Each religion, including fundamentalist-atheism, tells its people something that at some level they want to hear.
The Abrahamic religions were suited to the people that those religions took-root in.
The savagely-scientific AwakeSoulism/Buddhism couldn’t possibly have taken-root among those people.
Fundamentalist-atheism takes-root in people who want that, & then they won’t even contemplate the question of why the electromagnetic-force ( mediator of all normal/terrestrial chemistry ) behaves differently in disintegrating-corpses, vs growing-organisms… producing different results?
It’s the SAME force!
WHY is it disintegrating 1 body, but growing the other?
Physicalism has proclaimed ( see “God: The Failed Hypothesis” by Victor Stenger, for 1 example of this ) that “anybody who invokes the immaterial…” ( notice that awareness isn’t protons, neutrons, or electrons: it isn’t matter, therefore awareness is categorically included in this declaration ) "…is invoking the supernatural!"
But flip that on its head:
Any “physics” which doesn’t accurately describe how mind ALTERS the behavior of matter, including explaining how the intersection of knowing & will can somehow create airliners, culture, science, etc…, ( obviously NOT "random interactions of particles ) ISN’T complete!
( see Hofstadter’s book “Godel Escher Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid”, for how you have to choose EITHER self-consistent-knowing XOR complete-matching-Universe, & that is mathematically proven )
Here’s part of why I value AwakeSoulism… it ORDERED Empiricism, the ONLY true Science.
"Do not go by revelation;
Do not go by tradition;
Do not go by hearsay;
Do not go on the authority of sacred texts;
Do not go on the grounds of pure logic;
Do not go by a view that seems rational;
Do not go by reflecting on mere appearances;
Do not go along with a considered view because you agree with it;
Do not go along on the grounds that the person is competent;
Do not go along because "the recluse is our teacher."
Kalamas, when you yourselves know: These things are unwholesome, these things are blameworthy; these things are censured by the wise; and when undertaken and observed, these things lead to harm and ill, abandon them...
Kalamas, when you know for yourselves: These are wholesome; these things are not blameworthy; these things are praised by the wise; undertaken and observed, these things lead to benefit and happiness, having undertaken them, abide in them."
Kalama Sutta - Angutarra Nikaya 3.65
Why do I call it the ONLY true Science?
There is a concept outside-centrism that is captured by a biblical-Greek term, eklegos.
The Christian who was explaining this concept ( Dr. Gene Scott ) was explaining that relying-on-other/higher-power was inherent in their religion, but has been lost in ours.
Interestingly, outside-centrism is what differentiates Empiricism from all formal-systems/ideologies/prejudices/“religions” nowadays:
All the self-sufficient ones, even if they identify as being based-on-universe, or being based-on-evidence, or being based-on-G-D, if they reject worldview-altering falsification, then they hold that their axioms outrank evidence/universe’s-speech!
& THAT falsifies the whole category of them all, in my eyes.
IF you hold that your system-of-knowing CANNOT be falsified by contradictory-evidence, THEN you hold that your-belief is The Ultimate Answer™.
However, IF you hold that evidence contradicting your belief that holds up to testing actually obliges one to change-one’s-worldview ( as Empiricism does ), THEN … now one is doing exactly what Buddha Gautama instructed.
Eklegos.
Outside-centrism.
What really makes the difference funny, is that in Beaumeister’s book “Willpower”, he identified that the evidence clearly showed that relying-on-a-higher-power was required for a profound-addict to win against addiction, but … he rejected that that was valid/true-requirement.
IOW, he demonstrated axiom-based “science”, right there, rejecting Empricism.
Evidence forced me into the Dharmic-religions’ cosmology ( I discovered that I’d remembered some of my continuum’s/soul’s memories from other-kinds-of-lives, which was incompatible with ALL Western frames-of-reference ), & it took YEARS to adjust my worldview to that evidence.
Universe recycles ALL energies contained within it, including meaning-energies!
Physicalism/materialism/scientism prohibits that.
So, pick which scheme-of-knowing one prefers!
Axiom-based knowing, in which case contradictory-evidence doesn’t threaten one’s established-assumptions, or ego/identity,
XOR evidence-based knowing, in which case one can be forced that far, … in my case from medical-research ( father ) & Christianity ( mother ) all the way over to AwakeSoulist Empiricism, … by evidence itself…
No, I’m not pretending that you, or anybody, has any reason to accept what I, or others, have found TESTS to be true: our experiment-results are vetoed by all Western-culture axioms/assumptions, right?
I AM saying that anyone who has the neurological-means/basis to do the profound experiments, and who does them properly, may earn the same category-of-results that others have already done.
( the book “Maharshi’s Gospel” is the instructions, given in oral exchanges, between Ramana Maharshi, a Hindu, who’d broken-right-through to the AWARENESS-but-no-“self” profound-level of meditation, & eventually he simply … didn’t come back from it.
I’m recommending it because it isn’t Buddhist: Truth can stand on its own!
You want another book that cuts right through oceans of ignorance, perhaps more-pertinent?
Huston Smith’s “World Religions”.
Brilliant, incisive, & mind-opening.
I only read the Hindu, Buddhist, & Primal religions, because the Abrahamic religions have sooo offended my Empiricism-religion that I … kinda want nothing to do with engaging-them, anymore.
Objectively, I ought correct that, for scientific-integrity’s sake.
Here’s a link to the assumption-shattering profound work by him:
https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/the-world-s-religions-revised-and-updated
Relentlessly keep exploring!
Awareness is the most magical substance!
What else is living for, other-than learning/exploring-meanings/exploring-understanding?
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Partway through the article…
He’s making a couple of fundamental mistakes…
Social-process has phases exactly the same as fluid-dynamics, or other physics-processes, does.
the phase in-which casual rules about free-speech are good-enough, is finished, this fall, globally: the ever-escalating polarization enforced by the anti-considered-reasoning lobbies
( read Kahneman’s “Thinking, Fast and Slow” book, to really understand the difference between the imprint->reaction brain-system ( lower forebrain, from the stuff in “Top Brain / Bottom Brain” ), which Kahneman & Tversky called … uninformatively … “System 1”, & the considered-reasoning brain-system ( upper forebrain, from that same book & the research which identified that programming uses the upper-forebrain significantly in ways that normal-speech/language definitely does not )
… will finally have extinguished-from-our-world such capacity.
Both the Leninists & the Republicans eradicate considered-reasoning from education, in order to enforce imprint->reaction’s rule, instead
( imprint->reaction, aka axiom-based-knowing, is a defining-feature of formal-systems, ideologies, prejudices, & “religions”.
All reject evidence’s validity-to-falsify them.
All hold that their-axioms are inherently more valid than contradictory universe-speech/evidence.
All are automatic/reactive.
Hofstadter’s “Godel Escher Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid” demonstrated this, in the interactions between the hare & the tortoise. )
So, he’s ignoring that in different social-process-phases, different-rules-for-free-speech are required.
shrug
Here’s a point that he rejects:
Can a person’s opinion disqualify them from a category of authority?
I say absolutely yes it can:
Anybody who rejects the region’s aviation-authority’s right to regulate aviation, MUST be prohibited from piloting aircraft: they are too great a threat to others’ lives.
Anybody who rejects a country’s legitimacy, & holds that other-country has the right to subjugate it ( like a citizen in Ukraine holding that Russia has the right to demolish/butcher/obliterate Ukraine ) is functionally a pathogen in the “organism” of Ukraine, & ought not be permitted to exercise the authority to vote.
Responsibility-based-authority has to be the basis, in all domains.
Not authority-is-a-right, but responsible-authority is a privilege-or-right.
Expressing meaning has to be in the same regime: enforcing disinformation’s displacing of truth isn’t a free-speech-right, it is active-treason against considered-reasoning’s ABILITY to govern our countries.
Therefore even the opinion that “tylenol is the cause of autism” has to be subject to fact-checking’s overruling, because disinformation acts through social-pressure/forces, and can derail countries thereby, and that isn’t anyone’s right to be doing.
So, … responsibility-based-rights is what I hold humankind has to stand on, but … obviously that is a very-minority view.
Whatever… consequences’ll happen, either way: some ways are whole-species-fatal, though.
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