Originally posted by King Kandy
No it doesn't, really. You can have a clear understanding of why a diet works.
There are plenty of diets that people take on faith. Unless you've gone through med-school it's unlikely that you'd understand how or why a diet works simply because nutrition is extremely complex.
Originally posted by DigiMark007
Jbill, it's a matter of terminology to me. Discard the supernatural aspect of a religion, and there's certainly still something left. But is it really a religion anymore? I prefer to think of such things as philosophies. I happily accept that there are aspects of religions (primarily eastern, though not entirely) that are beneficial to assimilate into our personal worldview. Yet I am what you might call a stone-cold materialist. That doesn't invalidate religious teachings...it just means I take them for what they are: stories. Myths. Aesop's Fables are important tools for children, despite the fact that animals don't talk and nature doesn't ever become personified. Same idea, only for adults.
Originally posted by DigiMark007
So yeah, it's fine. A lot of people do it, because they are able to filter information to latch onto what is truly important about a text. Not its literal import, nor its theological implications, but its practical value for our lives.
Originally posted by King Kandy
Then clearly it isn't faith that is motivating you in these rituals, which is good in my opinion.
But just believing in the Philosophy of Buddhism is not enough to be able to have the true benefit of Buddhism. Chanting Nam Myoho Renge Kyo in front of a Gohozon, along with study, will have a profound effect on a individual, if done faithfully over time. Faith, like you are talking about, is not needed, but the ritual is required.
Originally posted by Shakyamunison
I disagree. Ritual is a integral part of Buddhism. Buddhism without ritual is empty and has no way of become real. Perhaps we are not clear of what is meant by ritual. I include chanting as a type of ritual, and Nichiren Buddhism does not function without chanting Nam Myoho Renge Kyo.
Perhaps that is true, at least for your particular sect of Buddhism. I suppose that the "coffee table" religion Jbill talks about is easier with some religions than others. Still, no one (myself included) said that one experiences the full religion when you strip away the rituals and supernatural. But yet there remains the teachings, stories, and/or philosophies of the religion. Not the entirety, perhaps, but still something. And for those who see no reason to believe the supernatural aspects, and see no practical function of the rituals, the teachings themselves are the important part, the part that is applicable to our lives regardless of our personal religion or worldview.
"Coffee Table" referred to a casual and superficial following of the most popular aspects of a religion. One of the christian posters (Grand_Moff_Gav? maybe?) along with Shaky was bemoaning the current practice of following only the practices of a religion that the 'churchgoers' wanted to. Beyond the specifics of my situation, I wanted to know what (if any) problems arise when elements of religions can be picked and chosen.
Originally posted by DigiMark007
Perhaps that is true, at least for your particular sect of Buddhism. I suppose that the "coffee table" religion Jbill talks about is easier with some religions than others. Still, no one (myself included) said that one experiences the full religion when you strip away the rituals and supernatural. But yet there remains the teachings, stories, and/or philosophies of the religion. Not the entirety, perhaps, but still something. And for those who see no reason to believe the supernatural aspects, and see no practical function of the rituals, the teachings themselves are the important part, the part that is applicable to our lives regardless of our personal religion or worldview.
Don't get me wrong; I basically agree with you. Religion taken in a clinical fashion has a lot of value to the intellectual mind. However, there is a lot in ritual, also. What I find interesting is what happens to the human body when a ritual is taking place. I have examined my own religion, so I can only speak to the ideas I have about my religion.
The act of chanting is a 3000 year old biofeedback machine. The chant comes from the mind and is spoken aloud. The ears hear the sound, and the mind recognizes the chant. You look at the Gohozon and are reminded of the chant. I would imagine that chanting places someone into an Alpha brain pattern, but I do not know of any studies.
Originally posted by Shakyamunison
Don't get me wrong; I basically agree with you. Religion taken in a clinical fashion has a lot of value to the intellectual mind. However, there is a lot in ritual, also. What I find interesting is what happens to the human body when a ritual is taking place. I have examined my own religion, so I can only speak to the ideas I have about my religion.The act of chanting is a 3000 year old biofeedback machine. The chant comes from the mind and is spoken aloud. The ears hear the sound, and the mind recognizes the chant. You look at the Gohozon and are reminded of the chant. I would imagine that chanting places someone into an Alpha brain pattern, but I do not know of any studies.
There are studies that exist that correlate different areas of brain activity with heightened states of meditation. So much so that we can isolate various sensations with their corresponding brain area, and then reproduce them in a person by manually stimulating those areas with electrical impulses. Most of the studies I'm familiar with focus on out-of-body experiences and near-death experiences, and how the brain reacts in certain situations to produce these sensations. But I know they exist for meditative states as well.
It's at once sobering and uplifting. Sobering, because it demystifies much of such religious practices (the nigh-total shut down of the area of the brain that relates itself within space, for example, gives a meditating person the sensation that they are floating, or everywhere/nowhere, or on a different plane of existence, etc. Individual experiences vary). So it's a cognitive trick learned through practice, rather than a transcendent realm that is experienced, though of course justifications for supernatural phenomenon in such realms exist separate of these facts. But such revelations are also uplifting because it reveals the magnificence of our own minds, and our ability to enact change and peacefulness within them.
Anyway, I'll go ahead and agree, because I won't deny that there can be benefits to ritual...at least meditation, since I see a lot of other types of religious ritual as superficial and needless.
Right. It really depends on one's definition of prayer. Christian meditations exist that are a form of prayer. I was familiar with a few of them back in my former life as a Catholic. A friend of mine who is becoming a priest is fond of such meditations. The specifics of the intent differ from eastern traditions (soul-affirming, for example, instead of the doctrine of annata, or no-self, that Buddhism espouses), but the affects are similar.
But Kandy's point is that traditional prayer is more rote than actually beneficial, which can be valid since it's usually far less "deep" in terms of concentration and focus.
{edit} hope I got my terms straight. Did I use annata correctly shakya?
Originally posted by DigiMark007
It's at once sobering and uplifting. Sobering, because it demystifies much of such religious practices (the nigh-total shut down of the area of the brain that relates itself within space, for example, gives a meditating person the sensation that they are floating, or everywhere/nowhere, or on a different plane of existence, etc. Individual experiences vary). So it's a cognitive trick learned through practice, rather than a transcendent realm that is experienced, though of course justifications for supernatural phenomenon in such realms exist separate of these facts. But such revelations are also uplifting because it reveals the magnificence of our own minds, and our ability to enact change and peacefulness within them.
Frankly there are a lot of people who would disagree with you. A certain level of mystery about the mind or the transcendent makes life interesting for a lot of people.
Originally posted by DigiMark007
Anyway, I'll go ahead and agree, because I won't deny that there can be benefits to ritual...at least meditation, since I see a lot of other types of religious ritual as superficial and needless.
Like what? Most rituals have a legitimate basis or a historical reason for them. The symbolic aspects of ritual are also fairly important.