10.02.08

Why my buddhist enemies are laughing at me

Posted in Science & Religion at 6:07 pm by nemo

Comment on Is atheism a mystical belief?
I am a secularist, and am/have been a frequent critic of religion, until the New Atheists came along. As to Buddhism, I have been a critic there (although a devoted student of its history) also, but only of its concealed spiritual politics.
Thus I was somewhat non-plussed by the stale neo-humanist jargon of the New Atheists (I am neither a theist, atheist or agnostic, I reject labels) as they moved from their ridicule of Christianity to a false generalization of all religion. This backfiring of tactics is notable and created a problem for the real critics of religious questions. Irate Buddhists, cranky at my criticisms of New Age issues, are now laughing that I have to defend Buddhism against this recent confused attack of the Dawkins/Harris/Hitchens fans. They are having a good laugh at my expense.
This comment, sorry to say it, gives an example.

As for enlightenment… as a general rule, any state of mind that can be replicated with hard drugs doesn’t hold any transcendent meaning.

If you want to criticize religion, you have to study a full sample of all the types of religion, and not confuse all religion with Christianity. In any case, this statement about ‘enlightenment’ is highly inaccurate. If you want to criticize, say, Buddhism, I wouldn’t use this kind of argument. You simply expose the amnesiac ignorance of so-called secularists about world history. It is completely OK to criticize the confusion over this word, those who misuse it, take an agnostic stance toward the claims made here, but in the final analysis complete negation simply shows a kind of science-induced ignorance. (I have often advocated a new terminology here, btw).
It is not true, in any case, that drugs can replicate this so-called ‘state of mind’.
Best to sit down and study the question, because this kind of approach to the issue will throw secularism into discredit.
I should note the secular resource in Schopenhauer here: he can help to restate the issues without the now somewhat overloaded term ‘enlightenment’. But this discourse has perfectly good secularist credentials. It is also true that many yogis don’t use the term, instead referring to ‘turiya’, the ‘fourth’, in a series of states, sleep, consciousness, self-consciousness, the ‘fourth’.

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