No God nor Afterlife Religions

[originofopinion]

Whats a Religion in which theyrè is nor Creator (God) and theyre is no afterlife?

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Interesting question. None that I know of come to mind.

[Richard Nixon]

What would be the point of such a religion and is it even a religion? The best thing I can think of is Confucianism and it's more of a philosophy.

[originofopinion]

What about Taoism and Buddhism and New Agers?:confused:

[Richard Nixon]

What about Taoism and Buddhism and New Agers?:confused:

They believe in the afterlife.

[Blackscare]

Buddhism except a few stray schools, is the best example of what you're talking about. Taoism was meant as a companion to "native chinese religion" o while it doesnt mention a creator, its half or a third of a system that does.

[Blackscare]

They believe in the afterlife.
Nope. Read up on Buddhism.

[gorillafuck]

They believe in the afterlife.
No, they believe in re-incarnation where you would still be alive, just reborn.

Though I'm not sure if Nirvana could be considered an afterlife but I don't think it can be, since I think it's just an end to the cycle of birth and rebirth. So I don't think Buddhists believe in any sort of after-life.

[originofopinion]

Nope. Read up on Buddhism.


What Are New Agers, Ive heard several of them dont believe in Afterlife nor God?

[Richard Nixon]

What Are New Agers, Ive heard several of them dont believe in Afterlife nor God?

New Agers are various religions such as nature cults, neo-Odinists, neo-pagans, Satanists, Scientologists, and so on.

[originofopinion]

New Agers are various religions such as nature cults, neo-Odinists, neo-pagans, Satanists, Scientologists, and so on.

What do all those mean? A list format

[Dyslexia! Well I Never!]

New age is an intellectually retarded eclectic mash of "modern" ignorance-idiocy and "ancient" wisdom-ignorance. All wrapped up in a healthy dose of bullshit.

Trying to generalise it in a discussion like this one is like saying: Religions occuring to the left to Walthanstow and ceasing before Watford between 3pm thursday and 7:30am on saturday. It's totally insane and arbitary.

Insofar as creators and afterlives Bhuddism's Nirvana is definately an afterlife mythos you can reach it as a state of mind while you are alive but when you die "you" persist in a state of Nirvana. Also where exactly does the process of reicarnation occur sounds like there has to be some kind of afterlife to me eh?

[Orange Juche]

No, they believe in re-incarnation where you would still be alive, just reborn.

Some do. Buddhism, at it's core, doesn't promote that when you die you come back as another person. Sects that have built around it do.

[9]

What Are New Agers, Ive heard several of them dont believe in Afterlife nor God?

There is no singular homogeneous religion called "New Age". The term is generally applied to trendy "new" religions (like Madonna's Kabbalah, for instance) which form around cherry-picked scraps of old scripture or doctrine or whatever, which are generally intentionally taken out of context.
Which isn't necessarily to say that "new age" is a bad thing entirely. I mean, I guess if people feel the need to be religious, it is a good thing that they selectively choose what to believe and what not to believe from the old scriptures, discarding the most reactionary, violent, oppressive aspects. That said, I have met many adherents to this or that "new age" doctrine who behave unbearably smug and pretentious and treat everyone else as though they are "unenlightened". But, on the other hand, I know many fellow atheists, and many fellow revolutionary leftists, who behave exactly the same way as a result of their views, so I shouldn't paint the behavior of adherents to "new age" religions as some kind of strange phenomenon in this regard.

[NecroCommie]

Satanism is a kind of social darwinism raised to a sacred status. It's more of a philosophy really, but one that acknowledges soul, spirituality, and rituals that affect those things. They don't believe in magical beings or afterlife.
Where as their tenets have only a few select things I disagree with, most of the followers are assholes if you are not socially skillful. This is mostly due to the few things I have a problem with.
Google out "church of satan"

And as pointed out, some schools of buddhism are mostly philosophical.

[spice756]

Whats a Religion in which theyrè is nor Creator (God) and theyre is no afterlife?

This has been talk about before what happen when one die or god .

That see we could be living in matrix a computer world all in a simulatated world and are lab rats or energy containers .Aliens from other planet made us and we are lab rats. There is god but earth is test on if your soul is clean or dirty. Or earth is hell and it sure feels like hell and we are stuck here to are soul is clean.Or are god is really evile and made up bible to in slave us ( feed of are energy ,do work for him or what ever..

And the last one this is one big dream but dream feels so real:(

[Zolken]

Whats a Religion in which theyrè is nor Creator (God) and theyre is no afterlife? .. a philosophy.

[Dyslexia! Well I Never!]

In short: What is a religion without a stern magical parent and a place to be punished?

A step in the right direction. Now if only the word "religion" could be dropped in favour of "delusion" we could council and medicate it's sufferers.

[Pogue]

buddhists believe in gods they just think they are not of much importance

[tellyontellyon]

Well, 'Gods' in Buddhism is a bit of a different concept than in other religions.
All the realms that a being can find rebirth in are really, according to Buddhism' projections of the mind.
For example if you have a mind full of anger, then that colours your experience, your experience becomes hell-like.

The 'God realm' is the result of PRIDE
Demi-gods =jealousy, animals=ignorance
etc. etc.

The words of my Lama (a real tibetal lama who had to escape from Tibet on foot over the mountains!) were, "There is no REALLY heaven and hell, it is your mind"

The world that we experience is then due to the negative emotions and mental habits we have developed.

It is also important to understand rebirth.. it is different to reincarnation.

In Hinduism they talk about atman or 'soul', like a little piece of god that we carry around inside us and that moves from life to life.

In Buddhism, we don't have that, there is no creator god, they talk about... Anatman = no soul.
The Big thing of Buddhism is that there is no soul, no self, no 'you'.

This is VERY difficult to understand and is not the same as nihilism.
Buddhists are really talking about no INTRINSIC self.

It is like when you think of a table, we are really looking at a bunch of causes and conditions that have come together and are percived in the moment to be this thing we label 'table'. But the table is not independent of all the different aspects that have come together to contribute to it's existence... including the conditions that we may not normally be aware of..e.g. like the room is an appropriate temperature and not on fire type of thing!

People are the same, what we label as 'me' is just a momentary dynamic of different causes and conditions coming together. The sense of an enduring identity is nothing more than a concept an idea and has no real substance. Buddhists therefore say that the self is 'empty'. What we really are is emptiness, a continuous flux of causes and conditions and possibilities. the self is an illusion.

So really in Buddhism there is no 'you' to be reborn. In fact every moment is a death, our sense of continuity is just a concept that we habitually reconstruct.

The habit of constructing our 'reality' and habitually labelling it a cerain way is called karma. But even Karma itself is illusory.

It can be very difficult to let go of the solidity and certainty of our concepts. Life, you, me and everything is a constant flux, everything is impermanent. We cling so tightly to our self-identity, our grand achievements, our possessions... just to feel a little more.. solid...
a little more immortal... but we aren't... even the gods fall.
There is no certainty and no security anywhere.

Grasping for that security in the face of the reality of impermanece is called 'Samsara' or suffering. No matter how much you have you always want more becase we can never have the immortality that we seek.

Letting go of all those concepts and accepting the interdependent flux and impermanence of everything, accepting that there is no immortality, is actually an increadible relief and true sanity.... Buddhists call that Nirvana.

They do this by meditating... i.e. simply noticing moment by moment every experience, every thought, every feeling.. without rejecting or clinging to anything.

However, the image of a Buddhist simply sitting there and being detatched from the world is wrong. In fact they bring intence awareness to each and every moment of being in the world. Meditation is only one aspect of Buddhism, others include right livelihood and right action..
That means you have to actually treat other people well and be kind and generous and help people.... that includes not doing things that are harmful.. like capitalism!

So anyway, in Buddhist rebirth it is not you that is reborn, just the causes and conditions.. that also include your thoughts and mental habits, become the causes and conditions for something else.. and something else etc.
like a candle flame lights a new candle.. but it's not 'your' candle... and the flame was never 'you'.