Regrettably many people think that all religions are just picking some deity (or deities) to worship, because they route their understanding via Christianity. Plus you get the additional problem of people really not grasping how you can't just translate concepts 1=1. "God" in Christianity is VERY different than "God" in Buddhism. One of my favorite pet peeves is when people take something like the idea of Reincarnation and say it doesn't make sense because they only look at it through the lens of their own (Western, usually) cultural and philosophical conditioning. It's like taking a power plug from Europe and then call it poorly designed when it doesn't fit into a socket in the USA.

Many religions have plenty of very very sophisticated philosophy behind them, and often the belief systems were functional, as far as they went, for people's every day lives. Interesting thing is that some of the philosophical frameworks actually are on an equal footing with scientific materialism, namely the ones in the sphere of nonduality. They're equally unprovable and disprovable as matter-first philosophy, yet materialism has posited itself as first in the minds of most people. Meaning, many people think that all other worldviews must adhere to materialist sensibilities, including ones that challenge the idea that matter comes first - which is actually logically fallacious but people don't like it when that's pointed out.

Keep on studying!

Practice. I've learned it by meditation (specifically paying attention to the whole of your experience), and so have many other people I know.

Very much this. Just going for walks is great. Meditation is great.

And people need to stop consuming political content in social media. Read/watch the news, sure. Especially LOCAL news - find opportunities to actually DO something. Do it intentionally, not passively

Letting oneself be constantly exposed to outrage and doomerism is just going to be more incapacitating than activating.

When they no longer feel a desire to argue with reality that they have faced fully (no lying to oneself) and have accepted that everything is temporary.

And they understand that the above is not a call for nihilism and resignation, but inner peace.

Yes, but "people" must include oneself as well. Else it just becomes another people-pleaser mantra.

Not quite. We have the appearance of (what we call) individuals within one single consciousness. It appears to reflect upon itself from what we take to be individual vantage points (people). That is an imperfect characterization though, try as I might. I'm pointing to consciousness before any thoughts - before you think there's a you, separate from anyone or anything. Pure experience, before thinking ABOUT it.

You're actually right on the money. Reincarnation based on certain systems is exactly that, when look at it from it's proper philosophical framework. But you can just pull it out from it's framework, cram it to a completely different framework (like one that believes in individual souls) and then claim it doesn't work.

From the perspective of nonduality, everyone is a reincarnation of everyone, always. It's internally coherent. Also a great reason to practice compassion. Of course people don't super love the idea of being the reincarnation on people they don't like, dead or alive. But that's one of the many reasons nonduality isn't for the faint of heart.

Ritual suicide is very much a thing in certain systems that believe in reincarnation. At some points it seen as a perfectly rational and pragmatic choice, but yes, you need to do it with specific practices and intentions. Not just "well, life sucks, I'll just reroll".

Not saying if you should or should not be jaded but I would ask you: please, please don't give into the jadedness.

I do understand the impulse and I used to be that way myself. But it's something that eats at you more than it helps you. Online you can always step away from the strife and in the offline world you can find truly good and caring people who do listen to reason. I realize it might be easy for me to say but I really don't want to see any more people turn to hopelessness and cynicism. It only helps people who would add more misery to the world.

I'm not the best person to say this and it'll sound weird on this platform but I do mean it with all my heart. I hope you can find enough good in your life to protect it without despair.

There's a world of difference between disagreeing with someone and mocking them. Especially if the mockery is based on a complete misrepresentation of what is being said.

Hehe, the funny thing is that on me, your assumption would actually more correct than the fundie Christian assumption.

Very specific yoga philosophy, and "healing" crystals in the sense that I'm fine with people saying that looking at pretty rocks makes them feel better. Wouldn't generalize that into a cancer cure though.

Thanks for proving my point I guess.