I'm your friendly neighborhood Buddhist. I've been to a catholic school for 12 years. Christianity has never struck me as particularly truthful or moral enough to consider conversion, no offense, but I'm not blind to it's incredible historical and cultural significance. I have read many books on Christianity for my own edification, the best one being CS Lewis' Screwtape Letters. I liked that book better than the bible or any other work by Lewis. (the worst book I have ever read in my life is Lewis' The Last Battle; I once created a scale of readability keeping TLB at absolute zero)
hello
- Thread starter kuronin
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so what is not
"particularly truthful or moral enough"
about Christianity?
"particularly truthful or moral enough"
about Christianity?
I can imagine a greater good than the Christian God.
so where has this Christian God let you down?
Since you ask about the truthfulness part, I might have had more faith in Christianity if at least one of it's many churches and denominations had been relatively free of superstition compared to other faiths, or lacking that, more philosophical than superstitious. Alas, the primary source of Christian superstition is the bible itself: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/22/us/22beliefs.html?hp
can you give us an example of a Christian superstition?
Witchburning. It's still going on in Africa. Do you believe in magic and witchcraft?
BTW, it wouldn't have hurt if the biblical deity had been consistently like this: http://www.zompist.com/meetthepoor.html
GuySmiley
Well-known member
Profanity, implied or not, isn't cool here.
GuySmiley
Well-known member
How did you arrive at Buddhism for a belief system? You couldn't find one Buddhist with any inncorrect beliefs? That does seem to be your standard after all.
nicholsmom
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:wave:
Are you naturally that illogical, or did you come to it after much thought?
Welcome to TOL
grit
New member
Two Lewis battle books, well welcome to the fray, friendly. I'm a Lewis fan.
Have you checked out Peter Kreeft's Snakebite Letters? It's sort of a modern adaptation or Screwtape II.
I was following you a bit on the historical evidences of Christianity, not unlike the Hindu Ghandi's response, but of course we Christians usually define God as both good and holy and compassionately offering personal peace and the self-discipline of a moral life. I find personal so much more fulfilling than the impersonal, and love and fellowship a virtue of holy consequence.
Welcome to the jungle.
From what I see, Christianity isn't even among the least superstitious religions on the planet, like Zen, some schools of Confucianism, Taoism and Hindu philosophy. Here's an example of that last one: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cārvāka
In my opinion, Europeans achieved greatness solely because they embraced the classical mediterranean tradition. Christianity just happened to come along for the ride. Modern history would've changed very little if Europe had become Manichean and the Middle East had become Christian IMO. These are usual Christian talking points. I'm just saying why I never found them convincing.
As for theology, I think Alfred North Whitehead was the best western theologian of all time. It's a shame he didn't understand eastern religions better. See this PDF if you're interested: http://www.forizslaszlo.com/filozof...g/Whitehead_PR_Part5_Final_Interpratation.pdf
Meh, I can do better than writing out a long list of grievances like in The Mote in God's Eye. However, I haven't come to peddle my religion either, so I'll just tell you about this other God I know about and respect, but don't believe in. I like him better than the Abrahamic God in some respects and less in others. Since the pantheistic Hindu God may seem very alien to most of you at first sight, I'd like to introduce him in the form of a play. Don't worry, this is a work of art, not some lousy propaganda piece. It's written by Rabindranath Tagore, a Nobel laureate and Bengal's best composer of all time. (IMHO) Watch out, each line is practically dripping with metaphor and symbolism. The translation's not exactly perfect and there are a few typos here and there, in very rare cases altering the meaning of the sentence, but I think it's fairly readable overall: http://www.ibiblio.org/eldritch/rt/king.htm
Note: In India, the relationship between God and man is often seen as an interaction between lovers rather than a king and his subject.
In my opinion, Europeans achieved greatness solely because they embraced the classical mediterranean tradition. Christianity just happened to come along for the ride. Modern history would've changed very little if Europe had become Manichean and the Middle East had become Christian IMO. These are usual Christian talking points. I'm just saying why I never found them convincing.
As for theology, I think Alfred North Whitehead was the best western theologian of all time. It's a shame he didn't understand eastern religions better. See this PDF if you're interested: http://www.forizslaszlo.com/filozof...g/Whitehead_PR_Part5_Final_Interpratation.pdf
Meh, I can do better than writing out a long list of grievances like in The Mote in God's Eye. However, I haven't come to peddle my religion either, so I'll just tell you about this other God I know about and respect, but don't believe in. I like him better than the Abrahamic God in some respects and less in others. Since the pantheistic Hindu God may seem very alien to most of you at first sight, I'd like to introduce him in the form of a play. Don't worry, this is a work of art, not some lousy propaganda piece. It's written by Rabindranath Tagore, a Nobel laureate and Bengal's best composer of all time. (IMHO) Watch out, each line is practically dripping with metaphor and symbolism. The translation's not exactly perfect and there are a few typos here and there, in very rare cases altering the meaning of the sentence, but I think it's fairly readable overall: http://www.ibiblio.org/eldritch/rt/king.htm
Note: In India, the relationship between God and man is often seen as an interaction between lovers rather than a king and his subject.
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You want me to hand you a list? Anyway, witchcraft is a fairly ridiculous superstition IMO, what with all those Harry Potter haters out there.
No that's not my standard, but I can use it to judge whether a religious tradition was divinely inspired by an all-knowing deity, right? The Buddha never claimed to be omniscient or be in communion with an omniscient being. Depending on the tradition, Buddhism is often less superstitious than Christianity IMO, especially if you're familiar with the classical Indian systems of philosophy and symbolism. Where's the Buddhist equivalent of Harry Potter haters, to run with that example? Plus, don't forget "more philosophical than superstitious".
There are also other concerns. Tibetans have always been a highly superstitious people. However, when Muslim invaders sacked the ancient Nalanda University, many Buddhist professors fled and took refuge in Tibet because the land of snows was defended by impregnable mountains. Thus Tibetan Buddhism contains the most profound methods and systems of philosophy in the Buddhist tradition despite being the most superstitious one as well. They don't say life is unsatisfactory for nothing, eh?
How is that illogical in your opinion? I see profanity is looked down on, but passive-aggressive behavior is okay.
I'll check it out. Thanks.
Thanks.
_/\_
Actually, I can't foresee what would've happened if the Middle Eastern Christians burned the Ancient Greek texts which were later translated into Latin at Spain and Italy. I'm not sure if the Manicheans would've burned the texts stored in European libraries. If they didn't, then the European renaissance might have actually come sooner. If all records of classical antiquity were purged from the world, then I've no idea how many millennia it would've taken for us to get to a modern era and how different it would've looked.
PS. Then again, Arab Christians might have cherished the western classics like the Muslims did. I dunno if Europeans engaged in book burning because of Christianity, European culture, or for some other reason.
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I'm not saying this "religion" is free of superstition because it's metaphysics is independent of God. Far from it. It doesn't assume the existence of ghosts, nature spirits, magic, sympathetic or faith-based, (for instance, faith healing which experiments have proved time and again to be manifestations of the placebo effect) or that natural disasters reflect moral judgments of a supreme being, particularly fanatic believers will be spirited away before the end of the world, (which is coming very soon... any time now...) etc etc.
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