Why do people become religious?

Organisational work, teaching, Sunday school syllabus, charitable work, outreach, sharing of resources, artwork, etc.

Why do people become religious?

1) Political power and wealth provided by the group
2
3%
2) The greed - the benefits of belong to a group
2
3%
3) Charisma of the leader
3
5%
4) Fear of unknown
4
7%
5) Curiosity
8
14%
6) Brain washed by parents
6
10%
7) Unsatisfactoriness of life
16
28%
8) Magic nature of teaching - supernormal powers
2
3%
9) Miracle of teaching
8
14%
10) Desire to be a part of a common group
7
12%
 
Total votes: 58

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cappuccino
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Re: Why do people become religious?

Post by cappuccino »

Arāḍa Kālāma, the teacher of the young Buddha … following an archaic form of Sāṅkhya

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GreyHaven
Posts: 20
Joined: Thu Oct 28, 2021 6:48 pm

Re: Why do people become religious?

Post by GreyHaven »

Ceisiwr wrote: Fri Oct 08, 2021 11:02 pm
un8- wrote: Fri Oct 08, 2021 10:31 pm [Mundane right view is subject to falling back. Supermundane right view is not subject to falling back. That means if rebirth is actually true, that means a person probably had mundane right view and wrong view in the infinite cycles of samsara. You can lose your mundane right view, you can't lose Supermundane right view. So all these ritualistic religious people on this forum are focusing and wasting their time arguing for something they can't even keep and is subject to loss.
The point that you seem to be missing is that you can’t get to one without the other. The supramundane view that you mention occurs at any of the 4 stages of awakening, after the prior stage of having mundane right view and perfecting virtue and sense restraint. You don’t just adopt supramundane right view. It’s the outcome of practicing for a long, long time.
This is a very salient point to make. Speaking generally of the supramundane views, their difficulty to "nail down" precisely with words or communicate in a direct, literal sense is the source of many disagreements, but also, that fundamental mysterious and impossible-to-fully-foreknow quality is deeply intrinsic. Moreover, there is no amount of readings and re-readings that will transform intellectual information about a supramundane view into an actual moment of fruition-consciousness: it has to be perceived directly, and in that moment, resolves the questions about it, and shows how nearly all of them were likely malformed or simply didn't apply - the fog of avijja is thick indeed.

The story of Venerable Ananda's enlightenment comes to mind, having committed so much explicit wisdom to memory, and unable to perceive nibbana until he realized that he was treating it as an object to be obtained. Such it is with all the supramundane - there is no Cosmic Law that one must memorize all the true and accurate verbal details about a state to reach it (nor is this somewhat amusing concept even possible). Further, becoming attached to this or that specific characterization found somewhere brings remembrance of Ananda, wandering back and forth on the porch steps that night before the First Council.
thomaslaw
Posts: 812
Joined: Fri Apr 19, 2013 12:55 am
Location: Australia

Re: Why do people become religious?

Post by thomaslaw »

Ontheway wrote: Sun Oct 17, 2021 2:30 pm Before I encounter Buddhism, I felt lost, helpless, without direction & purpose in my life.

After I encountered Buddhism, my life changed and it gives me hopes, truth, a clear direction and a purpose to live on.
Very good!

SN 22. 101 (SN iii, p. 152) reports the Buddha as saying: "By knowing, by seeing, bhiksus, I declare, is the destruction (or extinction, khaya.m) of the influxes (aasavaana.m), not by not knowing, not by not seeing."
Its counterpart SA 263 has almost the same: "Then the Buddha said to the bhiksus: By knowing and seeing I attained the extinction of the influxes, not by not knowing and not seeing."

Fully knowing the arising of dukkha and the way leading to the cessation of dukkha is certainly not in the sense of devotional-religious faith, but rather seeing yourself as you really are as anicca, dukkha, anatta, leading to the cessation of dukkha.
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