Why did the noble Japanese Buddhists boil Portuguese Christians alive? Was this one of those Brahman Deeds?

Because of their afflictive emotions of fear, hatred, and so on, which are the real “enemy” that Buddhists should oppose. Unfortunately, most Buddhists are just ordinary people with no particular control over their disturbing emotions.

Much as Jesus critiqued the Pharasises. And yet modern Christian Dominionists have far more in common with Pharasises - even Roman Pagans - than the fishermen and slaves and prostitutes that were it’s original disciples.

Yes. Unfortunately it’s easier for one person to be exceptional than a whole society. I think religions’ greatest failure has been their neglect of the role that material conditions play in people’s lives. Until we have exceptional material conditions, exceptional people will not be the norm.

They are strange, but in an ordered way. They are using commas when a complex noun phrase ending in a noun of the same number is the subject of a clause. (See what I did there?) I wish they used a different punctuation mark, to be honest, but I get how it reduces the number of possible readings that the mind has to juggle.

As an aside, people who are bothered by my arguments should consider watching Contrapoints’ recent video on conspiracism. The points I am making in this thread are the same points she makes against conspiracy theories.

Atheists like the OP suggest (ironically) that religion is an intentionalist, evil force, but a basic survey of the history of religion easily disproves this type of thinking. Intentionalism and binarism are cankers on the pursuit of truth. Like politics, religion is nuanced; it is not a grand conspiracy, even if there are groups in it who conspire. Atheists would do well to be wary of conspiracism, lest they place their hatred of religion over their pursuit of truth.

basically it’s not that religion has aided studies, but rather studies have made it despite religion

In some cases, sure, and in other cases, no. For example, Buddhism is supported by nine other fields of knowledge – the vidyasthanas – including such things as grammar and logic. Religious teachers draw examples and ideas from these fields when giving religious teachings. One must study these other fields to become a “learned one” (pandita/mkhas pa).

This is a living tradition that continues to the present day. For example, the Dalai Lama has heavily promoted education in modern science among Buddhists, and has co-authored several books on the connection between the two.

The idea that religion is just some anti-educational brainrot is, ironically, anti-educational brainrot. Religion definitely can function that way, but it cannot be reduced to it.

Not to be Muslim-phobic, I am aware if the rich history of debate and science in the Middle East, but the material conditions have changed now, conservatism has been on the rise since the 70s.

Yes, we seem to agree here. And if you acknowledge that material conditions influence how religion plays out, then you must acknowledge that it is not really intellectually honest to reduce religion to one form or another. Religion isn’t inherently either intellectual or ignorant, it is subject to the material conditions that it appears in.

You speak of mahaviharas, but Buddhists I have met are just as conservative as the average religious person when it comes to women’s rights, feminism and gay rights.

Yes, most old religions have unfortunately inherited prejudice and closed-mindedness from broader society. Although, I think you must also acknowledge that educated people can be bigoted, and we see this among non-religious people too.

Mansoor al-Hallaj was executed for saying ‘Ann-al-Haq’

A religious person being executed on religious grounds for challenging the religious state isn’t exactly an indictment of religion – both sides were religious. It is an indictment of religious ideology being enforced by the state.

I don’t believe that religion is unique in this regard – states also use capitalism, liberalism, and other ideologies to repress proponents of competing economic + political systems. This doesn’t make economics + politics bad, and it doesn’t make religion bad either.

That rational thought survived when people were religious is hardly to the credit of religion

This is not true. In a Buddhist context, rational thought was taught by Buddhists like Dignaga and Dharmakirti. They studied and promoted logic + reasoning specifically for religious reasons.

such things happened anyway and under the sanction of religion

Yes, as I’ve said, religion includes both sides. You cannot erase the religiosity of the people that the state was trying to repress.

As long as religion is under an institution, it is the nature of institutions to cling to power and hence, suppress dissent.

I agree, with the exception of more decentralized and countercultural religious groups. When religious groups accrue great power, it’s a dark day for everyone. But I don’t think this problem is unique to religion. I think it’s a problem with having power over others.

[Buddhism] is intended to justify existing, generational, disparities in wealth, power, and property.

Uh, no, this simply isn’t true. In South Asia, these disparities are instantiated in the hereditary varna system (usually translated as “caste”, though conservative Hindus will object to this), in which the highest social class is the Vedic clergy called the “brahmins”. Brahmin supremacy has been a constant feature of South Asian society going back millennia, and it is still widespread today.

As the Buddha said in the Vasala Sutta, “Not by birth is one an outcast; not by birth is one a brahman. By deed one becomes an outcast, by deed one becomes a brahman.”

This runs counter to the idea of generational class, which was the general attitude of brahminical society and was how brahmins maintained their power over others.

The Buddha elaborates on this idea in the Vasettha Sutta:

While the differences between these species

are defined by birth,

the differences between humans

are not defined by birth.

Not by hair nor by head,

not by ear nor by eye,

not by mouth nor by nose,

not by lips nor by eyebrow,

not by shoulder nor by neck,

not by belly nor by back,

not by buttocks nor by breast,

not by groin nor by genitals,

not by hands nor by feet,

not by fingers nor by nails,

not by knees nor by thighs,

not by color nor by voice:

none of these are defined by birth

as it is for other species.

In individual human bodies

you can’t find such distinctions.

The distinctions among humans

are spoken of by convention.

This is essentially an early version of social constructionism.

The Buddha goes on to criticize the various things that brahmins do, saying that e.g. doing sacrifices makes you a sacrificer, not a brahmin. He ultimately says that only people who are virtuous, detached from pleasures and free from disturbing emotions are really “brahmins”. So, the Buddha actually taught a countercultural criticism of hereditary class.

Plenty of educated religious people are converts. I was raised atheist and converted to Buddhism in my late teens. The same was true of many of the other students in my university’s religious studies department.

The fact is, being religious doesn’t depend on lack of education or childhood indoctrination. People will still be religious in the absence of those things.

Religion is “built” by the actions of countless religious people. There is not a single cohesive force shaping its development. Religion has also been used for education, political liberation, charity, and emotional healing. Reality is complex.

Not really. If you read about the history of medieval universities, madrasahs, and mahaviharas, you will see how deeply and widely religious people have studied throughout history. It was customary for religious scholars to learn all kinds of topics, such as grammar, logic, and medicine.

Religions are made up of people, and have accommodated all kinds of people. Some are wise scholars, and others are ignorant conspiracists. Religion can’t really be boiled down to one side or the other, though I understand how the rise of fundamentalist Christian fascism might make this hard to see.

And into yours. Do you think the “reality” they’re presenting is honest?

Even if they’re not lying, they’re definitely not telling the truth.

That’s fair enough, and sorry for jumping to accusing you of dishonesty. To be honest I’m totally shocked that you and so many others in this thread have had such an easy time installing software through the CLI. I have had loads of trouble for the same user case as you, to the extent that I’ve had to completely give up on installing a variety of programs that didn’t have GUI installers available.

Our experiences are totally opposite, so it makes sense that we have opposite stances on the CLI.

I’m talking about installing ordinary programs via the CLI in the 2020s. I have had loads of complicated installs for software (no LLMs) just for personal use in the last 5 years. I’ve heard the same story from other people who’ve switched to Linux.

I think what’s happening is that people who insist that the CLI is easy just don’t tend to run into the problems I’m talking about, whereas for CLI haters it’s the norm.

That is an oversimplification and you know it. Why is it so hard for CLI people to be honest?

Installing software on the command line is often a nightmare, requiring multiple commands and throwing error messages that you can only find mention of in one unresolved thread on some obscure forum somewhere.

Plus, there are so many different commands that you have other CLI users saying that they need to pull up reference tools to remember how to do different actions. I have only ever needed to that once or twice ever for GUIs.

Get real.

The Friendica UI is terrible, unfortunately. Way too complex.