A Christian Sent me this

B5C

http://www.bibleprobe.com/buddhatoldofjesus.htm

It's a scanned book claiming that Buddha prophesied that way to Nirvana was to Jesus Christ.


It was a debate on "truths" on a conservative forum. I told them I was studding Buddhism trying to find my own "truth." I told them I do not believe people should be forced upon a "truth" that people should find their own way.

What do they say? I'm sorry, but Christianity is the right and only "truth" in order to prove it I found a book that nobody heard of saying that Buddha told his students that the "Holy One" (it MUST be Jesus) needed to be followed, so that is why Christianity is the right truth.

ShiftPlusOne

Well you can easily check if Christianity is right. If the bible is the word of God, then it wouldn't have any mistakes or contradictions. Clearly, there are many contradictions in the bible, therefore it's not the word of God. If God is omnipotent, why would He demand praise, worship, loyalty and obedience? Sounds like a horrible personality trait, to be honest.

nanimo

While I may be ignorant, I don't recall ever reading or even hearing of anything written like that excerpt. As such, it strikes me as being the same sort of "creative" proselytizing I encountered when I was a practicing wiccan for a brief time.

I say this because of personal experience. Many was the time I had met a christian who rattled off the same sort of gibberish such as:

"A good friend of mine who repented from his evil life of witchcraft told me that witches and warlocks go out at midnight and sacrifice babies to the devil before dancing around naked and having sex orgies until dawn."

The idea being that his "friend" was a christian and therefore would not lie thus making all of what was said "gospel" truth. It was comical if unnerving. Needless to say, when I could keep a straight face at the utter ignorance of the individual and the "supposed" testimony of his "friend", the most I would usually be able to get away with asking without getting an evangelical sermon in response is "So how long was your 'friend' a witch?" This typically got me a lot of hemming and hawing suggesting the individual knew he had been caught in a lie.

This passage suggests the very same sort of thing, an ignorant christian who took perhaps an hour's worth of buddhist studying, and happened on something that fit in with his notion of religion. So, in typical fashion with those I have encountered, he took what he read completely out of context and perverted it to serve his ends. The style seems about the same even though the passage looks in a convoluted way that the buddha might have been referring to Maitreya, the future buddha rather than Jesus --not that this christian would be aware of that fact.

As to your failed attempt at open reason with the "conservative forum", babylon5crusade, I'm sorry to hear of the results, but I can't say I'm surprised at what results you did get. You already had a mark against you when you tried to argue against what they perceived to be their religious beliefs. Dogma can be as hard to crack as reinforced concrete sometimes.

nanimo

mopeaches

I think one of my biggest problems with this is that it operates on the assumption that the accquisition of wealth is crucial to doing good.

karmadorje

Nanimo: I always have great fun with people like that. Just tell them that the baby sacrifices are really rare, only on special festival days that happen on leap years. Most of the time you would just sacrifice neighborhood dogs or livestock from local farms.

The sex orgies are true of course, but most of the time they don't last until dawn.

:-)

If I feel particularly spiteful, I explain to them how the snake is actually the good guy in Genesis. Ask them how many times God lied to Adam and Eve in Genesis, then how many times the snake did, etc.

mopeaches

Well, hah, as long as we're talking about the snake, you could ask all the Christians why they aren't luddites, because the snake is ultimately a Promethean figure, bringing Adam and Eve fire. A rejection of the snake is ultimately a rejection of technology and wisdom (didn't stop Mendel, though....)

formermonkJohn

the Buddha prophesied the coming of the Maitreya Buddha, some say around 4500AD, so weve got some time for that, The Buddhas message to Palestine when it was expounded to the Israelites by Jesus, was a sort of dumbed down version of Buddhism, Love your neighbor as yourself was new and deserves to be followed, other than that Christianity has very little to offer that can't be found already in Therevada Buddhism, thats my opinion

sincerely John

nanimo

Karmadorje, sometimes I did have fun at their expense too, but after falling into that trap more times than I care to think about, I stopped bothering.

On an aside, some of those who had spouted that sort of thing would believe my replied "gibberish" in it's entirety and begin repeating it to others. As such, I felt like I was just throwing gasoline on an already out-of-control wildfire :rolleyes: and promptly stopped adding to the problem even in jest. That however is all in the past for me. I am no longer wiccan, so there is no point in championing a cause that was resisted in the first place.

As to responding with the snake and what all, the people I dealt with were not the most worldly wise(or even biblically wise for that matter) so even if I had tried that I would likely have gotten confused looks, and then perhaps a full-on fire and brimstone sermon about the infallibility of god.

I agree with you, former monk John. Christianity, in retrospect, is woefully inferior to buddhism IMHO. It's a pity more of buddhism hasn't "filtered down" into it, but as babylon5crusade discovered, dogma will accept no equal. Thus, the suffering goes on.

NomaDBuddha

Babylon5crusade wrote: »

http://www.bibleprobe.com/buddhatoldofjesus.htm

It's a scanned book claiming that Buddha prophesied that way to Nirvana was to Jesus Christ.


It was a debate on "truths" on a conservative forum. I told them I was studding Buddhism trying to find my own "truth." I told them I do not believe people should be forced upon a "truth" that people should find their own way.

What do they say? I'm sorry, but Christianity is the right and only "truth" in order to prove it I found a book that nobody heard of saying that Buddha told his students that the "Holy One" (it MUST be Jesus) needed to be followed, so that is why Christianity is the right truth.

Oh, boy, it's Christianity again :facepalm:! Those fundamentalists, or those who really believe in some words in a really weird fairy-tells' book will do anything to prove that Christianity is the greatest religion, and that other religious leaders/founders actually spread the message of Jesus/God either unintentionally , either under God's supervision. This thing makes me really sick, when fundamental religions do such things , just for propaganda.
About Buddha, he didn't ( my opinion...or what I understood from Dhammapada) preach about the existence of a god or a would-be super human that will restore balance on Earth.

Cinorjer

This bit of fraud has been floating around the internet for many years. The monks and scholars have doublechecked their extensive databases and there absolutely is no such writing in any sutra, Cambodian or otherwise. The Buddhist scholars also point out that the words and style of writing are so different from the sutras it's supposed to be copied from that it isn't even a decent forgery.

A quick google pointed me to this website that covers this bit of wishful thinking on the Christian's part: http://dhammaprotector.blogspot.com/2009/09/did-buddha-prophesize-coming-of-jesus.html

FoibleFull

They are following the path that is right for them at this point in time. No matter what I think of it, it is their path.

Besides, who of us is enlightened anyway? Not me.

Brandon

Lol whoever wrote that scripture in the link did a horrible job. What I don't understand is if they are so sure jahova is real..... Why must some christians make things up to convert?

FoibleFull

Babylon5crusade wrote: »

http://www.bibleprobe.com/buddhatoldofjesus.htm

It's a scanned book claiming that Buddha prophesied that way to Nirvana was to Jesus Christ.


It was a debate on "truths" on a conservative forum. I told them I was studding Buddhism trying to find my own "truth." I told them I do not believe people should be forced upon a "truth" that people should find their own way.

What do they say? I'm sorry, but Christianity is the right and only "truth" in order to prove it I found a book that nobody heard of saying that Buddha told his students that the "Holy One" (it MUST be Jesus) needed to be followed, so that is why Christianity is the right truth.

This falls under the heading of "cognitive mind-games". Fun as they are, they really have nothing to do with the task of Buddhism, which is to work towards enlightenment.

sukhita

That book is the work of Satan, I tell you.

Chrysalid

The Buddhas message to Palestine when it was expounded to the Israelites by Jesus, was a sort of dumbed down version of Buddhism, Love your neighbor as yourself was new and deserves to be followed, other than that Christianity has very little to offer that can't be found already in Therevada Buddhism, thats my opinion

"Love your neighbour as yourself" comes from Leviticus 19:18. Comparative religion is a hobby of mine, and I do find it fascinating that people have this image of Jesus as a novel reformer, when in fact all he did was teach the goodness that was already present within Judaism.
I think if more people were like Jesus, and took only what was good from the world religions, we'd find that they have a lot more in common than appears at first glance.

Roger

I ask the Christians I talk with to tell me all about what Jesus taught. I respectfully ask them to stay focussed on what Jesus taught. I keep asking for "references."

If Jesus can't be attributed to what they are saying (that's the case most of the time BTW) I just nicely re-direct the conversation again.

Between you and me my point is I assume historical Jesus was influenced by Buddhism so I'm very interested in Jesus because of that. From my experience I advise you: don't let them know of that assumption if you decide to make it too.

[DeletedUser]

[url]http://www.bibleprobe.com/buddhatoldofjesus.htm[/url]

It's a scanned book claiming that Buddha prophesied that way to Nirvana was to Jesus Christ.

Impossible, as there is no such claim found in the entire Tripitaka. All versions of Buddhism scriptures recorded in the Tripitaka are in its original version, and the Buddhism community would never allow for any alteration to take place even if he/she is an enlightened beings. Buddha is Nirvana, unless Jesus Christ specifically requested, and Jesus never would do it because the Christian knows very well that they will lost their direction of faith.

Simonthepilgrim

......................[snip]....................

As to your failed attempt at open reason with the "conservative forum", babylon5crusade, I'm sorry to hear of the results, but I can't say I'm surprised at what results you did get. You already had a mark against you when you tried to argue against what they perceived to be their religious beliefs. Dogma can be as hard to crack as reinforced concrete sometimes.

nanimo

Proof of this can, alas, be experienced even here, Try suggesting that we have an "immortal soul" and watch the concrete set hard.