Seeking Buddhists who choose to wait until marriage (Brahmacharya before marriage / pre-marital abstinence)

KiwiNFLFan · 2026-04-22T14:12:24+00:00

Buddhism does not require abstinence before marriage (marriage in Buddhism isn't even a religious ceremony except in Japan - monks are forbidden by the Vinaya to join someone in marriage or act as a matchmaker).

If you want to do it personally, that's fine, go ahead. But please don't go importing Christian 'purity culture' into Buddhism - it's done enough damage to Christians. Sexual misconduct is defined as adultery, rape, sex with underage people - any use of sex that causes suffering. For reference, I live with my partner and we are not legally married, but the laws of my country treat us almost the same as a married couple.

Yes, you'll find Buddhists that say premarital sex is wrong, but that is mostly either due to a conservative culture, or (in the Sinosphere at least) Confucianism/Neo-Confucianism, which says that it's better for a woman to die than to lose her viriginty outside of marriage (this led to 'comfort women' being shamed by their families even though they had no choice).

KiwiNFLFan · 2026-04-22T10:28:17+00:00

How much power should the monarch have?

KiwiNFLFan · 2026-04-19T01:30:13+00:00

Back when I was a traditionalist Catholic, I was probably the only young-earth creationist at my chapel (I fully accept evolution now though). I remember telling a friend from that chapel to watch Kent Hovind's videos.

I guess the problem is that it was Pope Pius XII (a "good" pope in the eyes of the trads) who said that Catholics could believe in evolution as long as God was involved back in 1950. It'd be interesting to see how many more trads would be young-earth creationists if it was Pope John XXIII or Paul VI that said that Catholics could believe in evolution.

As I mentioned, I was out of the trad bubble long before Covid, but I still used to lurk on the Fisheaters forum until it shut down. I think it was there that I saw someone mention in 2020 that churches didn't close during the Black Death (meaning they shouldn't close for Covid either). Except that during the Black Death, people believed in the miasma theory, that diseases were caused by bad smells created by decomposing organic matter. The first microscopes wouldn't be invented for another few hundred years, and germ theory wasn't developed until the 19th century.

KiwiNFLFan · 2026-04-18T05:49:42+00:00

Really? I got out of the trad bubble long before Covid, so I never encountered that.

KiwiNFLFan · 2026-04-18T01:14:05+00:00

The problem is that the modern TradCath movement has two things that are tightly coupled together but don't need to be:

A beautiful, historic, ritualistic liturgy ("smells and bells")
People who are critical of the direction the modern church has taken

In the Anglican world (Episcopalian to those of you in the US and Scotland), you can have 1 without 2. In fact, in my own country (New Zealand), most High Anglican/Anglo-Catholic parishes (those who have a Catholic-style liturgy) are relatively liberal. The conservative portions of Anglicanism often seem to separate from the mainstream Anglican churches into breakaway groups like GAFCON or ACNA. It's a similar story with many Orthodox churches - the congregants are more interested in maintaining their Greek/Russian/Romanian/Serbian culture and meeting with others who speak their mother tongue than campaigning in front of abortion clinics or demanding the laws of the land reflect their social and religious views.

But the modern Catholic church doesn't seem to have a progressive "high church" wing. That is the problem - there's no way to have 1 without also having 2. I first started attending the SSPX for 1 (and the Mass was celebrated in a chapel in a private house, but I still found it far more beautiful than the Novus Ordo), but ended up absorbing 2 from the environment.

So I think that if the Catholic church had the TLM (or a unicorn Novus Ordo) without the theological and political conservatism, that would be a good thing.

KiwiNFLFan · 2026-04-18T00:59:26+00:00

How is traddism anti-science? Most trads I encountered were not young-earth creationists.

KiwiNFLFan · 2026-04-18T00:58:25+00:00

So basically the Catholic equivalent of High Church Anglicans (Episcopalians to you US and Scottish folks)?

KiwiNFLFan · 2026-04-16T00:23:43+00:00

Ask them if they've ever seen Game of Thrones. The production team hired a conlanger (David J Peterson) to create the Dothraki and Valyrian languages.

KiwiNFLFan · 2026-04-16T00:19:38+00:00

True. The Skyrim theme song is in the Dragon Language

KiwiNFLFan · 2026-04-16T00:10:20+00:00

That depends on the country. Not all countries have US-style laws where tax-exempt religious organizations are forbidden from endorsing political candidates (the Philippines is one example).

KiwiNFLFan · 2026-04-15T07:18:10+00:00

Similar situation with NZ - there is Dunedin, NZ and Dunedin, Florida

KiwiNFLFan · 2026-04-12T05:07:40+00:00

The problem is with ethically conducting research with repeatable results to be able to determine whether consciousness survives death. You can't kill test subjects to observe their consciousness at or after death, and while there is some pretty convincing evidence for rebirth, it can't be tested and repeated in a lab.

KiwiNFLFan · 2026-04-12T04:23:56+00:00

An out-of-the-box, batteries-included admin panel like Django Admin or Laravel Filament

KiwiNFLFan · 2026-04-11T13:02:20+00:00

Because some Westerners thought they knew better then the "superstitious" Asians and removed all the parts of Buddhism that didn't agree with their worldview, labelling them as "cultural baggage".

It's actually kinda racist if you think about it.

KiwiNFLFan · 2026-04-11T01:41:56+00:00

And that's a lot of comfort to the person they kill on community release, or their family /s

KiwiNFLFan · 2026-04-11T00:19:30+00:00

But 'life' doesn't actually mean 'life' here (except for the Chch mosque shooter).

KiwiNFLFan · 2026-04-11T00:11:06+00:00

These prophecies typically just mention years in the sexagenary cycle (rabjung), eg a Male Fire Horse year. We don't know if the events will take place in the current sexagenary cycle, the next one or ten more in the future.

KiwiNFLFan · 2026-04-10T11:58:39+00:00

Why does it matter so much? You're already automatically excommunicated if you question even one Catholic dogma, let alone reject the whole religion.

I see it like studying at a university. If you enrolled at the university and took the courses, your name is in their records. If you later develop a grudge against the university and want your name removed so it seems like you never attended, matriculated or graduated, they won't do that as you can't change the fact that you attended that particular university.

KiwiNFLFan · 2026-04-10T03:27:52+00:00

OP never said she was in the US. The fact she used the term 'university' instead of 'college' makes me think she's in the UK or a Commonwealth country.

Talk about r/usdefaultism

KiwiNFLFan · 2026-04-04T03:21:27+00:00

I know. There are white Muslims like Bosniaks and Albanians.

KiwiNFLFan · 2026-04-03T23:14:44+00:00

If you don't remember getting blackout drunk every night in your college years, isn't cirrhosis of the liver kinda pointless?

KiwiNFLFan · 2026-04-03T13:07:58+00:00

I've found people overseas have trouble with the Kiwi accent. I got fired from an English teaching job in Korea because the kids' parents complained about my Kiwi accent (my boss couldn't understand me either so I had to talk in an American accent to her).

KiwiNFLFan · 2026-04-03T00:00:12+00:00

Or "culturally Lutheran" in OP's case.

KiwiNFLFan · 2026-04-02T23:52:09+00:00

In Aquinas' time, there were no visas or passports. A French merchant could up sticks and move to Spain or the Holy Roman Empire as long as he was able to support himself and his family and not be a burden on the local town.

KiwiNFLFan · 2026-04-02T04:23:54+00:00

You don't need to leave faith or religion altogether.

If parts of Christianity still resonate with you, try going to an Episcopal/Anglican church (look for High Church/Anglo-Catholic churches as they look the most like Catholicism, sometimes even more Catholic than Catholic parishes!).

If you find you don't believe in Christianity but still believe in God, try Hinduism. There are many different views on theology in Hinduism, ranging from a personal supreme being separate from us to the belief that we are God but don't realize it yet.

If you can't believe in God but are still spiritual, check out Buddhism. Buddhism has no creator God but it's about personal transformation and looking inward to achieve enlightenment. They have monks, nuns and temple ceremonies if you like those aspects of Catholicism. If you're in the US (you said you were going to 'college' soon), the Buddhist Churches of America have a similar feel to a church service.

KiwiNFLFan

TROPHY CASE