Posted: Aug 13, 2016 6:48 am
Ven. Kwan Tam Woo wrote:For example, if you believe that there is life after death and then modify your day-to-day behavior in accordance with that belief, would you say that you are acting upon that belief?
You mean, he starts justifying his behavior by saying that he 'believes' in life-after-death. If you are not worried that he's speaking nonsense in order to 'justify' his behavior, which is really the most worrisome shit he's up to, sure, you can assume he's acting on his belief, if that helps settle your hash for you. To me, it just means he's enough of a dumbass to say that he believes in life-after-death. Just knowing he's that much of a dumbass is worrying enough.
I don't care what people say about their own 'beliefs'. It's not possible to decide what they 'believe'. It's mostly what they say that pisses people off, but some people do go overboard and start killing people, while claiming 'belief'. Why not just take them to task for their actions, including their saying that they are 'acting on their beliefs'. Why take the extra step of actually believing them, because, you know, believing is incredibly stupid to begin with. You can blame belief, but that's just an excuse for not being able to figure out what's really bothering them.
It's hard to tell whether someone has changed his 'belief', and suddenly started modifying his behavior, or whether he just suddenly started changing his behavior for some reason not particularly related to 'belief', perhaps political affiliation, also known as 'team spirit'. That's why 'belief' is a nonsense term used around here mainly to make fun of people for what they say they 'believe'. Some people who say incredibly stupid shit get pissed off at you for saying how incredibly stupid their shit sounds. These folks are overly sensitive. Any excuse will serve a tyrant.
If you really don't understand the distinction, then no, you're probably not taking the piss, and are just playing the same old game of competing to see whose belief system is the 'stronger'. Woo woo, VKTW, and more power to ya.