scientist or a monk or even an intellectual though.

>>17680560
>>17680578
>>17680604
Why does the rebirth part matter to you so much?

Your approach is strictly physical and scientific. If you want it so much then take this into consideration: our brains, thoughts and bodies consist of all the same particles that everything else exists in the Universe. Your skin peels daily without you noticing, you breathe out particles that your body is made of, you wash down or throw away fluids you got into a paper towel after a hot and steamy solo love session. Your particles are everywhere and people consume those same particles after they've flown through the air or gone all the way through water, plants and chef Ramsay's dishes into their own systems. Those particles of your body may have ended up being in a hot milf who gives birth to an annoying new faggot OP who can eventually carry your particles until he passes them on.

By scientific standards, what makes you exactly you is a system of multiple physical factors playing together and when you consider the fact that parts of you can be inside half of newborns born in your country (that is most likely Murrica) by the time you die after getting Alzheimers then congratulations, you've been basically reborn thousands of times already (enjoy your spiritual journey through burgerland).

But in all seriousness, no goddamn genius can figure out the identity of a single individual. We don't get how or why our consciousness or life in general actually works or what these even exactly are. Buddhists and lots of other wiseguys have already accepted that fuck it, there is nothing to figure out, we are all the same and an individual's job is to figure out how to let go of these retarded butthurt topics.

Spiritual journey through countless lives or not, buddhists are not about shitting on the floor but mopping a shitstained floor clean. Or was it taoists. Shit, I don't remember. And I don't care. The point matters.

>>17680560
I'm just confused what Issei Sagawa "The Paris Cannibal" has to do with Buddhism.

No, science hasn't disproven rebirth. We can only speculate about what happens after death or before conception since science has no tools for that (yet?). We cannot go "we don't know what is there so nothing is there".

>>17680560

Physical events are mental events masquerading as physical ones. They are fickle and unreal, unsupported by anything but one's perception and mental processes, distinctions and so on. If anything, this is getting more and more supported by science as time goes on. Misinterpreting the mental nature of reality leads to the perception of an ego and the dualism of a subjective and objective world (as well as distinguishing a contrast between mental and physical), which is what is meant by birth in buddhist philosophy. Furthermore, fundamentally, reality is neither mental or physical, these are just labels; this is what's meant by sunyata/emptiness. A person who grasps this understands that appearances aren't true no matter what they happen to present, that there is no birth or death since those phenomena are dependent on distinctions in order to be to be percieved as such. That person doesn't see things as being born or dying, just illusory facets of the fundamental substrate, and has according to buddhist doctrine moved beyond birth and death.

>>17680798
>Why does the rebirth part matter to you so much?

Because he has no argument otherwise.

>>17681297
Thank you.

This is a good thread, OP. I don't know much about Buddhism or Hinduism, so I have a few general points/questions for you.

What do you consider rebirth? If we are "reborn" but do not retain consciousness or memories, can it even be called a rebirth? Isn't the whole concept pointless then?

Scientifically speaking, it seems there is one way you could truly be reborn. At some point -a very distant point in the future- the atoms that make up your mind and consciousness will statistically have to coincide again in the exact same structure, thus making you exist again. However, for such a narrow probability to be fulfilled, the universe would have to be infinite (either in time or space), and the general scientific consensus is that the universe in not infinite. So there's that. Or maybe I just misunderstood everything you said.

>>17680560

>Has science disproven rebirth?

yes

>Was the basis of Buddha's religion fundamentally wrong?

yes

ITT: semantics disguised as """""deep""""" spirituality

Western interpretations of Eastern thought are disgusting. Someone please go back in time and shoot Schopenhauer in the head.

>>17680560
The enlightenment version of what you're talking about is Heidegger's Being and Time.

It's really quite a dry text, language has an issue with talking about this sort of thing. He never totally unravels the idea (it's an impossible task, similar to Wittgenstein's Tractatus).

>>17680588
>which by its nature is rather ascetic and anhedonic
No, the Buddha tried that path and found it didn't work. It's neither ascetic nor hedonic.

>>17685883

Nothing there suggests asceticism.