Thomas Eshuis wrote:CdesignProponentsist wrote:Thomas Eshuis wrote:CdesignProponentsist wrote:Well Christ was not a god,
Not claiming he was. Don't think Ghandi considered him the son of any god.
CdesignProponentsist wrote:and I don't think Ghandi considered him to be one,
As I said, never claimed that.
CdesignProponentsist wrote:and from what I know of the man, he was not a practicing Buddhist.
If anything he was a Hindu. I did mean to imply he was a Buddhist. Just an example of someone of a different religion judging a god or god like figure he doesn't believe in.
CdesignProponentsist wrote:But the idea of an omnipotent all powerful god is an abomination to the Buddhist sensibilities of balance in nature. Such extremes are counter to it's philosophy and world view. There are no absolutes in Buddhism so there can be no God.
Still not getting my point. I never claimed or insinuated Buddhist can believe in Gods, merely that they can
judge the ideas of gods. Just like you and I can, without believing in any of them.
I get your point and agree. I'm just injecting my personal opinion on how Buddhism as a philosophy views the idea of theism.
I see. I agree with your assessment.
And I partly don't agree. This is why: I've often thought it likely that the frequent assertion that "Buddha does not believe there is a god" stems from a Western and largely Christian attitude that any belief that does not swallow the notion that there is a God-
Creator must automatically be equal to atheism. Back in the '50s, one could frequently encounter a dumbfounding incomprehension of just what an atheist is. One can even find that incomprehension in some old encyclopedias and dictionaries. Atheists will be .......... oh ............ people who are angry with God ........... or ........... people who question details in the prevailing theism of the time ............ or ........... people who rail at religion in very general terms, and blah-blah-blah-blah-blah. Rare indeed is the source that will say frankly and accurately that an atheist is someone who believes that any concept of a god is a made-up fable with no connection to reality, period.
This in turn has caused all sort of problems with respect to the Western pigeon-holing of Buddha that persists to this day. I've encountered both theists and atheists who are agape when I tell them that the earliest Buddha texts, like the sermons in the Digha-Nikaya, indicate clearly that Buddha did believe in gods. The response is often similar to the unreasoning incredulity, bordering on fury, with which many greet the correction that Hitler was no atheist but a brand of Christian. The notion that Hitler's an atheist is probably circulated because
A) Hitler criticized the altogether human and quiet and Jewish model of Jesus that responsible secular historians of today accept, preferring an Aryan Jesus from God who was out to destroy the Jews instead, and
B) Hitler as an atheist is a useful stick fundies use to beat up on atheists, even though Hitler was really an eccentric form of Christian all along.
I think the reason why I encounter the same near-fury when pointing out that Buddha too was no atheist is because the residue of total incomprehension on atheism ultimately spilled into mischaracterizing Buddha as one, purely because Buddha does not subscribe to the all-creating-all-knowing model of the Judeo-Christian tradition. True, Buddha doesn't. But he does make explicit reference in the earliest sermons to an enlightened soul knowing "both gods and men", and he explicitly terms Brahma as a god and as the apogee of ethical control. He also explicitly tweaks the noses of traditional Vedic believers by presenting Brahma as someone who is in ignorance of the nuts and bolts of cosmic creation but would very much like to know the answers himself!
It is impossible for many Christians to wrap their minds around the notion that such a limited Brahma is really a god at all. But Buddha does specify that this Brahma does exist, and exists in a dimension other than the three-dimensional level where humanity is found. That is already more than any real atheist would believe. By an atheist's lights, Buddha is no atheist. By a Christian's lights, Buddha may be one. Personally, I feel that it is as ludicrous to term Buddha an atheist as it is to term Homer one. They were both practicing polytheists.
Stein
by 
I think you'd be hard pressed to find a Buddhist who finds the god of the OT a good god, even back then.
I still attend church for social purposes, and I have very apologetic responses in relation to many themes of Christianity, so its an easy conclusion to make. The_Metatron is of course wrong, and it is not impossible nor un-atheist like to hold that for the most part the Bible is internally consistent. Yes, there are several places where there is clearly a clash of different opinions, but as someone who has been studying the Bible, its history, etc. for a period of 4 years now, I would safely make that conclusion. This being said having little contradictions does not mean its either factual, morally correct, or any plausible that there is an almighty God, etc. but to call them elected books of scribbling does the beautiful literature of the ancient Hebrew people a severe discredit. That's the equivalent of me calling the Epic of Gilgamesh as a pile of rubbish, or Greek mythology as nothing but horse radish.
