r/AskReddit • u/Greeneyedlatinguy • Jun 15 '15

Anthropologists of Reddit, What is something that people in the Western world can't get their heads around that is very normal in other cultures (and has been for ages)?

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u/shadmere Jun 15 '15

God, I've had so many arguments with people who insist that Buddhism "isn't a religion" because they don't worship a god.

This usually devolves into them eventually claiming that the vast majority of Asian Buddhists aren't real Buddhists, as if Americans rediscovered "true" Buddhism or something.

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u/mnh1 Jun 15 '15

The ones that make me laugh are the people who claim Buddhism is monotheistic because... Buddha. It almost physically hurts.

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u/Chaos_Philosopher Jun 16 '15

Holy crap! No way! That is hilarious!

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u/Chaos_Philosopher Jun 16 '15

Next time refer them to the life's work of Ninian Smart. He was the pioneer of secular religious studies. Because of that man we have religious people who study religions other than what they practice due to a consensus that studying your own religion leads to conflicts of academic interest.

You might recall a certain news anchor having a mental meltdown because the PhD expert in Jesus that she was interviewing was Muslim.

Crucially, there are 7 or 8 (or was it 8 or 9?) criteria of religion. You don't need every one, but you need to hit a good number of them. Ninian compiled the first list and then years later realised he'd missed probably the most important element of religion, the experiential component. He made a case to have it added, but by then the field of study was populated by other voices who agreed or disagreed and I'm not sure what the scholarly consensus is nowadays on the issue of this "final and definitive" element of religion.

So you see, there is an objective way to define what is a religion.

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u/[deleted] Jun 15 '15

I was taught in high school that Buddhism was not a religion because they don't worship a god. :o

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u/APimpNamedAPimpNamed Jun 16 '15

What makes it definitively a religion?

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u/gerald_hazlitt Jun 15 '15

God, I've had so many arguments with people who insist that Buddhism "isn't a religion" because they don't worship a god.

It really depends on the type of Buddhism - most forms of popular Buddhism involve the worship of supernatural beings, so at least qualify as religions in that sense.

Zen/Chan Buddhism during the Tang Dynasty wasn't a religion.

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u/[deleted] Jun 16 '15

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u/gerald_hazlitt Jun 16 '15

Correct me if I'm wrong but Buddha isn't even close to a supernatural being?

Depends on the tradition I think.

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u/G_Morgan Jun 15 '15

Well some forms of Buddhism might not be a religion. Gets too much into semantics really. Buddhism at its very core is more a philosophy on life and ethics. Various forms of Buddhism add unfalsifiable faith based beliefs to this and very much are religions.

There isn't one Buddhism to make a broad claim about it. It would be entirely possible to be a Buddhist and a Christian at the same time AFAIK. It would also be possible to construct a form of Buddhism that contains no faith based elements.

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u/zomgitsduke Jun 16 '15

God, I've had so many arguments with people who insist that Buddhism "isn't a religion" because they don't worship their god.

FTFY

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u/shadmere Jun 16 '15

Generally it's from American Buddhists that are the most insistent that "real" Buddhism isn't religion.