that's the line I draw in the sand between a religious belief and dogmatic belief

and yes Islam is a textbook example of a dogmatic political structure

Communism is also another example

When a religion goes into detail about HOW to kill me, I do not need convincing that it means it literally as a manual of operation.

Buddhists are weird but they tend to not kill many people, at least no more than we usually do already, so I don't care what they do.

although communism is more political than religious, it is still fully dogmatic

Depends on what you think religion is,

the ritual action of a belief

Then most things are religion.

it's best to understand that sooner rather than later

We don't exercise conscious thought for many tasks once we learn how to perform them. We essentially perform rituals all day.

Yes we do, we perform all kinds of rituals in pursuit of an ideal

We do not consider how or why it worked, but we got the result, so we continue with the ritual, fully believing that it will always get us the good result. This leads to a loss of caution over time.

I believe in balance. Not in a Buddhist way, or Taoist. But pragmatically. I do however believe in ideas that are so beneficial to humanity as a whole that I am perfectly willing to fight and die for them, irrationally.

Many see this as having no stance at all, which is dumb.

Though I suppose the stance of not taking too much of a stance, is a bit more complicated than the average ideal.

I have studied Buddhism, and a little bit of Taoism but not much. I know a girl that's Hindu and follows the vedas.

They are considered more of a philosophy, and they do have their own dogmas for sure

Hindu is DEFINITELY a religion.

there is a lot of corruption in India between politics and religion

Taoism is as well. Buddhism is like... A strange half-religion.

she is Hindu but she is Buddhist

or she believes in a lot of Buddhist philosophy

and Hindu is also kind of like Jewish in where it is also an ethnicity as well as a religion

Yeah Buddhism has elements of religion but also lacks other parts you expect in a religion.

so she comes from a hindu background but she is more Buddhist and also reads the vedas

I think that they are all wrong precisely because they have religious tendencies. Except Buddhism actually.

well you can't be wrong if you don't ever put your money on the table

Buddhism encourages the thing I dislike religion for. Introspection and exploration.

Religion almost universally shackles you.

Tells you to introspect everything BUT THE RELIGION.

I don't like blindspots.

buddhism has its own dogma

do you think gandhi was a saint

That dude was not what the history books teach you

My family was destroyed by religion as well, so despite growing up a devout zealous protestant Christian, I now abhor it.

I'm sorry to hear that

Gandhi was a man, who had some wise insight. I don't care how horrible he wqs because I do not follow him as an example. I do take his wisdom though.

he was a pedophile for starters

mentlegen

and he helped instigate the war between India and Pakistan