I don't think that they are "quaint oriental beliefs". Yet the Buddhist practices of today are largely not the same as 2500 years ago (they are evolving and culturally exchanging too), and we don't do Western schools of thought justice if we dismiss them as consumerist etc.
Christian traditions also produced philosophies that fixed most of the epistemological issues, but they are not very relevant to the Christian laypeople. Do you think that is different for Buddhism?
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I'm from rural Australia; very few talked about christianity, or the bible. No christian friends until university (and then we didn't discuss it). I want to be curious about it, but all evidence suggests that I haven't been. I grew up practically at an 'edge' of western civ.
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I'm struggling to explain that I dont understand the abrahamic religions. It's Legacy Stuff; Esoteric Big Questions. I'm not buddhist, but as a working-class Australian, buddhist phil. is a bit like stoicism; it has a focus on mundane problems. It feels down-to-earth.
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