fiksal wrote: ↑Mon, 8. Jun 20, 16:34
sometimes it's religion that dictates other people's behavior,
sometimes it's people that dictate religion.
And you have no idea how true that is. Often people look at the religious leaders as the source of corruption while often overlook it actually the worshiper themselves that dictate the behavior. Remember when you asked if I have any bad to say about Buddhism and I said plenty and I mentioned a few before. Somewhere earlier of this thread I mentioned one of them, and that the 'affluence' belief. Buddhism as its core is as in-materialistic as it comes, in fact that doctrine is one of the key contributing factors that made it regress and eventually all but wiped out in its birth place India. Yet very often these days it won't be rare to see some Buddhist lose themselves in the grandeur of large temple and big monuments. Usually this is blamed on the greed of the figurehead (monks) as being greedy, and lead people astray, but for me it's only galf of the problem.
The dilemma is this: when people visit a temple and it looks desolated and humble (like how a temple should be) then people think "oh this place doesn't look popular, it's probably not sacred and Buddha is not here, if I pray here he probably won't hear me!". When those people visit a grand temple adorn with ornament and big statue though, then there reaction "oh this place looks great, a lot of people must come here paying homage so if I come here my pray will be listened!" And I'm sure this "in awe by splendor" is a human nature thing that contributes greatly to the process a religions being lead astray, and the fault is not necessary a leadership fault.
Again, this is why I empathize with other religion. I don't know much about Christianity, but speaking strictly from a historical context, I believe it was created or rooted in the poor to provide them hope and succor. Somewhere along the way it was transformed into this religion of affluence where the house of God are these majestic Cathedral, which I somehow doubt exist in the original teaching, given its root.
And it's weird too how the human brain work. There is a very common saying among Buddhist, at least Vietnamese Buddhist, common enough that I think almost every Buddhist know: "Cứu một mạng người bằng xây bảy tòa tháp". It's loosely translated to "save one life gives you more karma than building 7 great temples". People know this saying, know what it means, yet somehow they still invest money in big temples, erecting grand monument to honor Buddha, money that would be a lot better used to actually save others.
Going against the spirit of my current signature here, and by no intention to derail the discussion, but I think most people participating in this discussion also have a keen interest in current politic, so it may serve as a good parallel examples: it's like often we love to blame our society's problem and direction at the feet of the politician/leaders. But is it the politician who shapes the society, or is it the society that shapes the kind of politicians it gets?