this post was submitted on 05 Apr 2025
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Buddhist, I was more Christian. Growing up in a fundamentalist church and becoming more intellectual drove me to ask big question that Christianity didn’t answer for me. Causes and conditions allowed me to encounter Buddhism when I was living in Japan and it’s grown in me ever since. I really liked how Zen meditation made me feel. Very different from being told to pray but there was nothing and also no unstructured. Buddhism has clear practices and results. I know it has “supernatural” elements but it’s all mostly logical to me and I like that
I never heard anybody make fun of Buddhists or slander them, quite a lovely religion ❤️
That’s kind of you to say but there are certainly plenty of problematic Buddhist groups, like any social group.
What about you?
Me? Id say I'm currently agnostic, used to be Muslim, problem is, I'm still living in the Muslim country, so I just kinda act like I'm Muslim to avoid getting into trouble for my beliefs.
I don't want to get too deep into it, I can write a whole essay about the religious attitude in my country and how I feel about it, but I won't :>
Thank you for reminding me about times Buddhists were violent in an organized way. Things related to that are probably documented around https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhism_and_violence#Violence_against_religious_minorities
It was surprising to learn that any Buddhist advocated for or enacted violence, but it has happened, and surprisingly recently. Luckily, it seems that there aren't many cases of that in the 2020s.
I’m sure the Thai, Myanmar, and Sri Lankan things are still going on but bad people of a religion doesn’t equal said religion. Unless you’re an atheist in the west than that equals all of said religion.
Yes it is surprising but people are of their circumstances
There is a history of religious violence both within Buddhism and against it, as with most religions,, so some people definitely don't like them very much.
I've kind of always liked the idea of Buddhism, but I've never really been able to grapple with it in a way that made sense (in a gut-feel sort of way) to me. I guess living somewhere that has a sizeable Buddhist population could make the difference.
What makes you feel that way?
I think there are many very different ways to approach experiencing it. If my first experience was at a temple in my local area I would very much be turned away….
Because I feel like the Buddha had some pretty good ideas. Like I get that suffering comes from desire, I can vibe with the cycle of rebirth and renewal, etc. I just.. I never got to the point where I was like 'This is the one for me.' Maybe because I didn't investigate it all that deeply back when I was investigating lots of other religions around the world, I was always pulled away by other ideas in Hinduism or Gnostic Christianity, or Sufism.
I get this a lot! :) I think it has to be more than just reading but physically experiencing it. Meditation and university classes did it for me.
What about those ideas draws you?
Yeah, that's probably true. I fell pretty hard out of Christianity as a teenager and was extremely not interested in more organized religion. That didn't keep me from being fascinated by the ideas held within various religions, but didn't set foot inside another place of worship for at least a decade after, so all I had was books. Tried meditation and it was one of those 'this is hard so I'm gonna quit' things, unfortunately.
For Hinduism I like polytheism in general, I like the idea that divinity is not a monolith (and not a stern, judging father-figure), and I was pretty into karma and reincarnation for a while. From Gnosticism I really liked the idea that the world is a prison and that the enlightenment everyone is seeking has a practical purpose, to escape it and rejoin the divine. I hated the world and most people in it as a young man, so the idea that it was all bullshit suited me quite well. My current beliefs (which are very syncretic and come from all over the place) are rooted in a similar idea, but these days I think of the world more as an illusion than a prison. Sufism.. man, what's not to like? It's kinda weird, most of Islam doesn't do much for me, but I craved that ecstatic religious joy, that utter dedication and purity of purpose, for a long time, and I have long leaned more into the mystical aspects of religious experience and that's hard to find in organized religion in general and Abrahamic faiths in specific.