My friend Gesshin Greenwood wrote a great article in the current issue of Buddhadharma magazine. It’s the cover story! Do you know how many times I’ve gotten the cover story in one of the Buddhist magazines? Let me go through my files and count. OK. Here you go… never. Not once. But am I bitter? NO! Because I am above all bitterness! I am that f–ing enlightened!
Anyway. Whatever.
Gesshin’s story is all about whether one can strip away the cultural forms of Buddhism and get to its real essence. Regular readers will know that this is one of my favorite pet themes.
The Mindfulnessâ„¢ movement takes the stance that yes, we can strip away the forms of Buddhism and toss them aside while only dealing with the important essentials. Sam Harris says, “Most people who teach mindfulness are still in the religion business. If you are declaring yourself a Buddhist you are part of the problem of religious sectarianism that has needlessly shattered our world. And I think we have to get out of the religion business.”
In her article, Gesshin gives us her teacher’s metaphor of Buddhism as wheel where the essence is at the center and the forms are at the rim. The wheel can’t move forward without its rim. She also talks about this common image of “stripping away” the forms of Buddhism to find the naked truth inside and says maybe we should get to know each other a little better before we get naked.
The way I see the history of Buddhism is that our man Siddhartha or Gautama, the historical Buddha, tried out various religious approaches to the problem of what life was and how to live it and found them wanting. So he looked deeply within himself and found another way. He also found that rituals are very useful in making what is merely intellectual into something that involves the body as well as the mind. When you wear a special costume, you tend to embody the spirit of that costume. When you put on a bunny outfit you feel like a bunny. When you put on Buddhist robes you feel like embodying the essence of Buddhism.
Sam Harris also says, “It just so happens Buddhism almost uniquely has given us a language and a methodology to do this (turn consciousness upon itself and thereby discover truth) that is really well designed for export into secular culture because you can get to the core truths of Buddhism – the truth of selflessness, the ceaseless impermanence of mental phenomena, the intrinsic unsatisfactoriness of experience. These features of our minds can be fully tested and understood without believing in anything on insufficient evidence. So it’s true to say that despite all the spooky metaphysics and unjustified claims of Buddhism you can get to the core of it without any faith claim and without being intellectually dishonest.”
Now here he is not talking just about trashing the bowing and incense lighting and chanting and funny clothes and haircuts. He’s saying we can also dump pretty much all of what my teacher called “Buddhist philosophy” too. I don’t feel like either of these is a very good idea, because if you do so it’s like trying to reinvent physics because you don’t like Einstein’s ideas about mustache grooming or Stephen Hawking’s preference for the far inferior Star Trek: The Next Generation over the much better Star Trek: The Original Series.
It’s true that people hear talk about karma or the Four Noble Truths or the Buddhist Precepts, or hear ideas about rebirth and about Bodhisattvas who can offer us help although they are either long dead people or entirely made up beings; they hear those things and assume they are spooky metaphysics or unjustified claims that must be accepted on faith. Unfortunately sometimes Buddhism really is taught that mistaken way. In his book Confessions of a Buddhist Atheist Stephen Batchelor says that’s how Tibetan Buddhism was presented to him, as a set of untestable doctrines that must be believed.
That’s the wrong way to understand Buddhist philosophy.
The right way to understand all that stuff is like this. For thousands of years across a variety of cultures, people who meditate have tried to put their experiences into words that they hoped others who did not meditate would get. Because our entire way of understanding life, the universe, and everything is fundamentally wrong, these teachers were forced to speak in metaphors. But all of the best Buddhist teachers said this quite explicitly. Quoting the historical Buddha, Dogen said, “Our Highest Ancestor in India, Shakyamuni Buddha, once said, ‘The snowcapped Himalayas are a metaphor for the great nirvana.’ When he uses the term ‘snow-capped Himalayas’, he is using the actual snowcapped Himalayas as a metaphor, just as when he uses the term ‘great nirvana’, he is using the actual great nirvana as a metaphor.” So even “great nirvana” is just as much of a metaphor as “snow-capped Himalayas.” This is only a single example. There are thousands more throughout all of Buddhist philosophy.
What these teachers have left for us is far too often treated as if it is Holy Scripture. But it’s not. Like all supposed “Holy Scripture” it is the words of people like us trying to convey an experience that is, in some ways, holy but also very human. As Chung-La said, “Before Buddhas were enlightened they were the same as we. Enlightened people of today are exactly as those of old.” If we learn to read the words of ancient Buddhist teachers in that spirit, we no longer see them as doctrines that must be accepted on faith alone but as attempts to tell us about an experience that is not easy to put in words.
It’s a kind of cultural arrogance to think that we can figure out what’s truly important in Buddhism better than the people who’ve been practicing it for centuries. I myself spent years believing that I understood Buddhism much better than those stuffy old Buddhists of ancient Asia. So I get it. But I never really understood what the forms of Buddhism actually were until I started doing them, and I never really understood what the so-called “doctrines” of Buddhism were until I actually started working with them.
So maybe try working with the tradition a little bit before you dismiss it all as useless baggage.
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Sam Harris is the embodiment of cultural arrogance.
I am not religious by any stretch of the imagination. But if you truly believe that religion is the root cause of the ills of the world, as opposed to, I don’t know, the general pettiness of human nature, you’re a moron and people don’t have to listen to you.
Sam Harris’ opinions about religion and the “ills of the world” are much more nuanced than you are attempting to portray them. Here is just one example:
http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/no-ordinary-violence/
So it takes a nuanced mind to discern that people kill other people because: 1. they’re insane 2. They’re sociopathic 3. They’re misguided 4. They’re religious?
Thanks, Captain Obvious.
However, there are underlying reasons why the perpetrators of massacres tend to be young men. I direct you to the work of the “War Nerd” Gary Brecher (John Dolan) and his explanations for why young men are often times very eager to kill (hint: it has to do with delusions of grandeur and heroism).
With all that said, Mr. Harris has not taken it upon himself to write hundreds of thousands of words against sociopaths or the loony. He is an Atheist fundamentalist and is guilty of many of the same fallacies and cognitive biases that all fundamentalist are.
“He is an Atheist fundamentalist…”
Oh, brother. “Atheist fundamentalism” is a straw man and would probably be a contradiction in terms if anyone who used it ever bothered to try to explain it. Do you also sometimes use the word “scientism”?
“… and is guilty of many of the same fallacies and cognitive biases that all fundamentalists are.”
I disagree because his writings and talks indicate otherwise, but I would like to know if you have heard the one about the pot that called the kettle “black”?
“Scientism” has a clear and definite meaning. Scientism is the belief that all objective truth can be known through the methods of science. If it can’t, it’s either subjective opinion or empty tautology.
Some people dislike the term because scientism is a philosophy trying to disguise the fact that it’s philosophy. Because if they admitted scientism was a philosophy, it would be obvious it’s self-refuting.
You don’t even know what a “straw man” is. A label cannot be a straw man because a label is not in and of itself an argument. A “straw man” argument is an argument against a point that the original argument wasn’t making.
We are all guilty of cognitive biases and distortions. But I don’t understand what your point of “pot” and “kettle” calling. I have made not fundamentalist arguments, although I am open to the idea that I’m a skeptical fundamentalist.
“Scientism is belief in the universal applicability of the scientific method and approach, and the view that empirical science constitutes the most authoritative worldview or most valuable part of human learning to the exclusion of other viewpoints.”
What’s your *specific* alternative Jinzang?
Homeopathy. No, seriously. Ask Jinzang about homeopathy.
Thanks for the link Canyon!
Well, now I know why you hold your position Jinzang…
Don’t get mad at science because homeopathy doesn’t have a shred of credibility.
“If you show me
That, say, homeopathy works,
Then I will change my mind
I’ll spin on a fucking dime
I’ll be embarrassed as hell,
But I will run through the streets yelling
It’s a miracle! Take physics and bin it!
Water has memory!
And while it’s memory of a long lost drop of onion juice is Infinite
It somehow forgets all the poo it’s had in it!
You show me that it works and how it works
And when I’ve recovered from the shock
I will take a compass and carve “Fancy That” on the side of my cock.””
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Evidence_for_the_effectiveness_of_homeopathy
There are many questions that can’t be answered by the methods of science. For example, “Is this fair?”, “Is this moral?”, and “Is this beautiful?” And there is is an extensive literature on how to answer them. It’s called philosophy. You ought to learn something about it.
I use homeopathy for the same reason that I practice meditation. I tried it and found that it works. If I had waited for the scientific proof that meditation works, I’d still be waiting. (The evidence to date falls short of proof.) And I am very glad I did start meditating, It’s the smartest decision I’ve made in my life. And I think the second smartest was learning homeopathy. Not only has it cured my various ills, it’s given me a window on the world I wouldn’t have had otherwise.
Jinzang said:
“There are many questions that can’t be answered by the methods of science. For example, “Is this fair?”, “Is this moral?”, and “Is this beautiful?””
You think philosophy have answered those questions?
Think again. 😉
These aren’t scientific questions, and any “answers” you get from them are opinions.
Homeopathy doesn’t work, as it’s never been shown to work better than a placebo.
But, here is a link showing a list of scientifically controlled double blind studies which have conclusively demonstrated the efficacy of homeopathy.
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/List_of_scientifically_controlled_double_blind_studies_which_have_conclusively_demonstrated_the_efficacy_of_homeopathy
So let’s be clear. If I say that it’s immoral to feed babies into wood chippers because you like the way the blood splatters, that’s a matter of opinion, just like saying I don’t like the choice of background color on this blog? Seriously? Just a matter of opinion?
Whenever I define scientism, I think that no one can seriously believe it once I explain what it is. Yet, once again, I am proven wrong. When I say that scientism is self-refuting, I mean that it’s core claim, all objective knowledge is scientific knowledge, is not a scientific claim. Hence, self-refuting.
If you are looking for a double blind clinical trial that shows homeopathy works better than placebo, here’s a recent study done in Mexico City that compared the effectiveness of homeopathic treatment of depression in post-menopausal women against placebo and Prozac.
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0118440
I see that you linked to a cartoon. It’s things like this that make it hard for me to take the skeptics movement seriously.
Jinzang said:
“I see that you linked to a cartoon. It’s things like this that make it hard for me to take the skeptics movement seriously.”
A cartoon of a tumbleweed – symbolizing the nothing that is homeopathy’s efficacy for any condition… but since you didn’t get the joke, here is something more to the point.
http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/mar/11/homeopathy-not-effective-for-treating-any-condition-australian-report-finds
“So let’s be clear. If I say that it’s immoral to feed babies into wood chippers because you like the way the blood splatters, that’s a matter of opinion, just like saying I don’t like the choice of background color on this blog? Seriously? Just a matter of opinion?”
Yep – a opinion strongly held by every sane person, but still an opinion.
It’s something that we as a species have decided is very very very bad… and it was not always the case. 😉
“Blessed shall he be, that takes and dashes your little ones against the stones.”
-A command by a moral god, contained in a certain holy book-
And your study is not as good as you think it is. Have you read it’s criticisms? Has it been repeated and confirmed by other researchers? Have you looked?
Methinks not. You just throw your parade for your one little uncorroborated study and ignore the mountain of studies that attest otherwise…
The researchers just assume it was the homeopathic remedy in the end, (which were self-assessments) when it could very well have been the extra therapy time they received per week… how could they even tell, when the remedy is the equivalent of drinking a glass of water?
“…there is is an extensive literature on how to answer them. It’s called philosophy. You ought to learn something about it.”
You’re talking to one – nice to meet you. 😉
“Whenever I define scientism, I think that no one can seriously believe it once I explain what it is. Yet, once again, I am proven wrong…”
Get used to it.
The objectivity in science is attempted in the testing. Through methodological naturalism, evidence and reason, trying to remove all bias and subjective opinion, a-priori assumptions, emotional involvements and repeating the test again and again and showing it to other experts to see and test and confirm, our knowledge is advanced, little by little… HOWEVER, the knowledge we gain IS NOT then “Objective Truth”… it’s just another step on a ladder with, (as far as we can tell,) has no end. No scientist claims objective truth… that would be like saying there is nothing left to see. Positions are either supported by the preponderance of the evidence, or they are not – and buddy, homeopathy is not.
This is a point you mistake time and time again,this “objective truth” nonsense, no matter how many times you are corrected on it.
You wrote: “Homeopathy doesn’t work, as it’s never been shown to work better than a placebo.”
So I linked to a recent study that did show that homeopathy works better than placebo, and at least as well as the current standard treatment. ONE study suffices to refute your claim of NEVER.
I did not claim homeopathy is scientifically proven. It is not, just as the benefits of meditation are not yet proven. As I previously wrote, in both cases, I practice them because I have found through my personal experience that they work well.
Jinzang said:
“I linked to a recent study that did show that homeopathy works better than placebo, and at least as well as the current standard treatment. ONE study suffices to refute your claim of NEVER.”
No… you are ignoring the key words:
-conclusively demonstrated-
As I said, there was problems with your single study that I pointed out… but so it goes with someone uninterested in knowing whether or not the things they believe are wrong.
http://rationalwiki.org/w/images/9/97/Science_vs_faith.png
“just as the benefits of meditation are not yet proven.”
What do you mean by benefits? A simple google search proves this statement wrong… The health benefits are pretty well documented.
Hear, hear, señor.
Hmmmm..
Now it’s getting interesting!!!
I LOVE IT!
but…the intrinsic dissatisfaction of experience? not entirely right?
Berkeley Buddhist Monastery / 2304 McKinley Ave, Berkeley, CA 94703
http://www.berkeleymonastery.org/
I’ve noticed that there is a difference between the presentation(for whom it is presented to), and the understanding.
Sorta like Ch’an wrapped in PureLand.
…which, creates problems with demographic. Like, I’ve seen the cat let out of the bag in a public fashion…and nobody understands. Sometimes it just washes right over them and they just go right back to their cultural take on the Cat in the Hat. Not just the brown ones, but the white ones too.
I feel kinda bad for the Cat, he’s got a hard job to do.
You can’t please everyone,cater to everyone’s culture, and keep them all on the Path at the same time.
Between Ch’an and PureLand; “It’s like this…And it’s like that.” It changes as need be min by min.
The belief that experience is intrinsically unsatisfactory is part of the Buddhist narrative. It’s not true. Obviously, we experience satisfaction at times and we experience dissatisfaction at other times. All religions build a narrative around suffering in order to feed our desire for meaning.
Tell a lie and then claim it’ not a lie, despite the inability to show how it’s true intellectually. That’s religion for ya.
The Buddhist teaching on satisfaction is not that it never occurs, but that it is always temporary, and that our craving for satisfaction is what produces suffering, not dissatisfaction itself. Satisfaction comes and goes, but craving becomes perpetual and degrading. So even when we experience satisfaction, our cravings make us suffer.
This is observably true. One doesn’t have to believe it. One only has to observe one’s own mind and experience without sentimentality or self-delusion.
“This is observably true. One doesn’t have to believe it.”
Oh Conraaaad.
Since you brought up what is observably true… 😉
(Click the dots on the right)
http://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2015-whats-warming-the-world/
Here’s some observations for you:
http://www.climatedialogue.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Christy-fig-1.jpg
Roy Spencer & John Christy’s data-set was wrong – and they have had to correct it many times over the years. 10 times in fact.
Any differences that still remain are too small to give reason to denying the consensus of the vast majority of experts and the preponderance of the evidence… unless you have an ideology to defend.
But hey, do as Jinzang does and throw a parade for your one study, so you can continue holding on to your discredited beliefs.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UAH_satellite_temperature_dataset
Correcting a data set is what science does. Nobody ever gets it right, once and for all. You must certainly be aware that GISS, NOAA, and Hadcru have corrected their data sets way, way, more than ten times in the last 30 years.
You can continue to believe that science is some unchanging fixed set of “facts” that never change, but no scientist has ever actually believed that. Quite the opposite, in fact. Don’t be surprised when your “consensus” changes.
Christie and Spencer had to correct their data because other scientists had found they had made ERRORS.
They were shown to be WRONG.
This was not the natural refinement of view that occurs normally in a field – that natural refinement has shown that the very best data we have affirm AGW. That is why there is a consensus among experts as well as every scientific body worldwide.
In the face of that observable fact, why do you doubt it?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remote_Sensing_Systems
Sorry, but you’re just “wrong”. Christy and Spencer’s oversight of the UAH satellite temperature program has been completely open and responsive to criticism. They’ve made relatively minor adjustments to their temperature record, and when mistakes have been noted, they’ve changed their methods and output in response. The biggest changes have been recent ones, in consultation over many years with the scientists who run the other major satellite temperature record, the RSS. The UAH has actually more closely tracked the surface temperature record of NASA’s GISS, NOAA, and Hadcru. Some relatively minor differences. But you have to remember, UAH isn’t tracking surface temps, it’s tracking changes throughout the atmosphere, focusing in their most cited record on the lower troposphere, which means at an altitude of approx. 2-3,000 ft. RSS does the same. And RSS’ results have been the ones that show considerably less warming than the surface tracking records. And I might add, those who run RSS are very much in the “warmist” camp.
Anyway, UAH recently became convinced by the RSS scientists that the RSS methods were superior, and so UAH re-did their calibrations and methodology taking into account the RSS approach, and have come out with a very similar result. It’s by that approach that we can see that total atmospheric warming has been much less than what the surface record has shown – roughly, half. And then there are all the changes and adjustments made by the surface record teams over the years, which in total have changed the raw warming record, almost doubling it. If the RSS/UAH approach is correct, that raw surface warming record was correct all along, and the adjustments misleading. In which case the 20th century warming was actually about half of what the “consensus” thinks. Still quite significant, but not nearly as worrisome.
Just an example of how consensus changes. Still, it’s very odd that you would cite RSS as an example of how Spencer and Christy were wrong. If RSS is right (and they probably have been all along), then all the major scientific temperature adjustments have been wrong also. Not just Spencer and Christy. And so has the “consensus” been wrong. The truth apparently lies in the direction of the skeptics, not the alarmists.
“Previously reported discrepancies between the amount of warming near the surface and higher in the atmosphere have been used to challenge the reliability of climate models and the reality of human induced global warming. This significant discrepancy no longer exists because errors in the satellite and radiosonde data have been identified and corrected. While these data are consistent with the results from climate models at the global scale, discrepancies in the tropics remain to be resolved.”
-John Christy-
That’s what happens when your sources depend on your ignorance Conrad. 😉
“And then there are all the changes and adjustments made by the surface record teams over the years…”
Richard Muller was a skeptic too Conrad. 😉
“https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTk8Dhr15Kw
“Sorry, but you’re just “wrong”.”
No I’m not, and the whole of science is behind AGW. The “skeptics” have the same numbers as the amount of biologists who believe in Intelligent Design.
Your quote is from a paper in which Christy is not the lead author, so it’s unlikely he wrote that quotation. I don’t see a date on the paper, but from first glance it’s most recent data is from 2004, so it’s probably a good ten years old. So it represents at best Christy’s views from a decade ago. The recent re-evaluation of the UAH record and its reconicilliation with the RSS record has changed all of that. You really do have to keep up with this stuff, Shodo.
Do you not even check the facts out? I mean seriously, I already mentioned that the UAH had previously been roughly in line with the surface record, but that had all changed recently.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2015/04/version-6-0-of-the-uah-temperature-dataset-released-new-lt-trend-0-11-cdecade/
As for Muller, he was never a skeptic. You know how I now that? He said so himself. Before he said he was, and then wasn’t. He got a reputation as a skeptic simply because he was strongly critical of both Al Gore and his movie, and Michael Mann and his quack work. But he never doubted the basic AGW theory or assumptions.
You clearly don’t know the whole science and are just posturing badly at certainty and expertise you clearly lack. You must be getting very tired from all that hand-waving.
Conrad said:
“Your quote is from a paper in which Christy is not the lead author, so it’s unlikely he wrote that quotation.”
He was, one of two, and that is his quote. The paper was from 2006.
But if thats not “keeping up with this stuff” enough for you… here is the CURRENT state of the troposphere data, February 2015.
http://www.carbonbrief.org/blog/2015/02/what-do-satellites-measurements-of-the-troposphere-tell-us-about-global-temperature-(2)/
(Click on the first picture under the heading: “A close comparison”, to watch a .gif of your argument dissolving away.)
It all shows a consistent warming trend – You cannot use it to bolster your denial anymore. 😉
And Roy Spencer…?
He’s such a prestigious scientist that he denies evolution too – He’s an Intelligent Design proponent. So yeah, have fun with that. 😉
And as for Muller…? Anthony Watts seemed to think he was a skeptic enough to stake his “career” on the findings of the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature Study that Muller headed.
“I’m prepared to accept whatever result they produce, even if it proves my premise wrong. I’m taking this bold step because the method has promise. So let’s not pay attention to the little yippers who want to tear it down before they even see the results.”
Needless to say, he backpedaled faster than Michael Jackson doing the moonwalk. 😉
So now that your troposphere argument is gone, what will you use now?
The link to the paper in question is published at the NOAA website, and it lists a convening lead author (not Christy) and six other authors, one of whom is Christy.
http://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/bibliography/related_files/tmlw0602.pdf
Your link, on the other hand, is from February, before the publication of UAH 6.0, which I gave you a link to already on Spencer’s website.
The “comparison” animation is quite misleading, in that it covers 160 years of data, from 1860 on, whereas the satellite data only exists since 1979. It’s more informative to see the discrepancies during from that time to the present, which are addressed by Spencer. It also doesn’t mention how many adjustments have been made to the surface record, which according to you must be a sign of incompetence on their part, that they were “wrong”. Well, maybe, but it doesn’t help your case that these things don’t change over time. Hadcru, for example, had to admit a few years ago that they had even lost track of their original data, and were doing adjustments to the adjustments to the adjustments, ad infinitum.
Spencer’s work in climate science stands on its own, apart from his religious beliefs. I doubt a Buddhist scientist would have his work attacked for believing in nirvana and reincarnation, etc. These are called ad hominem attacks, meant to distract from the science rather than dispute it. His work was certainly good enough for NASA to renew their contracts with UAH for the three decades he was in charge, until his recent semi-retirement.
Watt’s conflicts with Muller result from the methods Muller decided to use after Watts had made that statement. In short, Muller decided to use station data that the NOAA had considered inadequate and unreliable. Watts had thought from his early conversations with Muller that he would only use the best, most pristine data, but that was not to be the case. Judith Curry, Muller’s co-author on the papers, withdrew her name from the papers and refused to endorse their findings. The papers themselves were “published by press conference” but could not pass peer review and had to be withdrawn and reworked.
It’s worth noting that even under the old UAH algorithm, and with the current surface temp records, the amount of recent warming falls well short of what the models predict. And that’s the biggest problem. Especially in the tropical middle troposphere, because all the climate models predict that to be the place with the most dramatic warming under the GHG influence.
I would change my views on this subject if that single metric were to match the climate models. But unfortunately, the discrepancy only gets worse over time. The new UAH algorithm that brings it in line with RSS only puts the models at a further distance from reality. Part of the problem is that the back-matching of the models with the historical record has mostly been done with the surface record. The tropical mid-tropospheric data gets even more out of line with the models as a consequence, a good indication that they are just curve fitting to one particular output, rather than doing real science that accounts for the climate itself.
But I’m guessing you’re way over your head in this conversation. I bet you don’t even know what the tropospheric debate is about, much less the “tropical mid-troposphere”, and had to go look it up. In short, the greenhouse effect should be most evident in the tropics, with higher evaporation compounding the CO2 effect with water vapor effects that create a warming “bulge” that traps heat where most of the heat on the planet comes from – the tropics. The appearance of that heat “bulge” around the tropics would confirm that our warming is the result of greenhouse gases. But it’s not evident in the data. Which means an crucial element in the theory fails. Normally, that would suggest that the theory itself needs to go back to the drawing board and be re-worked somehow. And some modelers have indeed done that. But the IPCC doesn’t throw out the models that don’t work, using them instead to ‘average’ all the models together, the good with the bad, for reasons that don’t make much sense unless you are trying to keep that average unjustifiably high for political purposes.
And that sounds like your primary purpose – a political one, rather than a serious interest in the truth.
I may have posted this before, but here’s Christy’s comparison of the tropical mid-tropospheric warming from satellite and balloons, compared to the model outputs. The discrepencies are not insignificant:
http://www.climatedialogue.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Christy-fig-1.jpg
“The link to the paper in question is published at the NOAA website, and it lists a convening lead author (not Christy) and six other authors, one of whom is Christy.”
Fine – his name is still on the paper, and it found that: “This significant discrepancy no longer exists”.
And when you look at the .gif the UAH is in line with all the others, showing a warming.
“The “comparison” animation is quite misleading, in that it covers 160 years of data, from 1860 on, whereas the satellite data only exists since 1979.”
It’s a merging of the surface data with the satellite data, that is not misleading, they state it on the graph – and they all show the same thing past 1979, so your point is moot.
Is that a peer reviewed article you keep posting by Roy Spencer? It looks like it’s trying to look peer reviewed, but isn’t…. it’s just a blog post.
That’s pretty misleading… 😉
Remember his paper in the journal “Remote Sensing” in 2011. A paper so riddled with *wrong* the editor resigned.
file:///C:/Users/Zach/Downloads/remotesensing-03-02002.pdf
Which is ironic, because the Muller study you claim has not been peer-reviewed actually has been – oh if you had only Wikipedia’ed. 😉
It is no surprise to me that he is also a proponent of Intelligent Design…that is not an ad hominem btw, it’s a fact. It is also evidence that Roy Spencer is a crank. A crank you have put on a pedestal.
“I would change my views on this subject if that single metric were to match the climate models.”
No you wouldn’t. You’d just find something else to nit pick.
The only person who even agrees with you is Roy Spencer… If the choice is believe NASA, NOAA, and every scientific body in the world plus +97% of the world’s climate scientists or you and Roy Spencer – the choice is easy. 😉
“But I’m guessing you’re way over your head in this conversation.”
Oh please.
You’re no expert. You are just another guy, scrabbling about for evidence so that you can maintain your belief, which at best, can only be described as outliers.
Even if the troposphere was controversial (and it’s not) it wouldn’t be enough to outweigh all of the other sources climate scientists have used to come to the conclusion about AGW.
One thing that should be clear – this is a terrible place to engage in any kind of debate on this topic. The software just isn’t made for this. And it’s too huge a topic. I’ll try to finish up what I can here.
“Fine — his name is still on the paper, and it found that: “This significant discrepancy no longer exists”.
And when you look at the .gif the UAH is in line with all the others, showing a warming.”
That’s the very problem I’m pointing to. I’m not sure if you’re just being dense, or if the format here makes you lose track of this stuff. The UAH used to be aligned fairly well with the surface records of GISS, NOAA, Hadcru. The quotes from Christy are old. The new UAH 6.0 changes that, and it was just released this spring. It brings UAH in line with RSS, not with the surface record. So now both UAH and RSS are in agreement, and the surface record out of agreement with both. It’s not Spencer’s doing, though he still has some involvement with UAH even after his retirement. It’s the whole UAH staff, after years of interacting with RSS and all the others.
That doesn’t mean there’s been no warming. It only means that there’s probably been significantly less warming than has been thought to be the case before. That doesn’t mean there’s no AGW either. Both Christy and Spencer are firm believers in AGW, they just think it’s been less than predicted, and that means the future predictions are less also, and that the ECS is consequently lower than claimed. That’s not a crazy notion, it’s fairly close to the bottom range of what the IPCC already gives as part of the “consensus”. Whether it’s correct or not is hard to say at this point. Only time will tell for sure.
The idea that “only Spencer agrees with you” is pure ignorance on your part. I really do get the feeling you don’t know this topic very well. You’ve just assumed it’s all tidy and neatly packaged with a bow on top, when it isn’t. I could name dozens of climate scientists who agree with this general line of thought on climate, from Lindzen and Curry to Christy himself, who you keep quoting as if he’s supportive of your “consensus”. He’s not. But fat chance getting you to withdraw your crazy assertions that me and Spencer are all alone out here.
Spencer’s views on evolution and ID are indeed immaterial to his work in climate. Trying to smear him by that makes no sense. But that’s pretty much how you operate. By not making sense, so I guess there’s no point in arguing it.
As for Muller, yes, I guess you could technically say that he finally got his first BEST paper “peer-reviewed”. But to do so, he had to create his own new publication that had never before existed, and his own set of “peers” to review it. Kind of hysterically funny. The sort of thing you might expect “deniers” to do. Anyway, he’s still got a bunch of papers that aren’t out of peer review, and that are having a very hard time getting anywhere. His co-authors have abandoned him. Even most climate advocates want nothing to do with him anymore. When I bring him up in conversation, most of them just shake their heads and dismiss him. You probably didn’t get the memo yet.
I’ll repeat this point: you don’t actually know enough about the topic to have a decent debate on the issue. Which is fine. Best of luck to you. The wider point about science still stands – it’s “truths” change all the time. That’s a feature, not a bug. So don’t be surprised when your cherished views are superceded or falsified. That’s the beauty of it.
Conrad said:
“The new UAH 6.0 changes that, and it was just released this spring.”
“Released”…Where?
Oh… You mean that non-peer reviewed blog post written in such a way so it looks like a peer-reviewed paper on Spencer’s homepage?
Nope – that doesn’t change anything I’m afraid… I guess you were fooled by it too. 😉
“So now both UAH and RSS are in agreement, and the surface record out of agreement with both.”
Nope – the data, both satellite and surface, shows a warming trend.
“That doesn’t mean there’s been no warming. It only means that there’s probably been significantly less warming than has been thought to be the case before. That doesn’t mean there’s no AGW either.”
Get out the clippers, here comes the hedging.
They aren’t AGW deniers now? They all believe in Human-Caused global warming, but just a tad bit less?
I *really* (not really 😉 ) hate to break this to you, but even IF the satellite temperature data was saying what you think it was saying, (it’s not) it’s no death knell to AGW.
There is just too much evidence coming from other lines of research (Sea Level Rise, Warming Oceans, rising global temps, shrinking ice sheets, Glacial Retreats, Shrinking Arctic Sea Ice, Decreased snow cover, Ocean Acidification, Extreme weather events, Changing animal Migratory patterns and measuring the UNPRECEDENTED amounts of GHG’s in the atmosphere just to name a few) to dismiss with satellites that obtain INDIRECT INFERENCES of temperature from radiance’s of wavelength measurements.
I know you really wish it was so, but the entirety of climate science doesn’t hinge on what one satellite data-set says – that’s such a myopic take on things that it speaks more of desperate defense than scientific curiosity.
Furthermore, science can rule out all the suggested alternative causes – as my very first post pointed out to you.
This satellite temperature stuff is YOUR waterloo it seems… It’s got you so wound up that you think a blog post = “peer reviewed study”. 😉
“The idea that “only Spencer agrees with you” is pure ignorance on your part… I could name dozens of climate scientists who agree with this general line of thought on climate, from Lindzen and Curry to Christy himself…”
Whole DOZENS?? 🙂
My goodness, what a large amount!
Here’s a Wiki page of them – Spencer, Curry, Christy… they are all here.
I’d bet you’d be hard pressed to find a name not already included in this list. A mere blip, (though a well funded and vocal blip) compared to the Tens of thousands of Climate scientists who disagree with you.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_scientists_opposing_the_mainstream_scientific_assessment_of_global_warming
“Spencer’s views on evolution and ID are indeed immaterial to his work in climate.”
Maybe not to you, but it means something to me.
It says something about how his mind works… it says that in the struggle between the evidence and Spencer’s beliefs – for Spencer, beliefs win. I hope you read the letter from the editor of the scientific journal who stepped down I posted before. The kinds of things he willfully did robs any claim to any sort of attempt at objectivity.
He has been so wrong, so often, I’m amazed that anyone who is interesting in obtaining facts would cite him as a source.
“I guess you could technically say that (Muller) finally got his first BEST paper “peer-reviewed”. But to do so, he had to create his own new publication that had never before existed, and his own set of “peers” to review it.”
Anyone disprove his findings in the past 3 years…?
Nope, Muller’s findings have been corroborated, the peer-review process works.
“Kind of hysterically funny. The sort of thing you might expect “deniers” to do. Anyway…”
It would be… except the denier papers wouldn’t stand up to sustained scrutiny, followed by resignations of the journal’s editors.
They also post blog posts made to look like scientific papers… 😉
“…it’s “truths” change all the time. That’s a feature, not a bug. So don’t be surprised when your cherished views are superseded or falsified.”
That blade cuts you FAR worse than it cuts me – your beliefs are *already* unsupported, and it seems to only get worse the more time goes on.
Your parting shot is little more than yelling: “I’ll be right! Someday!”
“I’ll repeat this point: you don’t actually know enough about the topic to have a decent debate on the issue.”
Funny, with your myopic way of looking at the evidence, I was thinking the same thing about you.
Bye-bye Conrad. 😉
Hey, look what I found!
A paper that got published showing how (yet again) Christy and Spencer are doing it wrong, less than one month before Spencer’s little “peer-reviewed” blog post. (Maybe that’s why nobody wants to publish Spencer’s blog-post)
Ouch… 😉
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2015/mar/25/one-satellite-data-set-is-underestimating-global-warming
So enlightenment has something to do with letting a cat out of a bag?
Is this the central theme of Sam Harris’ religion?
“Gesshin’s story is all about whether one can strip away the cultural forms of Buddhism and get to its real essence. Regular readers will know that this is one of my favorite pet themes.
The Mindfulnessâ„¢ movement takes the stance that yes, we can strip away the forms of Buddhism and toss them aside while only dealing with the important essentials. Sam Harris says, “Most people who teach mindfulness are still in the religion business. If you are declaring yourself a Buddhist you are part of the problem of religious sectarianism that has needlessly shattered our world. And I think we have to get out of the religion business.””
Well, you can get to the essence by stripping away the cultural forms of Buddhism, after you have gone through the cultural forms of Buddhism.
Through the form to the essence and back.
http://www.tricycle.com/feature/science-delusion
Take that, Sam Harris.
I tried to read that interview but I rolled my eyes at so many sentences that I kept losing my place. Curtis White sounds like a silly, silly man. People who use the word “scientism” tend to be silly people.
Then I found a video of Curtis talking about his book two years ago on C-SPAN. A silly, silly man talking about a silly, silly book.
http://www.c-span.org/video/?313538-1/book-discussion-science-delusion
“Scientism” is very real.
Science, obviously, should be taken very seriously. However, “Science” has also become a brand, and there are people who make a lot of money off that brand. And, as such, incomplete or even bad science is often sold as “Science” and if it convinces enough people, it becomes accepted as “Science” even though it is anything but.
When that branding takes hold, and people refuse to take a skeptical eye to something just because they’ve been convinced that it’s “Science” that’s when it becomes “Scientism.”
For examples, see the pharmaceutical industry. Because I work int he mental health field, I am most familiar, particularly, with the issue of psychiatric medications. The science is incomplete, and in some cases greatly distorted or manipulated or misrepresented, and yet, people who believe in “Science” still believe that psychiatric medications are more effective than random interventions, when they are not.
Or look at how people have been convinced that developing an ongoing relationships with a primary care physician improves their health, when the research shows quite clearly that such is not the case, and in fact, that the more healthy a person is, the more likely a relationship with a PCP is to be iatrogenic.
None of this is “anti-science.” I believe in science. I’m typing in a computer in an air-conditioned room that I drove to in an automobile. If I walk outside I can hear a planes flying overhead, and you and I are only able to have this conversation because of something called the internet. Science is real. And it works.
However, I would direct you to the work of Nassim Taleb for examples of how we misunderstand Science and invoke its name to try to explain that we understand things that we have no real understanding of.
Further confirmation that people who use the word “scientism” tend to be silly.
Seriously, people, if you want to disagree with someone on the internet you can’t just keep giving them evidence that supports their claim.
One of us might not have the intelligence gene and it might not be me.
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/quest-for-intelligence-genes-churns-out-more-dubious-results/
Well, I may use the word “scientism” but at least I’m not a smug asshole.
What is so silly about my response? The fact that I provide specific examples or the fact that I also essentially site my sources?
What have you provided, besides empty name calling?
I’m open to conversation. I’m not like Sam Harris, or you, apparently. I can be convinced with good arguments/evidence. I’ve been proven wrong before, and I will be proven wrong again.
Your irrational responses to my posts seem kind of…silly.
As for myself… I’m still reeling by your usage of the term “atheist fundamentalist”.
What did you mean by it?
I think of an atheist fundamentalist as someone who considers their own particular brand of metaphysical materialism as the one true faith and is not open to other views and ways of approaching the matter of existence or in considering potential new lines of evidence. They also tend to be arrogant and disparaging towards anyone who holds views different than their own, particularly people who hold spiritual or religious beliefs.
See here is the thing…
I’ve never heard of “Metaphysical Materialism”…. what is that?
Do you mean “Philosophical Materialism”?
The problem with these discussions is most people confuse “Ontological Materialism” with “Methodological Materialism”.
Then they conflate that misunderstanding with how grumpy someone made them feel when they spoke up on some internet forum about how they believed in “the healing power of crystals” or somesuch… pointing out to them that there was no evidence for such silliness.
Mix that with misunderstandings of what atheism is… thinking that having no belief in god IS ITSELF religious by nature.
… mostly it’s just the hostility they feel when some expert tells them that what they believe is silly.
By metaphysical materialism I simply mean the metaphysical belief that all things are material. Which I presume refers to most or all forms of materialism. Most atheists tend to be materialists of one stripe or another, the fundamentalist types tend to be either ignorant or dishonest about the metaphysical assumptions underlying their materialistic belief’s. This can result in assuming the world is a certain way beyond what the actual evidence bears out. I’m not using these terms in an exact philosophical way, that’s not really my thing, if metaphysical materialism is confusing just read as ‘materialism’.
You have to choose your terms carefully… at best people won’t know what you are talking about, and at worst, people will think YOU don’t know what you’re talking about.
“By metaphysical materialism I simply mean the metaphysical belief that all things are material.”
Ok… You mean “Ontological Materialism”.
“Which I presume refers to most or all forms of materialism.”
It doesn’t – For simplicity’s sake, just think of the Ontological version as a belief, while the Methodological version as a, well, method. 😉
“Ontological Materialism” is (by my reasoning) a subset of “Methodological Materialism”… based mostly on the scientific method’s overwhelming success in explaining and describing nature.
Earlier you said this:
“They also tend to be arrogant and disparaging towards anyone who holds views different than their own, particularly people who hold spiritual or religious beliefs.”
That is probably exactly how it seems to the person who holds the belief. It probably seems both arrogant and disparaging… It may very well actually BE.
But you have to understand, if science says for any given proposition – “All of our experts and all of our evidence that we can observe and test THUS FAR points to A”…. what in the world would make someone think: “I believe Q is the actual explanation”…?
Is it arrogance to say “No, you’re wrong”? Maybe. Things can always change with more and better evidence. Maybe folks should be more tender with their arguments. Also maybe it will always SEEM like arrogance when somebody’s pet theory is met with indifference or is corrected – no matter how it’s phrased. The only reason, with the lack of evidence, to believe in things with no good evidence is because the position has become enmeshed in someone’s heart, or their identity.
I think it all boils down to a simple question:
If your position/opinion/outlook/theory was wrong, would you want to know that?
The answer it would seem for many people is unfortunately – No.
@shodo–Cygni’s definition of “Atheist Fundamentalist” is much more elegant, eloquent and comprehensive than mine.
For me, a fundamentalist of any kind is simply someone who believes they have the world figured out and that the world would be fixed if people only listened to them. This line of thought is the common trait: “I and my belief system have all the answers and the rest of you dumb monkeys should follow what I say.”
A follower of any belief system can be a fundamentalist. There are Stalinist Fundamentalist, and French cooking fundamentalist, and Anti-Designated-Hitter Baseball Fundamentalists, and Existentialist Fundamentalist, and, yes, even Buddhist Fundamentalists.
There are also Atheist Fundamentalist.
A good (but not perfect) sign that someone is a Fundamentalist is that they are arrogant as hell and difficult to be around.
That’s not an elegant definition…
You have an expert on brain surgery, and you have someone who asserts that our mental states are controlled by little imps working levers and pulleys inside our skulls.
The expert scoffs at this, laughs at his beliefs and repeatedly drills the poor goofball with evidence that his beliefs are wrong.
According to your “elegant definition”, the expert is a brain surgery fundamentalist.
😛
http://i257.photobucket.com/albums/hh210/The_Seraphym/Forum%20Images/Aragorn-ThatsRetarded.jpg
Let us all preserve our illusions Shodo…
I love the scientific method as much as the next guy or gal, but I don’t pretend scientists are nessesarily perfect when it comes to not having their own pet theories that they cling to. Just like everyone else they tend to ignore evidence or areas of research that might not support them, rather than actively searching out falsification. The scientific method is beautiful when it is followed in its true spirit, but when it turns into a kind of militant new atheistic narritive… Then I’m glad there are English professors out there willing to call out some of the bullshit that is making the rounds.
At the end of the day I’d rather try to merge my mind with a black hole, or the body of Samantabhadra…
https://youtube.com/watch?v=5dxOdUUFr-Y
Cygni said:
“Let us all preserve our illusions Shodo…”
Why? Why would you want to preserve an admitted illusion? Why would you want to believe anything without good evidence? 🙂
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDYba0m6ztE&app=desktop
I am pretty sure that this English professor is not making salient points. He is simply saying things that resonate with you personally.
You can line up all the scientists in the world, explaining gravity and how it works… You can insist your belief that you can leave out your house from the second story window by flying… and they will arrogantly laugh at you, bruised and cut up, in the ground floor rosebushes.
That is not an example of scientific-atheistic-fundamentalism-whatever, even though they laughed at you.
You will still be wrong, and they will still be right.
@shodo–I think you’re missing the forest for the trees, man.
One thing the scientific method is very good at is providing knowledge “via negativa.” Showing us what ISN’T true. Science is quite effective at this.
And science has fairly definitively proved–for all intents and purposes–that imps are not controlling our mind-workings (providing that far-fetched, and completely unprovable scenarios like the imps purposely distorting our perceptions so that we can’t see them, aren’t occurring).
The point being, that a person has to use some degree of common sense on these matters. I know that’s not elegant and that everybody has a different definition of “common sense” but if you honestly believe someone claiming that you have to deal with your imps instead of seeing a brain surgeon, you’re a person with major problems.
I think Cygni’s definition was fairly elegant because we’re having this discussion on an internet message board and are not each writing 600 page books in obscure German to make our points, and it’s expected that the people reading such posts realize that such posts are far from comprehensive. There’s a faith that readers can catch the “gist” of such posts without nitpicking superfluous points and generating inconsequential and exaggerated hypotheticals about a person who believes in brain imps.
@senorchupacabra
Ok, so you didn’t like my “imps” example. 😉
But did you get the point of it?
“…if science says for any given proposition — “All of our experts and all of our evidence that we can observe and test THUS FAR points to A”…. what in the world would make someone think: “I believe Q is the actual explanation”…?
Who’s the arrogant one here?
The one who insists their position, upheld by the preponderance of the evidence… or the one who asserts their position is the true explanation, based on their personal beliefs/experience, IN SPITE OF the evidence?
You don’t like my imps example, I get it… but it illustrates the larger point.
If you get it too, then you should understand why Cygni’s definition is nonsensical.
That article was ridiculous.
Here’s an interesting question: “Who cares about an English professor’s critique of science?” 😉
I swear… the more I hear the word “scientism” the more I suspect that the people who employ it are just pissed of that their particular preferred crank theory doesn’t get the respect and legitimacy they think it deserves.
Methodological Naturalism is the hands-down, bar-none best way we have found to understanding the world.
If anyone disagrees, I’d love to hear your alternatives.
You cannot understand this world. You can only be in this world. Enlightened Hedonism is the only way to fly.
Whoops, this one really belongs to the last UFO post, but what a great song, be a shame to waste it…give it a whirl, eh?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9MJAI2eOsY
Thanks Mr. d-Rugs.
“A benign way to think about this is that once people experience the benefits of mindfulness they will become interested in the dharma and develop a truer appreciation for Buddhism–and that would be fine. But the problem is that neither Buddhists nor employees are in control of how this will play out. Industry is in control. This is how ideology works. It takes something that has the capacity to be oppositional, like Buddhism, and it redefines it. And somewhere down the line, we forget that it ever had its own meaning.”
Oh, like “Zen?”
http://www.fragrantica.com/perfume/Shiseido/Zen-Original-4837.html
Stinking like thinking since 1964.
Thankyou Canyon
http://www.c-span.org/video/?313538-1/book-discussion-science-delusion
I see nothing silly in this; but I did not get all the way through it yet.
“I see nothing silly in this…”
Well, that just confirms my opinion about the silliness of the things that Curtis White says.
How ’bout starting with the absurdity of an English Professor writing his critique of the Scientific Method… I can’t even trust that he has the faintest clue that he knows what he is talking about… Does he understand the history and philosophy of science? I seriously doubt it.
I mean goodness, read this interview of his “science delusion”… he attempted to write a book of SATIRE – not a critique.
In fact, his final response, where he is talking about Kant and Empiricism shows that he’s ignorant – it is because of those things PRECISELY that the scientific method is the way it is.
http://boingboing.net/2013/06/20/the-real-problem-with-curtis-w.html
I like Gesshin’s writing, and I’m curious about what she had to say- maybe they have this issue at the library.
I have a good friend, he serves me tea and himself as well, and we talk. We teach each other, sometimes. I sent him links to the last two things I’ve written. He wrote back, “more polished and professional, but I still don’t understand.”
I wrote him a few words about the mind moving at 4am and the fluid ball, but I was really talking about the practice that occurs for me. I felt relief when I found words that could describe my recent experience: “makes me happy when I feel support just for letting go”, but I know I was talking to myself. That’s all I can do, until I’m talking to someone else.
I wonder who Gesshin was talking to.
“I wrote him a few words about the mind moving at 4am and the fluid ball…”
“I felt relief when I found words that could describe my recent experience…”
Maybe the fluid in your balls was moving at 4 a.m. and the mind had nothing to do with it. That has happened to me once or twice. I felt relief but I didn’t feel the need for any words to describe it.
Her mom. The one in her head.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
I don’t know exactly how much of the tradition Charlotte Joko Beck dismissed and how useless she felt it was, but it’s been said that “Long before retirement, Joko Beck had done away with all titles and no longer wore her okesa. She had distanced herself considerably from her roots in the SÅtÅ school, and much of the ceremony had been abandoned in favor of pure meditation practice.”
But I don’t think anyone can dismiss her as someone who hasn’t studied and worked with the Zen tradition to disqualify her views on the matter.
Seems to be a tendency to assume there’s an either/or quality to the validity of streamlined vs. traditional Buddhism. Personally, I’m in favor of “Let a thousand flowers bloom” and then let’s see what bears fruit and what withers on the vine.
I’m glad the Buddhism of Sam Harris and Stephen Batchelor is available to those who are attracted by it. I do get annoyed by those, though, who insist that’s the only way to go.
Let’s have tea.
Let’s have
Let’s
Let
Le
Gassho
“Form vs. Essence
Many people feel a tension between the essence of Buddhism and its rituals. But the fact is, they are inseparable.”
(from the cover of the “Summer 2015” issue of “Buddhadharma: The Practitioner’s Quarterly”)
Now that we’ve got that fact straight, we can move on, all you practitioners (and especially you 4am practitioners of what, we apparently can’t say).
“Maybe the fluid in your balls was moving at 4 a.m. and the mind had nothing to do with it. That has happened to me once or twice. I felt relief but I didn’t feel the need for any words to describe it.”
Must have been the pentaquarks moving around to meet scientism’s dogmatic needs.
Comments must have more than 60 characters.
Malfunction…
Malfunction…
Malfunction…
‘Shodo
July 14, 2015 at 9:50 am | Permalink | Reply
That article was ridiculous.
Here’s an interesting question: “Who cares about an English professor’s critique of science?” 😉’
Yeah, and who cares about your Zen master’s use of psychedelic drugs?
Sam Harris’ nuanced opinions:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dF2ZLq7oBk
Malfunction, malfunction, malfunction
Let’s not forget to throw Stephen Batchelor in the fire.
http://www.buddhistgeeks.com/2010/10/a-difficult-pill-the-problem-with-stephen-batchelor-and-buddhisms-new-rationalists/
If the self is an illusion, that this sense of I is rebuilt every moment and is in flux,
then where is the agent that is reborn in an other reincarnation.
If it is illusion, what can be reborn? An why is it necessary to say that someone is reborn in an other body, in an other life.
“I” don’t throw Mr. Batchelor in the fire because he is not contradicting any fundamental Buddhist belief.
So he’s not in the fire yet, but he’s definitely in the tinder pile waiting his turn. I bet his next book will say some thing along the lines of “You know what? The Buddha didn’t really believe in meditation either. He only did that stuff because it was culturally fashionable at the time.” It will be titled:
Buddhism Without Beliefs or Practice
Red Pine said that meditation was to keep the Buddha’s followers busy while he went about healing their spiritual rift.
Where’d he say that, Fred??????????????????????????????????
??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
I’m dumbflasted. Gabberfounded. Without beliefs or practice… why, what’s left!
“I tell you that you need not mount the donkey ; you are the donkey! The whole world is the donkey; how can you mount it?” Foyan proceeds to mention a second sickness: having mounted the donkey, being unwilling to dismount.
He then goes on to speak of the sickness of Zen masters and the sickness of Buddhas, and how Nanquan passed through them. He says: “Zen followers these days all take sickness for truth. Best not let your mind get sick.” (“Instant Zen”, trans. Cleary, pg 4-5)
He reports Nanquan as saying that the normal mind is the path. Is that the mind that travels out of body, that the aliens mess with in their ships, that gets remembered by kids until they’re 6 or 7?
Makes me happy when I can let go and realize support; I’ll be out on the lawn, thrashing.
Those pesky, so-called “Buddhist practices” may be killing you!
https://www.yahoo.com/health/sitting-down-for-this-if-youre-a-woman-youre-124085321252.html
So much for retreats!
This comment thread…
Sam the Sham:
“These features of our minds can be fully tested and understood without believing in anything on insufficient evidence. So it’s true to say that despite all the spooky metaphysics and unjustified claims of Buddhism you can get to the core of it without any faith claim and without being intellectually dishonest”
Sammy boy, the intellect is the source of the dishonesty. The grasping, the clinging to a model is the source of the dishonesty.
If Sammy understood the basis of Buddhism, he wouldn’t have all his mistaken beliefs in scientism. He wouldn’t be trying to sell his model in the market place to
yuppies and new agers.
“…the intellect is the source of the dishonesty. The grasping, the clinging to a model is the source of the dishonesty.”
But using the intellect to grasp and cling to the dogmatic superstitious elements of Buddhism is the best practice because that is completely different, right? Buddha said it so it must be true, right? Except that nobody knows with absolute certainty what Buddha really said and what was added later. Look at Tibetan Buddhism: at least half of it is nowhere to be found in the Tipitaka. Tibetan Buddhism is actually the native Tibetan Bon religion with some Buddhism added to it. Just like Christianity is a Greek mystery religion with some Judaism added to it.
If you believe that the intellect is the source of all evil, if you are grasping and clinging to the idea that people would be better without the intellect, why haven’t you gotten a lobotomy yet? Or have you?
Did Cygni previously call himself SamsaricHelicoid/CatsAreInfinite?
“Cygni July 15, 2015 at 4:24 pm
At the end of the day I’d rather try to merge my mind with a black hole, or the body of Samantabhadra…”
About homeopathy, I’m personally rather skeptical (or outright indifferent).
There is one thing I know, however: a lot of cattle raisers and horse owners use it on their animals, and I tend to think that they wouldn’t if it didn’t work. And they say it works. And I mean real peasants, people who tend to be extremely (too much at times) down to earth.
Why should a cow be sensible to the placebo effect?
“a lot of cattle raisers and horse owners use it on their animals, and I tend to think that they wouldn’t if it didn’t work. And they say it works.”
Science says otherwise.
“While not all homeopaths discourage conventional therapy, the practice is fundamentally based on the premise that conventional, scientific medicine is in error in its basic approach and that homeopathy is an entirely different, and superior, way to truly cure disease. There have been a number of well-documented cases of people following this line of reasoning strictly and suffering severe injury or death as a result.
Given that all medicine involves balancing risks against benefits, the case against homeopathy seems clear. There is a conspicuous absence of evidence of benefits despite centuries of use and investigation. And there are real risks, not to mention ethical concerns, associated with substituting an ineffective therapy for truly beneficial medical care. The balance seems unquestionably weighted against treating homeopathy as a legitimate veterinary therapy.”
https://www.avma.org/About/Governance/Documents/2014W_2013W_Resolution3_Attch1.pdf
“Science” in the 18th century derided those that were delusional enough to still believe in the atom.
I think that this is precisely what Sr Chupacabra said about scientism. I personally don’t care for homeopathy (I even think the name is false!) but I’m just reporting what those peasant (and mind you, not the ’60ies urbanites gone farming, but peasants born of peasants born of peasants) people have reported to me.
If they will give their animals cures that “don’t work”, says “science”, I’ll find that slightly strange…
Your anecdotes have little worth.
Have you actually studied this…?
Enough to be able to confidently state that solutions that have been mixed to the point where there is no longer any active ingredients contained within the solution have an effect on animals…? based simply on the observations of a “salt of the earth” sort-of farmer unwilling to spring the cash for *actual* medicine?
http://www.quackometer.net/blog/2010/09/can-homeopathy-cure-mastitis-in-cows.html
The wheel and the rim.
The Nazi idea and the Nazi salute.
Every ideology looks for its forms.
Indeed, if one strips away the form, he might discover the essence.
If one cannot let go of the form, he may never detect essence.
So Dôgen thought that Shakyamuni saw the Himalayas. I doubt it. Too far away.
“Before Buddhas were enlightened they were the same as we.”
After Buddhas were enlightened they were the same as we.