Each religion, including fundamentalist-atheism, tells its people something that at some level they want to hear.
The Abrahamic religions were suited to the people that those religions took-root in.
The savagely-scientific AwakeSoulism/Buddhism couldn't possibly have taken-root among those people.
Fundamentalist-atheism takes-root in people who want that, & then they won't even contemplate the question of why the electromagnetic-force ( mediator of all normal/terrestrial chemistry ) behaves differently in disintegrating-corpses, vs growing-organisms.. producing different results?
It's the SAME force!
WHY is it disintegrating 1 body, but growing the other?
Physicalism has proclaimed ( see "God: The Failed Hypothesis" by Victor Stenger, for 1 example of this ) that "anybody who invokes the immaterial.." ( notice that awareness isn't protons, neutrons, or electrons: it isn't matter, therefore awareness is categorically included in this declaration ) "..is invoking the supernatural!"
But flip that on its head:
Any "physics" which doesn't accurately describe how mind ALTERS the behavior of matter, including explaining how the intersection of knowing & will can somehow create airliners, culture, science, etc.., ( obviously NOT "random interactions of particles ) ISN'T complete!
( see Hofstadter's book "Godel Escher Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid", for how you have to choose EITHER self-consistent-knowing XOR complete-matching-Universe, & that is mathematically proven )
Here's part of why I value AwakeSoulism.. it ORDERED Empiricism, the ONLY true Science.
"Do not go by revelation;
Do not go by tradition;
Do not go by hearsay;
Do not go on the authority of sacred texts;
Do not go on the grounds of pure logic;
Do not go by a view that seems rational;
Do not go by reflecting on mere appearances;
Do not go along with a considered view because you agree with it;
Do not go along on the grounds that the person is competent;
Do not go along because "the recluse is our teacher."
Kalamas, when you yourselves know: These things are unwholesome, these things are blameworthy; these things are censured by the wise; and when undertaken and observed, these things lead to harm and ill, abandon them...
Kalamas, when you know for yourselves: These are wholesome; these things are not blameworthy; these things are praised by the wise; undertaken and observed, these things lead to benefit and happiness, having undertaken them, abide in them."
Kalama Sutta - Angutarra Nikaya 3.65
Why do I call it the ONLY true Science?
There is a concept outside-centrism that is captured by a biblical-Greek term, eklegos.
The Christian who was explaining this concept ( Dr. Gene Scott ) was explaining that relying-on-other/higher-power was inherent in their religion, but has been lost in ours.
Interestingly, outside-centrism is what differentiates Empiricism from all formal-systems/ideologies/prejudices/"religions" nowadays:
All the self-sufficient ones, even if they identify as being based-on-universe, or being based-on-evidence, or being based-on-G-D, if they reject worldview-altering falsification, then they hold that their axioms outrank evidence/universe's-speech!
& THAT falsifies the whole category of them all, in my eyes.
IF you hold that your system-of-knowing CANNOT be falsified by contradictory-evidence, THEN you hold that your-belief is The Ultimate Answer(tm).
However, IF you hold that evidence contradicting your belief that holds up to testing actually obliges one to change-one's-worldview ( as Empiricism does ), THEN .. now one is doing exactly what Buddha Gautama instructed.
Eklegos.
Outside-centrism.
What really makes the difference funny, is that in Beaumeister's book "Willpower", he identified that the evidence clearly showed that relying-on-a-higher-power was required for a profound-addict to win against addiction, but .. he rejected that that was valid/true-requirement.
IOW, he demonstrated axiom-based "science", right there, rejecting Empricism.
Evidence forced me into the Dharmic-religions' cosmology ( I discovered that I'd remembered some of my continuum's/soul's memories from other-kinds-of-lives, which was incompatible with ALL Western frames-of-reference ), & it took YEARS to adjust my worldview to that evidence.
Universe recycles ALL energies contained within it, including meaning-energies!
Physicalism/materialism/scientism prohibits that.
So, pick which scheme-of-knowing one prefers!
Axiom-based knowing, in which case contradictory-evidence doesn't threaten one's established-assumptions, or ego/identity,
XOR evidence-based knowing, in which case one can be forced that far, .. in my case from medical-research ( father ) & Christianity ( mother ) all the way over to AwakeSoulist Empiricism, .. by evidence itself..
No, I'm not pretending that you, or anybody, has any reason to accept what I, or others, have found TESTS to be true: our experiment-results are vetoed by all Western-culture axioms/assumptions, right?
I AM saying that anyone who has the neurological-means/basis to do the profound experiments, and who does them properly, may earn the same category-of-results that others have already done.
( the book "Maharshi's Gospel" is the instructions, given in oral exchanges, between Ramana Maharshi, a Hindu, who'd broken-right-through to the AWARENESS-but-no-"self" profound-level of meditation, & eventually he simply .. didn't come back from it.
I'm recommending it because it isn't Buddhist: Truth can stand on its own!
You want another book that cuts right through oceans of ignorance, perhaps more-pertinent?
Huston Smith's "World Religions".
Brilliant, incisive, & mind-opening.
I only read the Hindu, Buddhist, & Primal religions, because the Abrahamic religions have sooo offended my Empiricism-religion that I .. kinda want nothing to do with engaging-them, anymore.
Objectively, I ought correct that, for scientific-integrity's sake.
Here's a link to the assumption-shattering profound work by him:
https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/the-world-s-religions-revised-and-updated
Relentlessly keep exploring!
Awareness is the most magical substance!
What else is living for, other-than learning/exploring-meanings/exploring-understanding?
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Partway through the article..
He's making a couple of fundamental mistakes..
Social-process has phases exactly the same as fluid-dynamics, or other physics-processes, does.
the phase in-which casual rules about free-speech are good-enough, is finished, this fall, globally: the ever-escalating polarization enforced by the anti-considered-reasoning lobbies
( read Kahneman's "Thinking, Fast and Slow" book, to really understand the difference between the imprint->reaction brain-system ( lower forebrain, from the stuff in "Top Brain / Bottom Brain" ), which Kahneman & Tversky called .. uninformatively .. "System 1", & the considered-reasoning brain-system ( upper forebrain, from that same book & the research which identified that programming uses the upper-forebrain significantly in ways that normal-speech/language definitely does not )
.. will finally have extinguished-from-our-world such capacity.
Both the Leninists & the Republicans eradicate considered-reasoning from education, in order to enforce imprint->reaction's rule, instead
( imprint->reaction, aka axiom-based-knowing, is a defining-feature of formal-systems, ideologies, prejudices, & "religions".
All reject evidence's validity-to-falsify them.
All hold that their-axioms are inherently more valid than contradictory universe-speech/evidence.
All are automatic/reactive.
Hofstadter's "Godel Escher Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid" demonstrated this, in the interactions between the hare & the tortoise. )
So, he's ignoring that in different social-process-phases, different-rules-for-free-speech are required.
shrug
Here's a point that he rejects:
Can a person's opinion disqualify them from a category of authority?
I say absolutely yes it can:
Anybody who rejects the region's aviation-authority's right to regulate aviation, MUST be prohibited from piloting aircraft: they are too great a threat to others' lives.
Anybody who rejects a country's legitimacy, & holds that other-country has the right to subjugate it ( like a citizen in Ukraine holding that Russia has the right to demolish/butcher/obliterate Ukraine ) is functionally a pathogen in the "organism" of Ukraine, & ought not be permitted to exercise the authority to vote.
Responsibility-based-authority has to be the basis, in all domains.
Not authority-is-a-right, but responsible-authority is a privilege-or-right.
Expressing meaning has to be in the same regime: enforcing disinformation's displacing of truth isn't a free-speech-right, it is active-treason against considered-reasoning's ABILITY to govern our countries.
Therefore even the opinion that "tylenol is the cause of autism" has to be subject to fact-checking's overruling, because disinformation acts through social-pressure/forces, and can derail countries thereby, and that isn't anyone's right to be doing.
So, .. responsibility-based-rights is what I hold humankind has to stand on, but .. obviously that is a very-minority view.
Whatever.. consequences'll happen, either way: some ways are whole-species-fatal, though.
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