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God versus The Buddha
Xrayman
Veteran
how about this theory...
Buddha was a man about 2500 years ago who found enlightenment.
Jesus was in a similar vein. God is also looking after us all (If you care to believe that).
I don't believe the two are mutually exclusive.
My mrs. prays to god.
I pray to have the same wisdom and insight of the buddha.
regards,
X
Buddha was a man about 2500 years ago who found enlightenment.
Jesus was in a similar vein. God is also looking after us all (If you care to believe that).
I don't believe the two are mutually exclusive.
My mrs. prays to god.
I pray to have the same wisdom and insight of the buddha.
regards,
X
0
Comments
L E T ' S G E T R E A D Y T O R U M B L E ! ! ! ! ! ! !
Luckily for me, it's not an issue that I find I have to deal with. I have no idea what is going on on a grander scale regarding Hungry Ghosts, God, gods, Heaven, Hell, Nirvana, Hades, Nothingness, etc.
I just work on the "now". Althought I may regret it at the Pearly Gates, I'm just working on the "now".
-bf
I think I'm an OK Buddhist.
It's the way God made me, you know....
You hope that your good life, kindness and compassion gets you through to what?!?!
-bf
"If there is a God, and yes, some say there is,
how come little children die"
My theory is, God cannot exist because - compassion increases with wisdom. As such, a supremely wise being (as God would be) would be supremely compassionate. And as such if He did exist, nobody would suffer.
Since so many people ARE suffering, I have to concur that, even if God does exist, he can do nothing to help those who are suffering. As such, he is not all powerful and all capable, and as such, he is not God, nor does He exist...
Just my little pet theory... hope I'm not offending anyone...
I hate to be the kinda person who feels he has to comment on everything, but this is a matter that I cannot keep silence on. Very briefly put:
First, who ever definitively said that God never suffers himself? The old scholastic idea of the divine being containing all perfections, would entail that God would also have experienced perfect suffering, too. Perhaps that's why God, who was once the only "one," chose to become many, by creating the universe to be an extension of himself...
Second, who has ever proven that suffering is all-bad and deserving of all our disapproval? I mean, arguably it's a testing-ground to improve our mettle and our compassion.
Thirdly, Orthodox Christians believe in the "theosis" or "deification" of humanity. Christ admonishes in his sermon on the mount (Mt 5:48): "Be Ye Perfect, even as your Father in Heaven."
NOT THAT BELIEF IN GOD IS NECESSARILY HELPFUL. We know that's certainly not the case. BUT IF IT HELPS SOMEONE BE MORE ONE-POINTED, let's not worry about it. The universe may, indeed, be oblivious to our beliefs, as may any GODHEAD be also, but works and practices grounded in helpful, loving traditions will surely make us sounder instruments of right living.
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For someone trying to wake up, there is more involved than being one pointed. For that reason belief in a deity is seen as ultimately a cause of suffering, as well as a manifestation of the delusion of separation. The point is not whether a belief is good or bad, but that all beliefs are a hindrance. If you know, there is no need to believe, if you believe, you do not know and beliefs are used to paper over what is unknown, rather than being simply honest about not knowing. For this reason, Buddhism involves letting go of all beliefs, no matter how good or noble they may seem to be.
Regarding the original post, I believe that the experiences of Buddhas (Christ being one) are the same and available to everyone. The diffference is that Western religion says you must start from a point of 'faith'...believe enough (we are told) and you will know. The slippery slope to 'defending the faith' and fanatacism.
Then there is...find out for yourself (Buddhism)...and here are a couple of suggestions on how you might make the journey.
If when i die i get to the pearl gates and god does come out and say something like 'you have this one chance to renounce your previous beliefs and worship me'. Would you be able to stand up for what you think is right or would you submit your will to the supreme being?
i know it's one of those metaphysical questions that just distract but it's a thought i've had since a kid and it would be my Gethsemane.
Now remember god has just proved himself to you and has the power to send you to eternal damnation for a wrong answer. i think i'd brick it.
The FIRST thing I'd do is make God PROVE that I wasn't hallucinating. Now, that may take a couple million years, but if THAT GREAT object of my perception was really God, he'd have plenty of time to prove who he really is. I'd be ashamed to be afraid of a mere impostor or one of my own hallucinations.
I don't think God would be so insecure as to be dependent on my beliefs for his own ego-gratification. Nor do I believe, as I've heard a Holy Woman once said, that God would be so stingy as to have only one revelation of himself.
Furthermore, Buddha never claimed to be a god, therefore, how can he be misconstrued as a "false" god?
Glory to the Buddha, glory to the Dharma, and peace on the Sangha!
Thomas Aquinas, the Angelic Doctor and author of the Summa Theologica.
That's just my personal belief.
So this force has a will of its own?
And does the glue know what it wants? Does it even know it exists?
The classical Christian God and the Buddha do not inhabit completely discrete and non-overlapping functions or realms, as it were. I believe the theistic approach is simply more materialist and hierarchical and the Buddhist approach more intuitive, practical, and serene.
I know that this Willful "Almighty God" persona is often taught and understood to be the "Big Guy Upstairs," but that is certainly not the teaching of Jesus, who believed in the Loving Fatherhood of God, the Brotherhood of man, and the free and equal participation of the companion spirit. BTW, in Thich Nhat Hahn's The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching, p 127, he mentioned God, nirvana, and the world of no-birth and no-death as components of the ultimate dimension, in his chapter dealing with relative truth and ultimate truth, the chapter we're reviewing now. I realize he's speaking from a position intended to be understood by persons of many different religious backgrounds, but still, he obviously must think the idea of an Egoist God completely absurd.
The Infanta, do you mean panentheistic, "God in Everything?" Pantheism means, "Everything is God or a god," which entails a very different thing, hard to mesh with the way we really see things (when not using peyote). I suspect that if you're thinking about a universal glue, you're not pantheistic, but panentheistic. Panentheism is found in all the mystical theistic religions. A google search could be most enlightening.
Let's say, for the sake of argument, that this "glue" is the compassion of Amita Buddha. Would that make any sense to you?
Nirvana
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leme think .. fiction of dubious origins detailing dubious events
i view God as a placebo.. lets all visit fairy land where everything will be happy. You're not really happy you are fooling yourself.. which isn't real happiness
vs a wise guy that actually exsited.. that says stuff that makes sense and helps ppl live and therefore be happy for real
as for nirvana.. im not going to answer that.. i have no clue
and superstitous feelings of God's and glue.. is natural when you are raised in such an enviroment as a sigh... 'Christian' or 'Muslim' .. 'Hindu' or w/e
I believe he is acknowledging the "Concept" of God as a component of ultimate reality, as your concept that there is "no God" is a component of ultimate reality. It's an acknowledgement with compassion to those who believe their concepts are reality, rather than a product of the mind to help them come to state of Nirvana which is an extinguishing of all concepts and mental formations. OOPS, I'm espousing another concept, MY BAD! LOL
the practise can help ppl but the system is a damaged thing and the thought process behind it is impaired and limited.. kinda like windows 1.0
hmm i just say form a collective point of view.. and from all sides..
logic and so on.. theres too many flaws
God's comes across as imperfect in Genesis, The concept of God is based on Good and Evil which doesnt exist, let alone heaven and hell.
Fantasy vs Reality .. Belief vs Truth.. Stubborness vs Open-ness
Christian Teaching doesnt tell you how to live.. its just stories with very open meanings, They can't be relied upon, neither can 'God'.. By doing this what i see is someone who is following blindly and holding onto say a very bad road.. simply because its the only one they know off... what they need to do is broaden their udnerstanding and paths.. Have a look around them
You don't settle for the first thing you see.. You look about first or you will end up with a piece of trash most likely
the more i think about things the clearer they become.. its the thought of God existing that annoys me not the ppl. The system is damaged but the process can help
Does knowing it's an illusion make you any less part of it?
being part of christianity?
I'm not a christian... and surely if u are one and you know its an illusion.. how can you truely follow it? you're just dreaming .. imagining your nitemare is bliss
More seriously, is it not your own anger and spleen which are the nightmare, Celebrin? Let go and laugh.
I see a lot of antagonism from atheists, both within and outside of buddhism, toward people who believe in or follow a god. Religion becomes a scapegoat for everything wrong, and the accusations toward religion are often the very same that they claim religion directs at others.
i meant all the contructs we create are illusions, including christianity and buddhism. Difference is buddhism acknowledges this.
i was reading the tibetan book of living or dieing.. and somewhere near the start he says that the first thing buddhist teachers ask a potential student is whther they believe in the after life.. if thet don't then they have low morals and this that
i find that gravely insulting.. sorry if ive taken it the wrong way but not believing in the after life has little to do with morals..
rapists murderers .. w/e are everywhere its part of human nature
from other posts you all know there are buddhists in the USA army.. you all know about westboro cathedral practising their klu klux clan stuff..
i direct the issues of morals at no one .. and although i say christianity doesnt help ppl.. this is my belief from living and being brought up in a 'christian' society.. i know that i cant say that 100% its the right view.. but its the nearest to the truth i can be atm
using up all resources without thought of the future, being materialistic.. not knowing how to live.. being scared of death.. being ignorant of race and creed are all things i link to christianity and further more society itself in the UK.. the athetists are like a forgotten/abandonned part of a big nasty christian teaching
buddhism i accept easily.. although i have a question i'l ask somewhere else
but honestly what use is a religion that doesnt help ppl except on 'faith' alone.. depression,death,ignorance ,fear you name it all goes untreated.. id be fine if christianity was of any use.. in my own world..
all i see is ppl whinging day in and out.. ppl scared of everything.. ppl who have horrific defensive eyes that feel like they are being attacked...and i want to help them but honestly do you want to attempt to talk to ppl like that? i feel like a retard teaching a monkey how to build and mantain a fusion reactor.. why would i try? these christians.. i can't help them and they can't help themselves
-bf
Scanned my copy...can't find what you're referring to..... care to be more specific? I think you may be mistaken as to your source or interpretation....
AS for the remainder of your post....
"do you believe in a life after this one? They are not being asked whether they believe in it as philosophical proposition,but whether they feel it deep in their heart.The master knows that if people believe in life after this one, their whole outlook on life will be different,and they will have a distinct sense of personal responsibility and morality.What the masters must suspect is that there is a danger that people who have no strong belief in a life afte rthis one will create a society fixated on short term results,without much thought for the consequences of their actions.Could this be the major reason why we created a brutal world like the one in which we are now living, a world with little compasson?"
in a short reply and from my previous post the answer is no... people not taught how to live cannot be expected as a mass to achieve a high sense of morality.. in conclusion i put this to christianity.. you don't teach anyone to live
people are people wherever you are and wherever you go. religion.. spiritual beliefs do not change this.. the way they live their lifes does
When you read Sogyal Rinpoche, Celebrin, it may be useful to remember that he comes from a culture which has as firm a belief in 'life-after-death' as we do in our 'rights'. If you have a firm faith in no-life-after-death, Sogyal may not be the writer for you. Alternatively, you may want to transpose what he says about 'after-death' into a less metaphysical notion: what the teacher is looking for is a sense of responsibility and of ethical behaviour: an awareness that our words and actions, arising from our mind, have effects for which we must take responsibility. Only with this sense can we move forward into the Practice which will inform our Conduct.
The practice of meditation leads, if followed with appropriate assiduity, to many increased abilities. A responsible teacher will want to ensure the intention of the pupil: the same techniques can make concentration camp guards into better - and more effective - guards. Not the outcome sought, I believe.
i fully accept his origins.. but as a buddhist who obviously is quite popular i would expect him to be more understanding.. and not say things like this which are clearly not
They may be "clearly not" to you, Celebrin. Would you be prepared to admit that they may be "clearly so" to some other people? And that there are people like me, who are trying to be as honest as we can be in the face of currently-understood evidence, to whom it is so unclear as to be neither so nor not-so?
But I do wonder what sect of Atheist would be interested in this particular discussion.
I don't recognize Woody Allen's sect.
Can anyone enlighten me?
that you can say about him is that basically
he's an underachiever.
—Woody Allen
Incidently, the term 'atheist' was first used by the Romans, to describe the early Christians, who refused to worship the numerous Gods of the Roman pantheon. As they preferred a single amorphous God - the Roman authorities referred to them as 'atheist'. Atheists (that is, early 'Christians') refused to visit the Roman Temples, and were viewed as a threat to the fabric of Roman society - hence their persecution at the hands of the Romans.
When Rome became Christian under Constantine, the previously oppressed Christians suddenly found themselves in a position of power, and immediately went on the offensive, spreading external Christianity (at the expense of Christian Gnosticism), and anyother non-Christian sect, etc. Anyone who did not worship the monotheistic God of Christianity was referred to as an 'atheist'. A Roman legal term that was once used to refer to those who refused to worship the recognised Roman Gods - was changed by the Christians, to refer to anyone who did not worship their God.
The inherited concepts we work with today, often have unusual or unexpected origins.
Thank you.
The word is Greek, of course, using the same prefix a-- that is found in Sanskrit and Pali to denote a negative.
It is only from the European Renaissance and, in particular, from the Enlightenment that we have the absolutist meaning of the word.
Very interesting. Of course, when Socrates is supposed to have committed suicide (399BC), the Romans were about 100 years into their 'Rupublic' era (509BC-59BC, or there abouts). And far from idle, either culturally, or politically. Like the Greeks, the Romans practiced a pantheistic religion.
Socrates, as far as the sources reveal, was charged with 'impiety', rather than 'atheisim'. And there is an important distinction between the two concepts, both philosophically and legally.
The Greek concept of 'atheos' (lat: 'atheism'), literally translates as 'no God', or possibly 'non-God'. However, as ancient Greece was pantheistic, the early meaning of 'atheism' seldom referred to a blanket 'disbelief' in a divine concept, but was used to emphasis a lack of belief in a particular God - and not the 'God' concept per se. In short, one could be termed an 'atheist' in ancient Greece and Rome, but still believe in a God, etc. The modern usage, as you rightly say, is relatively new in concept, and is used to refer to a lack of belief in a mono-theistic God, such as that found in Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Atheism here literally means 'no God'.
Impiety, on the other hand, is a specific legal term of ancient Greece, and was considered a very grave crime. Impiety referred to a 'lack of respect' being shown to the Gods, in their respective temples. Impiety does not suggest or imply 'atheism'. Disbelief in the Gods, is not the main emphasis of this concept or legal charge, and Socrates was not the only person to sentenced to death for this crime. Whether the charge was correct of course, is another matter.
From this perspective, the Lord Buddha could not have been termed an 'atheist', as He never said that Gods do not exist. His philosophical position was unique, in as much as He did not emphasis worship of any God as a method to salvation. Infact, He spoke numerously about the Hindu pantheon (see Francis Story's Essays on Buddhist Cosmology and related subjects - The Anagarika Sugatananda). Buddhism does not deny God, but does not rely upon the concept either.
Thank you.
The thread's title makes me visualize a kind of Buddha to whom the Idea of a "God" is really beside the point. Sorta like those old animated Charlie Brown TV shows, where only the bottom third of adults were shown and their voices sorta drifted up and away, too dispersed as to be intelligible.
Just finally got around to sharing this perception of mine.
Very Kind Regards to ALL, regardless of beliefs or opinions.
Nirvana
Actually the title of this thread reminds me of the time Jesus and Satan had a wrestling match on South Park. But then I have a very, very strange mind!
Palzang