this post was submitted on 27 Mar 2025
591 points (99.5% liked)

World News

45308 readers
3121 users here now

A community for discussing events around the World

Rules:

Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.


Lemmy World Partners

News [email protected]

Politics [email protected]

World Politics [email protected]


Recommendations

For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 28 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (3 children)

There's still some toxicity around Buddhism at least. Living in SEA I now know several people who are really turned off by the practices and beliefs of their family's religion, Buddhism, from the way all troubles are explained away as karma to neurodiversity and Learning Differences being hidden because that would mean that person did something bad in their past life.

I used to think Buddhism specifically was the "good" religion that's more like philosophy, but spending more time with people who grew up deep in Buddhism has made me see there's really more to the community and it's beliefs and practices than I thought.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Like all religion, it can be messed up and carried on.

Sort of like when the winter solstice turned into “dead and buried three days, then rose again” and a bunch of zombie religions are still around.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 days ago (1 children)

That's for Spring (rebirth, Easter), not Winter.

Christmas is for Winter, it celebrates the birth of Jesus Christ. It came from Saturnalia, probably the most important holiday of Roman society.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 days ago (1 children)

No. I mean, first of all let's start with the fact that both Winter solstice and Spring Equinox were so-called pagan holidays that Christianty subsumed. Right? Let's start there.

Then let's understand that those so-called pagan holidays were traditions based on earlier - much earlier - observances. And those observances were astronomical in origin.

The winter solstice is when the sun stops moving for three days - it rises in the same location whereas all the time before that it had been moving slightly every day.

After those three days it starts moving back. That's the birth. Life is born again. We're going to make it around the sun another time. That sort of thing.

Spring / Vernal equinox is when we make sure everyone has progeny. Rabbits. Flowers. Eggs. Chrisitanity decided to appropriate this one to mark Jesus' ascent into heaven. Fine. But irrelevant. Because it has nothing to do with life on earth - very literally, it's about leaving earth and going to heaven.

That's why there's such a disconnect about crucifixion and rabbits and eggs. They don't have anything to do with each other because the church yoinked a pagan tradition to keep people from celebrating it outside the church.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

That makes a lot of sense. Until you consider that around Winter solstice, Christians don't celebrate the resurrection, yhey celebrate the birth. How do you explain that disconnect?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 days ago

This explains some of the reasoning, although because it was 350 CE they can't confirm anything with 100% certainty. Such is history.

What is certain to anyone who has studied it even a little bit is that the winter solstice was near-universally recognized by all cultures prior to the common era.

December 25 is very often the solstice, or close enough to it that it was selected by some as the annual celebration for their deity of choice. As the article notes, in Rome that was the birthday of Sol Invictus. It's also the birthday of Saturn, Mithras, and depending on whether you believe some fourth-century Christian authors, also Horus.

So Pope Julius "chose" - note that no one is in any doubt the date was selected, it wasn't like Jesus' old birthday cards were found and everyone knew that was his actual birthday - Pope Julius chose Dec 25 as the annual celebration day for Jesus. That became known as his birthday. But it wasn't. What it WAS was the winter solstice.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Its a problem with all of them. How can any christians be non pacifist when direct from christs mouth was the very direct command:

"Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloke also. And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain."

I have had discussion and its ludicrous the other parts they engage in mental gymnastics to work around it. Its the same with the 4 noble truths and the 8 fold way. Its pretty obvious its about looking inward and delving into anyone elses life except to help them would be feeding into desire. Sihks have this whole thing about goofy practices of other religions and then have their own goofy practices. No idea how jainism gets corrupted or other faiths off the top of my head but im sure they are there.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 days ago

Because you don't have to be a good person at all to get into heaven. Just repent. Simple.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 days ago (1 children)

There's a lot of Buddhist teachings I agree with but do we really need all the supernatural baggage to teach people to be less materialistic and to be kind to each other?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 days ago

I've found Zen Buddhist koans, essentially short stories to be contemplated over, to be deeply calming and insightful.

My favorite one is this.

"A man was walking through the jungle, when he spotted a tiger. The man immediately fled, but the tiger gave chase. Approaching a cliff, the man saw only one option… A hanging vine. He jumped off of the cliff and grabbed the vine, hanging on for dear life.

The tiger came to the edge of the cliff, snarling.

Just as the man thought he was in the clear, he noticed another tiger prowling below.

And then, if things weren’t difficult enough, the man then saw two mice above him (one black, one white) gnawing away at the vine.

In this state of impending doom, the man looked over his shoulder to the sight of a strawberry patch on a ledge, at arm’s length.

The man reached over, plucked a strawberry and ate it. It was the best damn strawberry he ever had."