X-Message-Number: 19650
From: 
Date: Tue, 30 Jul 2002 12:17:36 EDT
Subject: Re: CryoNet #19635 - #19646

In a message dated 7/30/02 2:01:13 AM,  writes:

<< >I could see Buddhism having a future in the U.S., however, even while it 
has
>recently declined in Asian countries under various Communist regimes.

         The "new" religion is always better than the old one.

Just like science, though like science, not "always"

>Buddhism anticipated modern theories about the illusory nature of
>consciousness, and it seems more like a system of psychotherapy than a

         It also presuposes the illusory nature of the world.

Not exactly.  What it does is refuse to presuppose independent reality

>religion in the Western sense, so it could be  compatible with the
>scientific outlook of some conjectural Transhuman society.

         It is no more compatible than most religious systems (not that I have
studied it), and it has a highly authoritarian social structure which is
antithetical to scientific progress. >>

All I have ever seen it be antithetical to is unexamined premises.  

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