Chanakya
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- Joined
- Apr 29, 2015
- Messages
- 5,811
Well, you did say in your post #428 that : “ … I find it astonishing that anyone can claim to be agnostic about the existence of centaurs like Chiron. Or gods like Zeus... or God the Father.” And especially : “ In the case of the god of Christianity or the centaur Chiron, that probability seems practically null to me. That's why I'm an atheist.”. That is, it seemed to me that you were saying that your atheism was centered around Christianity -- as well as, in addition, specific instances like the Zeus-God, which today at least no one takes seriously and is only a caricature.
But okay : that was just my inference from what you’d said there, and there is no need to argue this : since you obviously know better than I do what you yourself focus your beliefs on. If you say you’ve studied other, non-Abrahamic religions before arriving at your particular worldview, sure, I’ll take your word for it.
I agree with you that Advaita is an empty idea of God, as I have clearly said in post #430, which I’d referenced to you. In fact, I myself spoke of the ancients fueling their wild imagination with narcotics, in those posts of mine that I’d referenced to you, which half-joking idea you now mirror back to me here in your Latin quote about opium. So there’s no question of disagreement there.
The point was -- again, as I’d explained in that post I’d referenced to you -- that one cannot directly disprove this idea, like you might the idea of a Zeus-God or a Yahweh-God. One dismisses it, certainly, but only by asking for evidence and, finding none, setting this idea aside. Which is soft atheism. My point was, that Advaita does not allow of hard atheism -- because it is not falsifiable, and therefore does not allow of direct disproof. It does allow of atheism though, but by the soft-atheism route.
(And incidentally : here's clear demonstration of what I've been saying all along, and what I've also said in this same post #430 that I've referenced to you. Someone interested in football may find great pleasure in analyzing intricacies of some strategy, or someone's form ; while to those uninterested, it is simply overgrown children thrashing around in a field. Here's what you say : "(Advaita is) not worth to waste a minute discussing about". My dear Sir, that is not for you to say, not at least if you generalize. You may not wish to spend a single second on it, that is perfectly fine ; but if another is happy to examine it in great detail, that is their prerogative. And nor does this interest make of this person, who's interested in this idea, a theist, any less than an Olaf Stapledon fan can be accused of believing in the literal truth of what he'd written.)
I’m sorry, but in what sense do you say it is "empty"? This ancient idea does pre-empt, in a way, what Neuroscience is now beginning to tell us, or so it seems to me.
I agree -- as I had very cleary detailed in the post I referenced -- that this does not directly speak of God, and therefore I said I prefer to use the word “God idea” rather than “God” per se. I speak of this in the same breath as the other religions and other God ideas, because Buddhism taken as a whole does present a world-view that is religious, and that can -- perhaps with the exception of specific ideas like Anatta -- be rejected by the reasonable person.
But sure, you’re right : Anatta itself does not directly speak to God per se. That is obvious. I said as much myself, very clearly, in my post #430, which I’d referenced to you in my post that you’ve quoted.
