Being religious: thai vs farang

[boomerangutang]

I've posted this a couple of times.Buddhism is not a religion.http://www.buddhanet.net/nutshell03.htm

That's more of a catch-phrase than true. The way Buddhism manifests in SE Asia, it is definitely a religion, in the full sense of the word. Even in regard to having a God. Sure, pure Buddhism (like Zen) doesn't have a deity it pegs with the word 'God.' Yet, in every sense it relates to Gautuma Buddha as God. I say to that; 'If it waddles, quacks, and looks like a duck, it must be a duck.'

One thing I see an increasing amount of: Thai Buddhist head monks(abbots?) are set to aggrandize themselves. It's not enough to write books with their picture on the cover, they are increasingly promoting their wats, along with large posters of themselves, bandwagons, concerts filled with beer and whiskey drinkers. The poster boy for doing that is the faux monk who gained riches, had lots of sex, and ran away. He may be one of the worst, but he's not an isolate case. Thais donate cumulative gargantuan amounts of money to variations of that sort of self-aggrandizing monk, so the Thai people themselves are contributing to the further bastardization of Buddhism in Thailand. Personally, I don't care much. In the past 5 years, I've gone from being true-blue Mahayana Buddhist (Tibet style), to an atheist. No problemo.

[GuestHouse]

The assumption made by many here is that the alternative to religion is science.

There is no evidence that this is true - we do not run our individual lives on religion or science and we do not run our societies on religion or science.

What we actually do is run our lives and our societies along a line of compromise between many influences, of which religion and science are but two.

Understanding this requires a compromise of dogmatic position - hard for the zealots on both sides.

If you object to the term zealot - read the rabid ranting throughout this thread, it fits the term nicely.

But like I said right up front, this was always going to be a lot of noise down at the shallow end.

And I did not need to be a prophet to make that prediction.

[GuestHouse]

Religion is like politics - It was invented by men and women.

So was science

[Torrens54]

The main thing that Buddhism has going for it: is that it is more effective as a way of life,instead of a Religion. which it was never designed to be a religeon.

Recent happenings,that show up the corruption and greed,from those that would have us believe,in austerity,a simple life,and,poverty,is hard to believe,considering a relatively poor country has enough wealth to produce more than 15,000 Temples! which then gather in enough finances to continue to produce even more Temples. Compared with new Farang,Churches,Chapels, which are struggling to survive,how does it really compare?

Edit Apologies for under estimate of Temples in Thailand.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Buddhist_temples_in_Thailand

Parish-pump Churches in the "farang world" may be pretty poor these days but NOT the VATICAN!

At least the current Pope seems to be a little more sane than many who went before him (still have to wonder just what someone had on the German guy to force him to resign) Never the less, as a "retired Catholic.... read FED-UP, Ashamed etc.,) I think Buddhism is far above any of the Western ways of life.

I look at my wife and her family who are devout Buddhists, without going over-board. They have all of the good points that I was taught about as a child but never saw put into action in the Catholic Church, where I was an Alter Server....till I discovered GIRLS!

[ShinMusashi44]

I agree with the OP western religions have to provide something extra to hold the congregation together, i.e Schools for the Children,extracuricular events/activities , councelling services,etc their power base has been eroding for decades,who would now believe in Heaven and Hell ? only poor countries,and the uneducated,and believers in ridiculous doctrines.

So you feel that the more educated and the richer a country becomes the less religious it becomes? Let's ignore countries that just had waelth shoved unto them like the oil rich middle eastern countries but let's talk about another technocially advanced and rich country maybe japan and they are well pretty religious in their shinto beliefs.

Do you actually know anything about Japan? They are one of the least religious countries. Look it up.

And on a person to person level, they have done studies that show the more poor a person is the more they're religious.

[bocceball1]

This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness.
Dalai Lama

[InsideOut]

It does not primarily have to do with skin color, but more to do with cultural references and cultural background.

[Nutcracker]

Religion is not the source of ethics. Since time began, every society, religious and otherwise needed to come up with the some basic code of ethics just to survive. It became inherent in most of us very early on to have an instinct to do good for the tribe and by association, ourselves. So socially, there was no particular need for supernatural guidance. The need to cooperate to reduce pain and fear was in us all the time. The real problem arose when people tried to explain what they could see in the physical world. In the absence of the scientific discoveries of the past few hundred years, it is a no brainer to understand how recourse to the supernatural was virtually a necessity. The development from supernatural explanations of the physical world to the sophisticated religious systems of today is set out in the many books and rituals. They were man made inventions and are clearly imperfect copies of each other. The suspension of nature abounds, births, conjuring tricks, life after death and so on. The same myths and miracles are replicated over and over again. Expertise in the rules gave control over the believers under pain of death here and, just to ram the threat home, everlasting pain in the hereafter. Nowadays, organised religion is big business. Christian, Jew, Hindu, Jain, Buddhism, Islam etc etc should be suffixed Incorporated. They compete to greater or lesser extent along the same lines as commerce. Karl Marx new what was going on. He was an economist for those who are unaware. Monopoly is the ultimate goal of every enterprise and brings absolute power. And in a nutshell, I hope you might agree that religion is irrelevant in the pursuit of happiness.

[Morakot]

Both seem to pray!

[HeijoshinCool]

Other than being able to spout a whole bunch of mythological claptrap that got attached to Buddhism. Most Thais couldn't speak for 5 minutes on what the Buddha taught.

OK but then again it isn't even about being intellectual about it. The fact of the matter is they are still very religious about it.

No, they're not religious about it (let alone intellectual), they're superstitious about it.

[snake24]

This thing just pisses me off a bit. In my home country there are these independent churches that have been gaining a ton of new followers and alot of clout in terms of money and visibility and their pastors have become some type of stars. They got their followers from traditional churches and followers of other religions and currently one church is undergoing investigation and a court case for fraud, misuse of funds etc. Go google it it's city harvest church.

Anyway if you know most traditional churches it's just a believer and his family and maybe a friend or 2 attends this church mostly near where he lives. He goes in there attends mass for 1 hour and then leaves and comes back the next week. He might choose to volunteer as a choir singer or maybe an usher etc. This is also the case for other traditional religions. Well these new independent churches which follow the charismatic movement from the US managed to build up new followers so that they were stealing members from other faiths, churches. My country might be small but apparently it has so many churches and these independent churches have followers as numerous as 10-30k each and christianity isn't even the religion with the most number of followers. These independent churches organize their members into the following ways. Zones as in a region of singapore so we have 4 zones and then each zone is headed by some top guy and it's split into smaller groups call cell or care groups and this is how they retain their worshippers and get new followers as you know traditional churches don't do this so they lose ppl.

So my family who are staunch catholics well i think their catholic church started a charismatic movement. I suppose they saw how successful these independents were decided to follow them. OMG and the wanted to recruit me. They didn't even pitch anything to me. Basically it was you join our church ok. When i was a member of those independents the members were really nice they would invite me out to dinner and for socializing and that was why they were so successful. Everything done to perfection. The music was top notch for example the members were truly welcoming they might be pretending but they were welcoming which is something you hardly see in singapore. You don't just simply say hi to a stranger over here. To cut it short i didn't join their catholic church with it's dumb new charismatic movement and my uncle is kind of cold towards me now. Yeah all because i have my own opinion of things and the fact i know i am being used.

Then i had another aunt try to pitch her sales talk to me about joining. She knew i had some interest in finance and trading and told me you know you could join one of our members who might be a trader just like you. She didn't even know but was somehow certain the church had a member who did that. I wanted to tell her why would i join a church if i needed a partner to trade with that's the stupidest thing in the world to do but thought better of saying it out loud so as not to hurt her feelings.

It just goes to show that a religion really needs worshippers period. They can follow the islam route and just kill anyone that doesn't want to believe or wants to convert or you know the charismatic route. In a way well i kind of respect my thai friends that are pretty religious. They grew up with the religion and it was taught to them just like how catholicism was taught to me but i never really believed in it. I couldn't care about it yet these thais are just so religious. They actually kneel in front of a statue and pray to it hoping for luck, wealth, good times etc. I am sure some of you guys that probably don't believe in a religion at all start to want to become religious and follow their religion. It's the same with farang converting to islam after seeing how religious the muslims are while their own communities don't care for church anymore.

[EyesWideOpen]

Here are the five precepts of Buddhism. After spending 14 years here, I do not see Thais spending a whole lot of

time following them.......

1.

I undertake the training rule to abstain from killing . 2. I undertake the training rule to abstain from taking what is not given. 3. I undertake the training to avoid sensual misconduct. 4. I undertake the training rule to abstain from false speech. 5. I undertake the training rule to abstain from fermented drink that causes heedlessness.

[GuestHouse]

Karl Marx new what was going on. He was an economist for those who are unaware. Monopoly is the ultimate goal of every enterprise and brings absolute power. And in a nutshell, I hope you might agree that religion is irrelevant in the pursuit of happiness.

You are correct, Marx knew very well that Monopoly was an ultimate goal that it would bring absolute power - He, and his later followers in their various creeds, also knew/know very well that the single biggest challenge to his/their ultimate goal comes from religion.

Hold and express anti religion views by all means, but be careful calling Marx on your side - Those 'Crimes of Religion' wars, mind control, oppression - yes they have happened and of course continue to happen.

But if you want to see the pinnacle of efficient, mechanical, whole sale vicious oppression and killing it is the followers of Marx you need to look to.

They, in their various guises, have oppressed and killed more people in the name of a secular philosophy over the past 120 years than have been oppressed and killed by religion through the whole of the history of mankind.

[Morakot]

NC v. GH: Was Marx a Marxist? Discuss.

Excellent!

[khaowong1]

Other than being able to spout a whole bunch of mythological claptrap that got attached to Buddhism. Most Thais couldn't speak for 5 minutes on what the Buddha taught. And a shocking number of monks as well.

I personally know this to be true. I also find to be true that Phra Farangs (foreigner monks) know more about Buddhism and what the Buddha taught than most Thai monks. Really strange,

[Flute]

What is dominating in our life? Prosperity or inner helpless and pain?

To be in happiness is the wish of all human beings. But it is necessary to have ideologies for going forward?

There is a pre word.

„Comes god or a prophet on earth and brings a religion, comes the devil, and establishes a church. "

Buddha teaches no ideologies, he is not a god, he is not outside of any criticism, the only thing he wanted, was to help the people to be far from pain, we make mainly by ourself and to help us to understand all about how it works in our mind, soul and body.

So, there is no discussion necessary about god or not, only about how we can get better in all, but in our reality, not only for a very short time or as a dream affect.

Our life is a dream, says Buddha, but let it be a nice dream I would say. But not by lies, in truth.

What is this? I don't know it, but I know, like every body, what is lie

[Dap]

No! Not one iota.

[Dap]

The only reason people in the West, are less religious now - are because of a increasing level of education.

Give the Thai's a better education, and they will call the BS.

What's BS about treating other people with respect?

What's BS about minding your speech?

What's BS about not killing other living beings?

Buddhism can teach most of us a lot of things that would probably help us live a better life. I can't actually see ONE thing about that I can call BS.

Though not part of Buddhism, certainly part of Thai religion and culture

I would call ghosts and spirits BS, what do you call it?

Mostly, I'd call it animism

[Forethat]

For deeper insight in this issue, may I suggest @RichardDawkins ?

In addition, for a frightening revelation (that there are highly educated people with less than, shall we say, "realistic and logical views" on this matter)

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2013/10/07/scalia-says-satan-is-a-real-person/

[sirineou]

The only reason people in the West, are less religious now - are because of a increasing level of education.

Give the Thai's a better education, and they will call the BS.

What's BS about treating other people with respect?

What's BS about minding your speech?

What's BS about not killing other living beings?

Buddhism can teach most of us a lot of things that would probably help us live a better life. I can't actually see ONE thing about that I can call BS.

Though not part of Buddhism, certainly part of Thai religion and culture

I would call ghosts and spirits BS, what do you call it?

The ghosts and spirits are not part of Buddhism. They stem from animism and Brahmanism both very prevalent In Thailand .

That is what all of the Spirit houses are about!

Unlike Catholicism, Buddhism has no problem with you believing in other theologies as well.

I was raised in an Irish catholic family. At my Thai wedding a monk asked me if I was a Buddhist.

I told him that probably would be if I was not a Catholic.

He replies " You can be a Buddhist and a Christian at the same time. Christians try to be good people too!"

That's when I started seriously studying Buddhism.

s I said Not part of Buddhism but part of Thai religion and Thai culture, "

Buddhism is more of a philosophy than a religion, this is understood, but this thread is about Thai religion, and that includes all the animism and supernatural aspects of it.

[NovaBlue05]

All the huge, new churches going up in my part of the USA over the last few years have been Korean.

[boomerangutang]

Religion is like politics - It was invented by men and women.

So was science

Not really. Science is quantifying/observing how things really are. Yes, it takes humans (and their machines) to crunch the data. Also, science is a contunually evolving process where claims are encouraged to be duplicated and challenged. Religion is fixed and claims (virgin birth, walk on water, etc) are discouraged from being challenged. Religion is faith-based, where as science is verifyable. Religion is based on things which can't be proved or disproved, same with metaphysics, belief in aliens, crop circles, Loch Ness monster, Philippine finger surgery, clairvoyance, tarot, etc.

If anyone asks me what I believe in, I tell 'em 'science and nature.' I actually like many of the stories wrapped around religion, particularly Hinduism. But I see them all as interesting myths, not as something I need to embrace and believe in literally. I love the story of the Buddha and Milarepa and others, and I believe those men actually lived, and that's enough.

I like the stories of Jesus and Muhammed, but especially enjoy the hypocracy of their mythicized lives compared to how their followers manifers - except, of course, when it causes harm to people and the planet - which it often does.

[Crazy chef 1]

don't mistaken the words of our lord Jesus with the institution ( company) church.

[northernjohn]

This thing just pisses me off a bit. In my home country there are these independent churches that have been gaining a ton of new followers and alot of clout in terms of money and visibility and their pastors have become some type of stars. They got their followers from traditional churches and followers of other religions and currently one church is undergoing investigation and a court case for fraud, misuse of funds etc. Go google it it's city harvest church.

Anyway if you know most traditional churches it's just a believer and his family and maybe a friend or 2 attends this church mostly near where he lives. He goes in there attends mass for 1 hour and then leaves and comes back the next week. He might choose to volunteer as a choir singer or maybe an usher etc. This is also the case for other traditional religions. Well these new independent churches which follow the charismatic movement from the US managed to build up new followers so that they were stealing members from other faiths, churches. My country might be small but apparently it has so many churches and these independent churches have followers as numerous as 10-30k each and christianity isn't even the religion with the most number of followers. These independent churches organize their members into the following ways. Zones as in a region of singapore so we have 4 zones and then each zone is headed by some top guy and it's split into smaller groups call cell or care groups and this is how they retain their worshippers and get new followers as you know traditional churches don't do this so they lose ppl.

So my family who are staunch catholics well i think their catholic church started a charismatic movement. I suppose they saw how successful these independents were decided to follow them. OMG and the wanted to recruit me. They didn't even pitch anything to me. Basically it was you join our church ok. When i was a member of those independents the members were really nice they would invite me out to dinner and for socializing and that was why they were so successful. Everything done to perfection. The music was top notch for example the members were truly welcoming they might be pretending but they were welcoming which is something you hardly see in singapore. You don't just simply say hi to a stranger over here. To cut it short i didn't join their catholic church with it's dumb new charismatic movement and my uncle is kind of cold towards me now. Yeah all because i have my own opinion of things and the fact i know i am being used.

Then i had another aunt try to pitch her sales talk to me about joining. She knew i had some interest in finance and trading and told me you know you could join one of our members who might be a trader just like you. She didn't even know but was somehow certain the church had a member who did that. I wanted to tell her why would i join a church if i needed a partner to trade with that's the stupidest thing in the world to do but thought better of saying it out loud so as not to hurt her feelings.

It just goes to show that a religion really needs worshippers period. They can follow the islam route and just kill anyone that doesn't want to believe or wants to convert or you know the charismatic route. In a way well i kind of respect my thai friends that are pretty religious. They grew up with the religion and it was taught to them just like how catholicism was taught to me but i never really believed in it. I couldn't care about it yet these thais are just so religious. They actually kneel in front of a statue and pray to it hoping for luck, wealth, good times etc. I am sure some of you guys that probably don't believe in a religion at all start to want to become religious and follow their religion. It's the same with farang converting to islam after seeing how religious the muslims are while their own communities don't care for church anymore.

For me the charismatic route is more of a friendship thing. No real belief. There are many out there seeking companionship and it definatly offers that.

[Bkungbank]

Hell: You can see some bar girls might not get higher education because she was poor and working such environment which like a living hell entertain drunk farang everyday , have to sleep even doesn't liked it. In Christian she a sinner and will go to hell a simple as that but in Buddhism we not judge a book from cover.

The real thing sits inside her intention to commit sins, she have a bunch of family to feed in E-sarn from 80 years old grand mother to small siblings schooling brothers and sisters, Can us a highly educated by scarification our body to raise our family?, we might not have courage as a bar girl or she really goes to hell? I don't think so with such of kind human nature.

[GuestHouse]

Religion is like politics - It was invented by men and women.

So was science

Not really. Science is quantifying/observing how things really are. Yes, it takes humans (and their machines) to crunch the data. Also, science is a contunually evolving process where claims are encouraged to be duplicated and challenged. Religion is fixed and claims (virgin birth, walk on water, etc) are discouraged from being challenged. Religion is faith-based, where as science is verifyable. Religion is based on things which can't be proved or disproved, same with metaphysics, belief in aliens, crop circles, Loch Ness monster, Philippine finger surgery, clairvoyance, tarot, etc.

If anyone asks me what I believe in, I tell 'em 'science and nature.' I actually like many of the stories wrapped around religion, particularly Hinduism. But I see them all as interesting myths, not as something I need to embrace and believe in literally. I love the story of the Buddha and Milarepa and others, and I believe those men actually lived, and that's enough.

I like the stories of Jesus and Muhammed, but especially enjoy the hypocracy of their mythicized lives compared to how their followers manifers - except, of course, when it causes harm to people and the planet - which it often does.

You really don't understand the fundamentals of science do you.

Look into the philosophical discussions surrounding something as simple as 1+1 = 2.

The discourse is not 'well of course it does'

Maths and science are philosophies - they are pure constructs of the human mind.

And once again, the choice is not nor never has been Religion or Science - nobody lives their life, no society is based upon, one or the other not even on just Religion and Science.

Its a lot more complicated than that.

But as we observe, the term zealot, often cast at people of faith is equally applicable to some of their detractors.

[GuestHouse]

Hell: You can see some bar girls might not get higher education because she was poor and working such environment which like a living hell entertain drunk farang everyday , have to sleep even doesn't liked it. In Christian she a sinner and will go to hell a simple as that but in Buddhism we not judge a book from cover. The real thing sits inside her intention to commit sins, she have a bunch of family to feed in E-sarn from 80 years old grand mother to small siblings schooling brothers and sisters, Can us a highly educated by scarification our body to raise our family?, we might not have courage as a bar girl or she really goes to hell? I don't think so with such of kind human nature.

We can't have a conversation on any subject without bar girls coming into it.

But you were pre-empted, do a google search, I suggest 'Jesus, Tax Payers. Prostitutes' - you might learn the view you have expressed above has no foundations.

[Morakot]

Hell: You can see some bar girls might not get higher education because she was poor and working such environment which like a living hell entertain drunk farang everyday , have to sleep even doesn't liked it. In Christian she a sinner and will go to hell a simple as that but in Buddhism we not judge a book from cover. The real thing sits inside her intention to commit sins, she have a bunch of family to feed in E-sarn from 80 years old grand mother to small siblings schooling brothers and sisters, Can us a highly educated by scarification our body to raise our family?, we might not have courage as a bar girl or she really goes to hell? I don't think so with such of kind human nature.

We can't have a conversation on any subject without bar girls coming into it.

But you were pre-empted, do a google search, I suggest 'Jesus, Tax Payers. Prostitutes' - you might learn the view you have expressed above has no foundations.

Lets pray that BB will be forgiven, for he does not know what he is talking about .

[Nutcracker]

There is so much sense in the exchanges on this topic that no one has started ranting and tub-thumping! It is so easy to dwell on minutia and be deflected away from the topic. IMHO Being religious: thai vs farang has been put to bed once and for all. The Thais are more religious than farangs because the farangs are generally better educated!

[GuestHouse]

There is so much sense in the exchanges on this topic that no one has started ranting and tub-thumping! It is so easy to dwell on minutia and be deflected away from the topic. IMHO Being religious: thai vs farang has been put to bed once and for all. The Thais are more religious than farangs because the farangs are generally better educated!

Well you're a Farang and perhaps you like to see it that way - but there are other variables to consider.

Thais are, because in they are in Thailand, the vast majority of Thai people - Farangs are a subset of people from their own countries - unless you confirm there are no other factors at play, for example, is there a link between why individual westerners move to Thailand which is coincidental with being anti religious, then you cannot come to the conclusion you have.

The frequent ranting by Farangs here on TVF against Judeo-Christian morality would suggest there is a significant link you have not considered.