Thread: Eastern Religon in the west

with the latest eclispe over asia yestersay i am reminded by the footage that eastern religons, hinduism and Buddhism in particular are streamlined for western import. In the west these religons are reduced to less dogma, less culture specific traditions to be more philosophical. The end product is often just an alternative to western culture. Of course many find this new fabricated import to be just as unsatisfying as anything in the west and i have seen many go down the road of eatern spirituality to just a general loathing of everything, an unfaithfulness in other people, governments, andsocial movements. Has anyone else noticed this trend?

You mean like Christianity and Judaism? Aren't they also religions imported from the east? It's just that they have been lingering around long enough to seem or to define what is called "western".

i believe both religions (christianity and judaism) and cultures actually had a large part in developing what "western culture" is. I mean the popular imports over the last 150 years or so, hinduism, Buddhism and Taoism

I know. My intention was actually to point out this fact. So, why shouldn't it be possible that these other religions could contribute to the so called western culture as well? Also Christianity, as we know it in the "western" culture, is surely not the same like it began.

well christianity not being the same is more or less a modern hype, we like contraversy and we like shitting on authority and church, of course there are differences but if you look at the assyrian orthodox church, the coptic, the ethipian orthodox even the old nestorian church of the east the differences are not as large as you might have thought. the changes are most of the time very nit picky.

however, for example some westerners consider Buddhism to be a philosphy, whereas the majority of adherents in the many sects know it is a religion, this is clearly the result of turning a religion into something more "respectable" and secular for western consumption.

so western culture is not being changed by eastern religion so much today as the religions are changing to the culture because of the stigma of using the term religion.

Like most religions, the eastern religions seem to be a mix of good ideas and unsubstantiated supernatural bullshit. The main difference is that much of the supernatural bullshit from the east is very foreign-seeming to westerners, so we're reluctant to embrace it (even though we embrace equally-absurd supernatural stuff that comes out of our own culture). So westerners recognize that there are some good ideas that are worth embracing, but tend to discard the more outlandish stuff.