=[

Awww. I'm sorry about your grandpa...

At least he's in a better place? Without war and the growing epidemic of illiteracy?

Such beautiful art! Good luck with your auction :o ♥

tentenpuff << Yep, I think so. Despite in usual buddhism belief saying that it's unlikely that someone will go to the 'better place' after their death unless they have done exceeding amount of merit, I think maybe living on the world nowadays is probably as worse as the hell they described >>;;; Too much going on about war and all those fights theory-wise and physically wise.

Don't mean to lecture you about buddhism anyway since nowadays I'm pretty much of an Athiest :P

Panda.Suze << Thank you~ <3333

xD

We finished studying religion last year, and now I have no clue what to believe. xP

My family was never really big on religion in the first place. I mean, occasionally we would go to a temple, since we're Buddhists, like...once a year, but I think it could be because we barely have any temples around.

My dad never really told me what we were. Every time I asked him, "What are we?", he would reply like..."We are humans," or "We are living," etc. "Are we Christians?" "Nope." "Are we Buddhists?" "We're people."

So it was really confusing. xD And when I was little, like...very little. Kindergarten or so, I went to this camp. I remember these name tags with yellow smiling stars and a yellow T-Shirt that says, "Jesus loves me!"

So, uhm...I actually have no clue what religion I'm supposed to be, so I just...don't really believe in anything.

xD;;

(Geez. How did we go from updating a new HB to not knowing what religion I am? o0)

xDDD;; Well, though I'm now somewhat Athiest, it's not that I consider all religion as unreasonable belief. It's more like I don't really believe that God/Jesus or even Lord Buddha really existed. Who know, someone in the past probably made the story up to make people believe in the dilemma stronger since in ancient time anything supernatural tended to scare/awe people, just see how they believed about God of Thunder and such and nowadays we all know that thunder is caused by something that can be explained logically xp

Mostly dilemma in religions is good except for some case like the homosexual forbidden in bible :roll: Geez, I think it was there in the first place to encourage people to grow in population but seriously, at this century we have too many people on the earth already and homosexual relationship can be a good use for reduce the number of new born population xDDD;;;

That's my two cents, I have no problem with people believing in any religion just as long as they don't try to shove it my throat then we can live together without a war. :lol: :lol: And about that, I'm kinda sick of myt mother trying to push me back to be buddhist already >.>;;; ....and in my country there's a law saying that EVERYONE needs to have a religion so right now I'm still a buddhist on the papar =/

...and how did we get here from updating HB? I don't know, maybe my wild imagination? xDD;; I seem to have a specialty about going far, far off-topic. :wink:

xDD

I think they came up with religion because they had no other way of explaining things. For example, the thunder thing, they probably said that they had angered the sky, then it adapted into gods, etc. But now, like you said, we have logical and scientific reasons that explain why something is like that.

I mean, the only religion I really think could possible be true is probably the whole Egyptian thing and the curse of the mummy, ^^;; but that's pretty much it. I mean, they say that there's a history behind the Moses thing, but...

xDD

If there was only Adam and Eve, and they had children, how did their children have children? o0;; -always wondered that-

...what country do you live in? :O!? Well, I guess you don't really need to do anything. I mean, if they want to call you a Buddhist, then they can call you that, but it doesn't mean that you truly believe in Buddhism or anything.

Yeah, Adam and Eve is one thing....I supposed if it was true, more than a half of world population should have some problem with genetic errors....you know like brain disability and such.

Though I'm fascinated by Egyptian Gods stuff but I have to admit it's confusing way too much >.>;; (maybe part of it is I don't really study about it that deep yet). If you looks at buddhism, its core dilemma is kinda true but I seriously despise the so much need of praying and having to refer to Lord Buddha way too much within the praying lyric >/ I have had some buddhism class in high school and I swore it was one of the reasons that put me off because it kept babbling too much about the "non-human and god-liked' miracles about Lord Buddha. *shifts eyes* Hey, I thought they say he's a normal human but listen to all those supernatural tales make me wonder if they tried to upgrade him to a God or something. Like the story of when he was born, okay, a new born baby could walk for 7 steps is amazing enough but having a lotus flower grew from each step he made? Now, now that sounds too hilariously silly to me....

I live in Thailand and one of the reasons I'm irritated by the fact that people try to count me as buddhist is that right now there's some mob trying to force the government to include a phase in the new constitution that buddhism is the national religion because about 85% of population is buddhists. Ha, I really want to know if there's even 10% that "really" practice the core dilemma of buddhism. Most people are either 'buddhist in the paper' like me or too obsessive with stupid buddha image amulets made by temples it's too disgusting to count them as buddhists.

If you wonder why I despise those who are obsessive with amulet, let's say they're stupid enough to think that those made-from-dirt stuffs is the main savior that saved their lives when they have a horrible car accidents yet they can survived without a scratch. *rolls* and another reason the dilemma of buddhism teaches people not to be materialist yet being obsessive over those amulets is the best sample of being materialist =/ You won't believe some of those silly amulets can be sold for like $200,000 a piece.

Pssssttttt......my auction thread now has become a religion debate/complain thread. >.>;;;;

xDDD

Well, it's a lot better than bumping and spamming to keep it at the top of the forum?

xD;

Erh. I thought Buddhism was about reaching enlightenment or something? Like...you try to do good and karma happens and then you get reincarnated until you reach a certain point where you stop wanting? As in greedy-wanting, like materialism, because it caused suffering and Buddha wanted to rid the suffering in the world. Or something like that; I don't know. Maybe my teacher was wrong?

xD

Er.

I've never heard of the lotus flower thing...maybe it kind of spreaded like a rumor, and then it ended up being part of the legend?

Hrm, I don't think that people should really be forced to believe in Buddhism. I mean, if they made it into a law, that's kind of a stupid law, but it's still a law. So as long as they don't force you to do anything about it, I guess I would just kind of shrug it off and kind of play along, since all you really have to do is just pretend you believe in it or whatever.

Wow @ the amulet thing. o0;; It's kind of hypocritical of them, though, since if the point of Buddhism is to rid of all materialism and wanting, it would end suffering, yet people are being so obsessed with these amulets.

I think your teacher was right though, that's exactly what buddhism is all about but I have to say nowadays buddhism seems degraded so bad, not the dilemma itself but more like the quality of the followers =/ Those amulets freaks and 'buddhists in the paper' are ones though if I could make an 'excuse' for buddhists in the paper (at least for what I actually am), I'd say that I don't mean to be a pest within the religion but like I say, the stupid law forces us to consider ourselves as a follower of one religion or else we're automatically considered as communist or something. D< So, I have to play along with something I'm familiar with most and unfortunately it's mean I have to pretend to be buddhist. *sighs*

But the again, there's another type of 'buddhists in the paper' that seems proudly announce themselves as buddhists but hardly follow, study and practice the dilemmma =/ I guess this type is more f***ed up than me because at least I know I don't interest about the religion that much so I just don't go around and brag myself to increase the number of bad followers.

Also, nowadays there are so many issues with monks doing something that completely against the rules of monkhood. *shifts eyes* For example, having sexual relationship with women(it's not allowed in the 'old' and straight lineage of buddhism belief, if you see monks in Japan or China can have wives and kids, just that buddhism in those places has mixed with other beliefs too much it's hardly a buddhism now), being druggy or even alcholism. Stupid people think the way to make buddhism in the country become stronger is by to make people involved with it more and more but don't they realize if they don't "filter" the people, instead they're just making the religion become filthier. *shrugs*

As for the lotus flower things....at least I'm sure it's not just a folk tales in my country because if you see the 'little buddha' movie, there's exactly that scene in the movie....

One thing I'm getting irritated with about the soon-to-be law about calling buddhism as national religion is how stupid and lack of realization of reality those people who try to push this issue are. Seriously while they go around shouting 85% of population are buddhists, I doubts even 25% are really qualified as real followers, most of those 85% are just buddhists in the paper =/ So in short, they're trying to put a stereotype label on people. Hell, in the current constitution I'm sure there's somewhere phased that 'everyone is free to choose religion to follow' but by forcing that 'buddhism is the national religion' in, it will put pressure on people who follow the other religions. Like how you'd be surprised to find Indonesian people who are Christians while the country is labeled as Muslim country. (don't mean to make an offence to Muslim people, actually I grew up having Muslim classmates in my school every years from the age I can remember)

I agree with what you say about filtering.

The more people you force into the religion, the more bad people are being forced in, too.

I also agree with you on how most of the Buddhists are 'Buddhists on paper.' If you're being forced into a religion, then you're not really going to believe. You can't be forced to believe a certain thing. You can say you can, pretend like you have, and act like it, but truly, you don't.

But if they're being forced to, then I guess they have no choice. They'll just say that they're Buddhists, but they probably won't go any further than that with praying, rituals, etc., whatever.

I don't think that just because a majority of the country believe in it, they shouldn't force the entire country to believe in it. That would be like..."This is Thailand. Everyone who lives here believes in Buddhism...or else." People shouldn't be shunned because they believe in certain things. Just because they law says they should and have to, doesn't mean they really do. But I guess acting like it is the best they can get to it, since they're being forced and all.

About the other type of "Buddhists on paper," I think it's a little hypocritical. I mean, they say that they're Buddhists, explain what Buddhists do as for their religion, etc, but they don't do it themselves. They just say that they're Buddhists and pretend like they follow and practice the religion like a real Buddhist would have.

I find it to be a little stereotypical, too. It's like, if you live in a certain country, then you believe in <whateverreligion> because a majority of you do.

For example, Europeans are Jews, Asians are Buddhists, etc. It's almost like typical high school stereotypes. If you're Chinese, you're Buddhist. If you were black, you're "goth"/"emo."

>_>;;;; Didn't come in for a few days......anyway, everything is ended now and tentenpuff won with 600g *nods nods*

:OOOO!!!

I WON?

I WOONN?

-dances around-

X3

I WONIWONIWONIWON!!!

WHOOOOOOOOOOO~

xDD

-happyhappyjoyjoy-

Yuppie~ You won >w<///

You can post what for me to draw in here~ *nods nods*

xDD

Yaaaaaaaay~!!!!

Uhm...

What to draw?

Like...my avi? Or...?

Er.

xD;;

Avatar, oc, whatever~ xDDD;; as long as it's not something that I mentioned on won't do list ^^;;;;

Oohhh.

Right.

xD

My avi?

:D

Okie~ x3 Will start on it soon

......and let's hope you won't get banned while I'm working on it like what happened to me the last time ^^;;;;;;; *shot*

xD

I'll do my best~~!!

And if I do get banned, I'll start a new account and earn the gold!

xD

-happyexcitedcan'twait-

X3