All is as it should be?

[TRANSPONDER]

I was watching a vid on Voltaire the other day and it said that he wrote Candide to mock Leibnitz and his 'All is as it should be' theory. I won't go into Best of all possible worlds' because it relies on a god selecting the best (and the ability to do so) to have this happen.

As Arach said, evolution has given us the world we have without direction other than survival in a world that regularly tries to kill us, and our own abilities (including reasoning and tool - making) to help us survive, not to mention give us a world where human live better than ever before, when they are not at war with each other or nature. All in all, this is better than a god imposing personal whim and opinion on us as a guide to life, even before it is interpreted and selected by religious leaders, to suit their own preferences and often agendas. At least political leaders get elected.

As to Buddhism, it's a bit like Christianity. It makes no sense that God will save only one type of Christian because the others aren't using Latin or aren't strict enough about what we do in the bedroom. The atheist apologetics view seems to be,'if they believe in Jesus, they get saved'. There is no 'Real Christian' divide with us goddless.

So I got into Buddhism because I wanted the Enlightenment experience and Buddhism was the one that put meditation to enlightenment front and centre of the religion, or 'Belief System', at least. So any Buddhism that makes that the aim is legitimate Buddhism, never mind "This is the only correct text" and "You have to do it This way".

I get the idea of making the religion wider (Mahayana) to appeal to and include more people, so long as it isn't a distraction. But then, as I realised with the Hippy movement long ago, it needs the food - producing secular society it purports to despise in order to leech off it. Though, like all religions, they like to pretend that, by dipping into your pockets, they are doing you a favor.

I like Buddhism, but if you get the feeling I don't really approve of religion, you ain't wrong.