So, I'm a Buddhist now.

[Despanan]

Well that's trippy as hell and kinda terrifying. Thanks for that Dex, now I'll have nightmares about the Matrix.

[dexeron]

Yeah, it was a weird movie. I think the "plot" of it was really just an excuse to tell the story of Buddha.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Buddha

[Rip]

Ironically, that movie is one of the several reasons I'm not a Buddhist today! :D

[Despanan]

It sounds awful.

[Despanan]

[Agent]

You know none of that stuff happened, right? Like you can't just compress the work of hundreds of people over several years into a single eureka moment. It's really stupid, not to mention insulting to all the people who came before them and worked along side them.

[dexeron]

[dexeron]

Seriously, it would be like if all of us had no idea what you looked like. Some said: "I think Desp is a woman." Others said "I think Desp is a man."

Of those who preached "man," some might say "I think he is clean shaven." Others would say "he has a beard."

Then, when it's shown that you were a man with a beard, those people tried to claim that they had been able to tap into some greater perception, rather than just getting lucky and guessing.

We'd immediately see how laughable that claim would be, but add thousands of years and followers, and suddenly people want to have a justification for thinking that the founders of their particular cult were more in-tune, more enlightened, more knowledgeable. I mean, if they weren't, if they were just as ignorant as every other primitive, ignorant nobody, then that might call the entire house of cards into question!

I'm not here to tell you that Buddhism is or is not anything. But the ancient Buddhists didn't know jack-shit about the nature of the universe. They were a bunch of dudes who made up some stories that appealed to them aesthetically, just like every other group did, and they happened to luckily invent a story that kind-of sort-of (if we squint real hard) matches what was eventually discovered. Stop pretending that has any greater meaning than "coincidences happen."

[Rip]

but dex!!! it just feels right, y'know?! Don't feelings matter in cosmology?!?!??!?!

[Despanan]

The idea is not so much "you can build a rocket off of feelings" and it's kind of offensive that you would try to impose that over my argument.

Nor am I saying that ancient Buddhists understood the big bang in the way we do today using some ancient method. Nor do I think you should have monks build you a spaceship.

Even if that was true, and monks could build a spaceship and figure out the big bang without the modern scientific method, It wouldn't actually say anything about Buddhism because Buddhism's clout does not come from it's ability to make prognostications or analysis of physical reality. It's ethos comes from it's ability to build happiness within humans.

What I'm saying is that even aesthetic decisions have to *come* from somewhere. We don't pull ideas, even artistic or religious ones out of our asses. When I write something in a play, it came from somewhere else, even if I don't remember where or how.

What I'm talking about is more or less about how the human mind takes in and processes information. Bruno's understanding of the universe didn't get pulled from the ether by his crazy brain - he saw something that gave him the idea, and then later that idea manifest in a dream that was startlingly accurate.

Same thing with the DNA double Helix. There was work and research going on, but it took an altered state to put the pieces together.

I really wish you would stop assuming I'm making arguments that I'm not - it's really annoying.