OK, so I'm watching "The Buddha" on KCPT despite having to tolerate Richard Gerbil's narration.
There is all of this bullshit about Siddhārtha living for years eating nothing more than a single grain of rice a day. Some nonsense about him walking a jewelled walkway while he shot out fire and water from his body and filling the sky with clones of himself while sitting on a lotus blossom.
Oh please!
Here is the thing.
Buddha had some good ideas for living a good life.
Live in the moment. Love everything. Want nothing.
The only catch is that you can't get there by wanting to get there. Because that's wanting something. But putting that aside for the moment...
The Jewish people had some good ideas. The 10 Comandments. Good rules to live by.
Don't steal shit from other people.
Don't fuck other people's significant other's (unless it's a mutual, freaky-fun thing, which is always cool...CALL ME!).
Don't be greedy.
Don't kill people.
Be nice to your mom and dad.
Simple shit.
Don't get me started on Leviticus and the shellfish/homosexual/mixed fibers bullshit. That was Jewish beaurocracy gone mad with power.
Lighten the fuck up Jews.
Jesus had some great ideas.
Don't be a dick.
Love your neighbor.
Be nice to poor people.
Even if you don't have anything, be generous.
Don't use religion to rip people off.
Do good things for people and people will do good things for you.
Allah.
OK, I don't know of any good ideas Allah had. Most of Allah's rules seem to revolve around restricting behavior and freedom to a much greater degree than any of the other Abrahamic faiths.
But here's the thing.
I think most of these codes for living a Good Life stand up on their own without surrounding them with a bunch of supernatural clap-trap and hocus-pocus suggesting some Divine Mandate or penalty of Eternal Damnation or Salvation.
"Don't steal shit from people and they probably won't steal shit from you".
OK. I get that without believing in a God. Makes sense.
"Be nice to your parents".
They brought you into the world because they wanted you, tolerated your ungrateful whiney bullshit for decades without smothering you in your sleep (which they individually considered without discussing) and you owe them some simple courtesy for your existence. That's a good rule. Doesn't require the existence of a Divine Being to grasp.
Why can't we accept the fact that folks like Buddha, Hannibal, Moses, Jesus, Allah all had good ideas which intelligent people can incorporate into civilized societies without invoking all of this supernatural bullshit that inspires Holy Crusades and suicide bombers trading the depths of hopelessness for martyrdom?
I don't understand why people can't adopt and adhere to simple rules of human interaction without invoking Divine Supernatural Enities to throw down Rewards or Punishment.
It all seems so childish.
Grow up.
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