Dhamma Wheel Buddhist Forum

We certainly shouldn't believe everything we think.

I don't know of a thing required to be belived out of faith. The central point of it is the practice out of witch is wisdom supposed to come out.

dxm_dxm wrote:I thought it is a well known quote of budha.

Oh yes. There's plenty of such "quotes."

He said that all he said was right but also said "not to belive what you hear from other, not even if I said it, only belive in what you found out to be true by yourself using the method I teach, I teach the method". Am I wrong ?

You said that he said it. So provide the source.

Oups, after a single google search found it to be fake but the original words from witch this derived are not extremelly different. Even if fake, it sounds like something budha would say so it did not ring any bells in my head. Sry

porpoise wrote:

Alex123 wrote:It is simply not right for, lets say Christians, to say to atheists that "it is your faith that God doesn't exist". Same is here, except replace "God" with "rebirth".

In a way this is correct, because an atheist asserts the non-existence of God but cannot prove it. And absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence.

We can observe the universe and learn more and more of its laws (and prove them), but we cannot observe God.
Adding conception of God just complicates, not simplifies. Who created God? how can God exist outside of time/space?, etc.
Adding a new entity which is not needed, and which adds more complications also violates Occam's razor.

So both beliefs do NOT have equal amount of concrete evidence (alex: edited for clarity).

So both beliefs are NOT of equal probability.

Probability has no importance in a context like this. It you care about probability then you should be a christian/muslim because of the "Pascal bet". Even if there would be 0,00001 probability, anything above 0 you should be a christian/muslim/any religion that says you are going to eternal hell if they are right.

dxm_dxm wrote:Probability has no importance in a context like this. It you care about probability then you should be a christian/muslim because of the "Pascal bet". Even if there would be 0,00001 probability, anything above 0 you should be a christian/muslim/any religion that says you are going to eternal hell if they are right.

Pascal's wager doesn't work when there is more than one idea of God, and more than one idea about the true way to heaven/Nibbāna.
Just because we cannot disprove something, it is not a reason to believe in it. I can't absolutely disprove Zeus, Wotan, Allah, Jehovah, Hades, (or whomever), illusion, Descartes demon, 5-minute earth, etc. But taking current knowledge and absence of proof (other than testimony in holy books), these things are too unlikely. There are better and testable theories out there.

A person who got visions (and perhaps became a prophet for a new religion), can simply be hallucinating, dreaming, or imagining. While I don't doubt his sincerity and honesty, those claims that cannot be verified are not convincing proof.

Authority of scriptures is also not a proof. Different books claim different things, and wise apologetics can twist them so that one cannot refute them and thus claim "they are true because you can't disprove them".

Mere logical arguments, without being tested, verified, and without falsifiability are not as valid.
Two equally skilled clever, smart, witty and eloquent philosophers can equally well argue for contradictory view points.

Alex123 wrote:We can observe the universe and learn more and more of its laws (and prove them), but we cannot observe God.
Adding conception of God just complicates, not simplifies. Who created God? how can God exist outside of time/space?, etc.
Adding a new entity which is not needed, and which adds more complications also violates Occam's razor.

So both beliefs are NOT of equal probability.

It looks like you have not studied much science nor theology after all ...

binocular wrote:It looks like you have not studied much science nor theology after all ...

That is your assertion. It is easy to say "you are wrong. You don't know anything". Prove it. Write something better. Why should we believe more in God (and which one?), than in what modern science has evidence for?

They say it's not possible to defeat an ignorant man in argument ... nor show him much.

The burden of proof lies on the one who wants to understand or prevail.



Look, if you think you've reached the pinnacle of human wisdom and knowledge - then that's what you think. If you're still not happy, then you might want to investigate how come, and whether you're really at the top.

Alex123 wrote:Adding a new entity which is not needed, and which adds more complications also violates Occam's razor.

So science says there was the big bang, where apparently everything came out of nothing with no prior cause. And religion says that God created everything, again presumably out of nothing but with God as the prior cause.
I'm not sure how conclusive Occams razor would be in this scenario.

dxm_dxm wrote:

We certainly shouldn't believe everything we think.

I don't know of a thing required to be belived out of faith. The central point of it is the practice out of witch is wisdom supposed to come out.

Sure. But we all have existing beliefs, disbeliefs and preconceptions, and we can be quite attached to them. Buddhist practice is likely to challenge those.

porpoise wrote:

Alex123 wrote:Adding a new entity which is not needed, and which adds more complications also violates Occam's razor.

So science says there was the big bang, where apparently everything came out of nothing with no prior cause. And religion says that God created everything, again presumably out of nothing but with God as the prior cause.
I'm not sure how conclusive Occams razor would be in this scenario.

The big bang theory doesn't necessarily entail that it came out of nothing, that's simply one idea floating around about what was going on before the big bang. There are other theories that include the big bang theory that do not suppose that it happened spontaneously without cause.

http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_a ... 0629a.html

Also, there seems to be some misuse of words going on, there is a difference between established scientific fact, which you could colloquially shorten to 'science says', and scientific theories, which are basically metaphysical theories backed up by certain math equations and a certain amount of evidence but not enough to say that it is fact.

Alex123 wrote:

5heaps wrote:

polarbuddha101 wrote:There is no such thing as a logical proof for rebirth or kamma.

Rebirth is logically possible but it isn't logically necessitated. So please, don't even attempt to use logic to prove rebirth, it just looks bad.

dharmakirti and all of his commentators for 1500 years have given incontrovertible reasonings for rebirth. unless youre a scholar, dont try to speak as if you have a clue what you are talking about.

I have read on rebirth by dharmakirti (or dignaga?), hoping to have some proof, and the arguments were REALLY weak. They may have worked for medieval Tibetan serfs, but would not stand against modern technological discoveries and modern knowledge in neurology, etc.

really, what did you read? since you have trouble understanding the concept of noself, i have hard time believing that you understand dharmakirti or dignaga. it takes several years to study them

also i doubt you even know how to follow indian debate format, so how could you possibly even follow his syllogisms?

polarbuddha101 wrote:

5heaps wrote:a particle, nor a collection of particles, nor an organ, etc, can produce 1st person experience

And you know this how?

because the function of a particle can only effect things of similar type ie. other particles.
sheer awareness that you are using right now does not impact physical things. it does not occupy space. you cant smash your awareness with a hammer

The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergence

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergentism

Mind you, I'm neither arguing for nor against rebirth or the continuance of mental activity post-mortem, but rather simply pointing that we don't know one way or the other.