Hey JanH. Remember the chat earlier today?
Indeed.
In a part of an exchange where you said many otherwise sane things, you asserted that "If you don't believe in God, you believe in "gods". All throughout human history."
Naturally, I objected to this, as it is a false statement.
A God-centric view of religion is typical in the western world, as it is dominated by the big three monotheistic religions.
However, as I pointed out, the largest eastern religion, Buddhism, can not in any sense be called theistic. The next statement from you was particularly silly, when you claimed that "Buddhists believe everything and anything is "god", so they have a view of "god"."
Here, you obviously confused Buddhism with the central tenet of (one form of) classical Hinduism, a totally different religion. Hinduism states that Atman is Brahman.
Buddhism, however, most certainly does not.
Which is why you had to come up with a really silly argument: "And that is correct for religions. You however brought up a philosephy (sp) called buddhism."
It is more than odd to claim that the third largest religion in the world is not at all a religion. It has temples, doctrines, holy men, monks, chants, prayers, etc. If your definition of religion does not cover Buddhism, ianao, it is safe to conclude that it's your definition there is something wrong with. 
It was obviously as part of this somewhat foggy line of argumentation you came up with this (see above for full text):
Buddhism: The doctrine,...
Doctrine: philosophic
Yes, the argument by dictionary. Of course, religions have doctrines, and they have philosophies. This does not mean anything. A philosophy can have a doctrine, without being a religion. A political system can have doctrines, without being a religion. You may have heard of the "Truman-doctrine" in American politics. That is not part of a philosophy, and neither a religion. In the same way, that the word "philosophy" occurs in a definition of both these words, means nothing. Your line of argument is one that betrays shallow and shoddy thinking on your part.
It is certainly the case that it is impossible to draw a clear line between religions, philosophies and ideologies, as they have similarities. Yet, to assert that a major religion like Buddhism isn't a religion, is outright silly.
Scholars from the East often consider it a sign of western-centricism to even say that Buddhism is a atheistic religion, because it (while technically correct for some forms of Buddhism) implies that having gods is the really important dimension of a religion. It is precisely equivalent to say that Christianity is an "a-nirvanic" religion by not having any idea of a Nirvana. True, but generally not very helpful.
As I said before, in western(mostly theist) terms, this means to us that anything and everything is God (since we rely on God for spiritual enlightment).
And here it gets even worse. In orthodox theism of both Christianity, Islam and Judaism, it is
precisely the point the the
opposite is the case. To say that God is everything is called pantheism. God is, in orthodox Christianity, trancendent and beyond the universe.
Whatever the message you try to convey, it is flawed from the start. You build on a total lack of understanding of the issues you want to discuss.
Excuuuuuuuse me for not being 100% technically correct in something that I've said regarding abstract ideas as creation and theism. in a flipping chat room.
Indeed, you manage to be even worse in this flipping discussion board. Of course, you may want to cling to your cherished fantasies, but if you want to communicate meaningfully to your fellow humans, it is a good idea to first make yourself slightly familiar with the topic at hand.
- Jan
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"Pluralitas non est ponenda sine neccesitate." - Occam
