this post was submitted on 23 Apr 2025
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Buddhism's "Life sucks? Be nice and die and you'll get a better one" sucks but it's still better than "you should be nice to others, but that's too much to ask so go be as awful as you want and just regret it later and that'll be fine". But even that was better than whatever the fuck people are interpreting from religions these days.
Before Christianty it was also a lot of "killing people is just really fucking cool, actually", which even as an atheist I still admit was worse.
Not that Christians didn't.
But they made some sort-of-safe havens.
The Spanish missions have entered the chat. They actually sent people back to Spain when they said "yo, maybe Jesus wouldn't be cool with us enslaving and murdering the locals".
"Entered the chat" is a stupid phrase.
Ok
Yeah. Personally I don't see life as being "sacred" or anything and I think people should ultimately be free to choose to end their own if they really want to (provided they also get good support for trying to deal with whatever leads to that choice) - but it kinda scares me that this "sanctity" that is attributed to life is the only thing stopping people from being casually OK with murder.
Perhaps it depends on your definition of sacred. Life is the only mechanism that we know of by which the universe understands itself. If you ascribe to free will, life is the only mechanism able to change the course of events that were initiated by the Big Bang. If you don’t ascribe to free will, then it is the only mechanism able to witness the course of events that were initiated by the Big Bang.
That seems like something worth preserving in large, even if an individual life should be ended for compassion or justice. A life doesn’t have to be sacred, but Life seems pretty sacred to me.
Agreed
Christianity was revolutionary for suggesting that we are all equal in the eyes of the divine and suggesting that you can be forgiven.
Not a relgious scholar, but which religion taught that people are not equal in the eyes of the divine?
I could believe the forgiveness thing maybe. Again, not a scholar.
Many of them as at the time notions of the divine backing whomever was in charge was common. Christianity explicitly states we are all equal in the eyes of God which includes everyone from the unwashed beggar to the emperor of Rome.
Then came the great religion of Arabian desert which made killing people cool again.
I'm not sure if Buddhism is particularly concerned with being nice
What the actual fuck are you talking about? Go educate yourself
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noble_Eightfold_Path
Excuse me, if you actually understand the path and believe the point is being "nice", then why the fuck are you talking to me like that? And if you don't understand the path, then again, why the fuck are you talking to me like that?
The eightfold path concerns "right" or "wise" or "virtuous" action... but what do those have to do with being "nice"?? Haven't you heard that light and dark create one another?