Christianity

@Krumple,

Krumple wrote:

The person is nothing but a bio-chemical process. Self cognition is just a working of awareness of a more complex brain with better recognition of patterns and symbols. This honored self is just that, an illusion of something which is nothing more than a process. It is here today but gone tomorrow.

Did I just reduce the person to something insignificant? Well yes I did, because if you look at the universe it really doesn't care weather you live or die. It has provided an environment capable of sustaining your existence but it doesn't hold you in any importance. If it did I don't think it would hurl large boulders at you...

Bio-chemical process? Ah, Krumple, thou art too quick to make such claims...
First of all, this is belief. Hast thou never heard that Aristotle & Co thought that physical bodies with bigger mass are falling more rapidly than those with lesser. And they had "empirical" proofs: stone falls indeed quicker than feather. So, I don't believe anything science teaches regarding it only as "hypotheses". I think all real scientists should be fully aware of that.
Another problem is that I cannot observe myself. I may well say Krumple is a bio-chemical organism because I can install sensors in his brain and observe the processes there take place; and I can stop them. But I cannot do the same with myself. How can I know/perceive that I do not exist? Install sensors? If I can, then I exist. Read my thread "True good and true self" in Uncategorized forum if thou art interested what I think.
Krumple, I don't think that the universe doesn't hold me in importance. What is good for me lays within my power.
And again, in the third time, that is not the answer. Why didn't Buddha preach to stones or trees or animals? There is no suffering, if there is no one to suffer...

@Eudaimon,

Quote:

And they had "empirical" proofs: stone falls indeed quicker than feather.

Well here is someone who failed their physics class...

Objects fall at the same rate regardless of their mass. On earth the only reason a rock falls faster is due to friction of air. To put it a better way, a feather falls slower than the rock because it is designed to slow the air moving around the hairs creating drag which slows it down. In a vacuum they fall exactly at the same speed.

I can't believe this day in age, with the internet and tons of articles that I have to defend physics because some guy thinks he knows more than a half million physicists.
The rest of your argument is not even worth the time since you are obviously not a person willing to go beyond your own misunderstanding.

I bet you think the moon landings were faked. LOL yeah I've never been able to find more than 5 people keep secrets yet we got over 50 thousand people to all keep the moon landings a secret. LOL

Actually I take that back, it's not that they fall at the same speed, it's they fall with the same velocity.

@Krumple,

Krumple wrote:

Well here is someone who failed their physics class...

Objects fall at the same rate regardless of their mass. On earth the only reason a rock falls faster is due to friction of air. To put it a better way, a feather falls slower than the rock because it is designed to slow the air moving around the hairs creating drag which slows it down. In a vacuum they fall exactly at the same speed.

I can't believe this day in age, with the internet and tons of articles that I have to defend physics because some guy thinks he knows more than a half million physicists.
The rest of your argument is not even worth the time since you are obviously not a person willing to go beyond your own misunderstanding.

I bet you think the moon landings were faked. LOL yeah I've never been able to find more than 5 people keep secrets yet we got over 50 thousand people to all keep the moon landings a secret. LOL

I know why stones fall quicker than feathers, be quiet. I am physicist myself and I know scientific method well. People thought that stone falls quicker due to its mass and they found "proofs" for that. Some time later they understood that it's not the reason. People had some ideas and they were replaced later, Newton's and Maxwell's theory by Einstein's one. All this shows only one thing: we cannot know true causes. What is true to-day may be rejected tomorrow. And why dost thou suppose I don't believe in moon landing? Strange...
Allow me to remember Socrates and Plato: no one wants to be deluded. So, if I am wrong somewhere, I beg thee to show me that. Why should I be unwilling to go beyond my misunderstanding?

@Eudaimon,

Quote:

I know why stones fall quicker than feathers, be quiet. I am physicist myself and I know scientific method well.

Okay, see I reread your post and it was a little confusing how you worded it. I see now that you were giving a perspective of an old point of view in a world set where any experiment would determine the later to not be a viable outcome. Okay fair enough, we are on the same ground. I apolo...

The moon landing was the start of a joke, because during one of the missions they proved that objects of various masses do in fact fall at the same velocity. But the reason I didn't say this was because the debate is still ongoing weather or not there were moon landings. An argument I find silly...

When I speak heavily on bio-chemical processes it's largely in part because of studying so much human anatomy and physiology. Just studying how the muscles work themselves reveals a truth that many rarely ever understand. We rely heavily on minerals and enzymes for daily activity that we almost take it for granted just how these systems work. I'll save you the torture of explaining it here.

Just that alone and seeing how the body is just a huge network of chemical processes I can't help but think consciousness is just another chemical process. It seems a little silly that the body would be full of these bio chemical processes but then there is this mysterious force called the soul which has bound itself to this body yet continues on after the body falls limp to the floor.

I would be more than happy to consider such a thing, but the problem is there is absolutely no reference for it. Those questions I posed to you about the soul, can't be answered at all. This implies that the soul is not a real concept of a reality but just a theory based on a hope of continuation after expiration.

@Eudaimon,

I think you need to have the perspective that the Buddha, indeed all the 'awakened ones', have 'gone beyond self'. Bear in mind that the Buddha was renunciate, and the Buddhist order mainly comprises renunciates also - those who have left hearth and home and don't have possessions. Which is not to say that laypeople, 'householders', cannot learn from and apply the lessons from Buddha. But the Buddha has 'gone beyond'. Hence the title, 'Tathagata' - One Who Has Gone Thus.

As for us - we take for granted our sense of identity, which is bound up with our occupation, possessions, relationships, and so forth. And there is nothing wrong with so doing. But I think the Buddhist message points at a state beyond that, compared to which our ordinary wordly concerns are shallow, transient, and doomed to end one day. We nevertheless feel very deeply that this world of our creation substantial, lasting, permanent. We're in for a shock, then.

(Incidentally - have to say this - in a vacuum, feathers and rocks fall at the same speed:-)

@Eudaimon,

If I may, for just a second of time, pin a 'Wondering If' statment here:

[INDENT]I'm wondering if the talk has not veered off topic a bit...?
[/INDENT]

@jeeprs,

Every one is welcome to discuss Christianity. I think our deviation has also something to do with Christianity and religion in general, KaseiJin.

Krumple wrote:

When I speak heavily on bio-chemical processes it's largely in part because of studying so much human anatomy and physiology. Just studying how the muscles work themselves reveals a truth that many rarely ever understand. We rely heavily on minerals and enzymes for daily activity that we almost take it for granted just how these systems work. I'll save you the torture of explaining it here.

Just that alone and seeing how the body is just a huge network of chemical processes I can't help but think consciousness is just another chemical process. It seems a little silly that the body would be full of these bio chemical processes but then there is this mysterious force called the soul which has bound itself to this body yet continues on after the body falls limp to the floor.

I would be more than happy to consider such a thing, but the problem is there is absolutely no reference for it. Those questions I posed to you about the soul, can't be answered at all. This implies that the soul is not a real concept of a reality but just a theory based on a hope of continuation after expiration.

This statements about soul and bio-chemical processes are based on our conditioning, thou seest? Materialism is belief just as all religions. It is based on generalisations, whereas we may be sure only in facts, in what we perceive, I deem. So, to be free we should abandon even this the most subtle belief.
I don't hope soul will remain after death, I really don't care. There is a wise Russian proverb: "I am, there is no death; the death will come, there won't be me". Fear of death is silly.
I don't define soul as all those processes: thinking, digestion etc., etc. I think that it may be somewhat deliniated as something that observes them. On the other hand, it is that thing that may experience suffering and only if it exists teachings (Buddhist, Christian or whatever that teach freedom from suffering) may take place.

jeeprs wrote:

I think you need to have the perspective that the Buddha, indeed all the 'awakened ones', have 'gone beyond self'. Bear in mind that the Buddha was renunciate, and the Buddhist order mainly comprises renunciates also - those who have left hearth and home and don't have possessions. Which is not to say that laypeople, 'householders', cannot learn from and apply the lessons from Buddha. But the Buddha has 'gone beyond'. Hence the title, 'Tathagata' - One Who Has Gone Thus.

As for us - we take for granted our sense of identity, which is bound up with our occupation, possessions, relationships, and so forth. And there is nothing wrong with so doing. But I think the Buddhist message points at a state beyond that, compared to which our ordinary wordly concerns are shallow, transient, and doomed to end one day. We nevertheless feel very deeply that this world of our creation substantial, lasting, permanent. We're in for a shock, then.

This interpretation is close to what I read in the preface to Paul Carus' The Gospel of Buddha. However, this implies that 'true self' exists and this has much in common with Vedanta or Yoga or other Hindu philosophies. However much I have read Buddhists sutras and suttas I see that the Buddha constantly says: no-self, no-self, yet goes on teaching men as if they really exist. Probably, he didn't understand himself this contradiction much as modern materialists.

@Didymos Thomas,

Didymos Thomas wrote:

Because Buddhism so devalues the worth of the individual :rolleyes:.

You honestly want to suggest that a decentralized faith tradition is somehow more authoritarian than a faith tradition like Christianity which typically involves hierarchical power structures?

No sir.

This sort of revisionist history is based on misinformation and half truths. Yes, Lama run Tibet did see its fair share of abusive leaders. The Sixth Dalai Lama for example refused his role as monk while taking his political role for the purpose of ruling Tibet. There was abuse. But show me a single nation in the history of the world which has not experienced abusive leadership. Also recall that very few Lamas have actually ruled Tibet; authority has generally been held by Chinese appointed regents. Tibet was not independent of China until the turn of the century.

Revisionist history like the bit you link to relies on a few examples of bad apples to make stunningly false generalizations.

An example of revisionism and the twisting of history is evident in the claim of sacrifice: Tibetan Buddhism does not make sacrifices, the indigenous Bon tradition of Tibet makes animal sacrifices. It was not the Lamas but the populace who retained Bon rites who were intent on sacrifice.

Tibet did have a system similar to serfdom, however Chinese descriptions thereof have been horribly exaggerated for the sake of inventing a justification for the Communist invasion of that mountain domain. In Tibet, a significant portion of the population were monks and nuns, not peasants. If you want any indication of the living conditions of Tibetans consider the reverence ethnic Tibetans feel for their exiled Dalai Lama as compared to their opinion of the Chinese government which has maintains a genocidal campaign of violence and torture in Tibet since their invasion in the 50's.

Parenti has a poly sci PHD from Yale and is a professor. The article contains 68 references and only a few are from Chinese sources, so you'll have to do better than say "no sir." please back it up with something more substantial, or flash some higher credentials.

I'm sure the Chinese side is an exaggeration, but I'm also sure the Richard Gere, Hollywood side is also.

The point is that Buddhism is no guarantee for a Buddhist lifestyle, anymore than Christianity is for a Christian one. Both advocate peace and lots of swords have cut off lots of heads under the name of both religions. The Samurai were a fusion of Buddhist and Shinto, yet were warriors.

The illusion is one of folks that wouldn't hurt a fly and sit and meditate all day and rake sand in pretty patterns, but that's more hollywood and their own revisionism as apposed to the truth.

@Sympathypains,

Sympathypains wrote:

Parenti has a poly sci PHD from Yale and is a professor. The article contains 68 references and only a few are from Chinese sources, so you'll have to do better than say "no sir." please back it up with something more substantial, or flash some higher credentials.

Did I only say "no sir", or did I give some explanation?

Ah, you want credentials. Okay - go check out the opinion of one Robert Thurman, the preeminent scholar of Tibetan Buddhism in the west. He is a professor at Columbia University, holding the first endowed chair of Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Studies. He has a Ph.D from Harvard, and was a professor of religion at Amherst prior to taking his current job at Columbia.

I recommend his book Inner Revolution as a wonderful primer for the history of Tibet and Tibetan Buddhism as well as for the practices of Tibetan Buddhism.

Sympathypains wrote:

I'm sure the Chinese side is an exaggeration, but I'm also sure the Richard Gere, Hollywood side is also.

Then read the experts, like Thurman. No one claims that Buddhism has not seen its share of abuse, just as Christianity, Islam, ect have been abused for worldly ends. But when a scholar makes such a glaring mistake, such as the attribution of food sacrifice to Tibetan Buddhism, then immediately the reader should begin to question the depth of the author's understanding of the subject - not the author's sincerity, but expertise.

Sympathypains wrote:

The point is that Buddhism is no guarantee for a Buddhist lifestyle, anymore than Christianity is for a Christian one. Both advocate peace and lots of swords have cut off lots of heads under the name of both religions. The Samurai were a fusion of Buddhist and Shinto, yet were warriors.

And no one has debated this. We know.

Sympathypains wrote:

The illusion is one of folks that wouldn't hurt a fly and sit and meditate all day and rake sand in pretty patterns, but that's more hollywood and their own revisionism as apposed to the truth.

Now you take this into the extreme - is it guaranteed that all Buddhist monks in all places in all times "meditate all day and rake sand in pretty patterns"? No, of course not. But to say that this imagine is Hollywood and revision is not true - there are abuses, and there are also honest Buddhists, after all.

Evidence of abuse is not evidence that no honest practice exists.

The truth is that most Buddhist monks spend their time meditating and teaching, and that some Buddhist monks spend their time in worldly pursuits instead. Both sides are real - the abusive and the honest pursuit of spiritual life.

@Didymos Thomas,

I feel there is a new generation christian propaganda ensuing.

I often hear Christians say god is love, but it is clear they have never read the bible, of if they have they completely ignore the parts where god is condemning some innocent person for the crimes of someone else. Or issuing death orders onto people for minor offenses.

The new testament bible currently is not the best selling point for Christianity. I think reading it actually converts more people to atheism than it does into Christianity. The only way the religion gets new Christians is by indoctrinating children but it doesn't use the bible to do it, but instead it uses some one liners of half truths. It is not until they get older if they have a curiosity and actually read the bible that they become atheists.

So with this happening and the fact that Christianity is slowly dying it means that we are on the threshold of a last ditch effort for Christians to maintain their religion. The only way it can do this is to reinvent itself and I see this starting to happen.

What will happen will be similar to this:

First a new bible will be adopted. This one will cut out all the negative statements or lines where it depicts god in a negative way. Slavery, abuse, torture, killing or murder, sacrifices and such things will all be removed. You will hear statements like, "It was the devil who put those negative things into the bible to make god appear evil or wicked." You'll hear all sorts of statements to discount the "old new testament". Some Christians of course will be resistant to this new bible but since most Christians don't actually use reasoning skills they will see these new Christians as appealing and they will completely buy into these one liner depictions that the bible was corrupted by the devil and now it has been purified and this new version is the correct edition that god always meant it to be. As time goes on they will continue to chip away at the old system and they might even try to sneak in other aspects of modern thought into it to give it more credit or appeal.

Call me paranoid or retarded or an idiot but the creationist christian is a modern branch of the religion. It was an uprising to confront scientific findings which painted christian thought back into backward bronze age thinking. So the revival came rejecting all science that contradicts biblical messages. The irony is they ONLY object to the science that shows their religious thought to be wrong. They NEVER object to any other science at all. How could science only be wrong when it comes to concepts that involve religion? That doesn't seem odd at all?

Well if they want to hate on science so much, maybe they should stop using everything science has provided for them.

@Krumple,

Krumple wrote:

I feel there is a new generation christian propaganda ensuing.

I often hear Christians say god is love, but it is clear they have never read the bible, of if they have they completely ignore the parts where god is condemning some innocent person for the crimes of someone else. Or issuing death orders onto people for minor offenses.

I totally agree with you here. When I read the Bible last night (I'm trying to read the whole Bible) they killed almost everyone in the Benjamin tribe just because some benjamins had raped a woman. Rape is a serious crime, but I don't think it should lead to genocide. And the man that cut up his wife (the raped woman) into pieces weren't punished at all.
(The book of Judges 19:1-20:48). God is almost evil in the first testament.:shocked:

@Lily,

Oh dear god...look how many times are idiots going to bring up the old testament to attack christiantity? For the first and last time, it is not on a par with the new testament, it was not written by the followers of christ, and christ openly opposed large parts of the old testament. The old judaic God was about obediance more than love, a message that Christ reverses. The old testament has some wonderful, beuatiful and wise things in it, but it also has brutal, illogical and misguided things. You can't find any equivalant in the new testament, with the worst thing that you can find is paul telling some women to cover there heads in church. In one of his frequantly angry letters.

@Eudaimon,

Quote:

You can't find any equivalant in the new testament, with the worst thing that you can find is paul telling some women to cover there heads in church. In one of his frequantly angry letters.

Very humorous, I wasn't even talking about the old testament, I was talking purely about the new testament. It seems you are either one who has never read it or are completely in denial of it's brutality.

Jesus criticizes the Jews for not killing their disobedient children as required by Old Testament law. (See Ex.21:15, Lev.20:9, Dt.21:18-21) 7:9-10

God tells his murderous angels to "hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of your God on their foreheads." This verse is one that Christians like to use to show God's loving concern for the environment. But the previous verse (7:2) makes it clear that it was their God-given job to "hurt the earth and the sea" just as soon as they finished their forehead marking job. 7:3

@avatar6v7,

avatar6v7 wrote:

. . . For the first and last time, it is not on a par with the new testament, it was not written by the followers of christ, and christ openly opposed large parts of the old testament.

I'd hope to encourage some detailed thought here, then, please avatar6v7. From what we can know of Yeshua (the central figure of the sect later termed 'Christians') it would be very, very wrong to even to slightly insinuate that he didn't worship YHWH. It would be just as wrong to insinuate that he didn't go by the general stance that there was the central historical truth to the historical reports contained in those several scrolls (of his era...and not only canonical, would those be). It would be very wrong to insinuate that the early Christians discounted those historical reports as not being acts of the true YHWH--as they understood that model.

What the authors of the gospel narratives did make effort to do, while teaching doctrine on top of story telling via historio-biographical modes, was to inforce the doctrine of the Mosaic law's obsoleteness. This could have been an influence from the Herodian movement, with some things from the Essenes. To accept the gospel narratives a full face value has been shown to be careless a thing to do--as I will slowly and surely expound on in another thread.

@avatar6v7,

avatar6v7 wrote:

Oh dear god...look how many times are idiots going to bring up the old testament to attack christiantity? For the first and last time, it is not on a par with the new testament, it was not written by the followers of christ, and christ openly opposed large parts of the old testament. The old judaic God was about obediance more than love, a message that Christ reverses. The old testament has some wonderful, beuatiful and wise things in it, but it also has brutal, illogical and misguided things.

This is one of the things I don't understand about christianity. Isn't God God in the old testament? Was Jesus a jew? And if these statement are true, why, oh why, will the church never admit that they don't follow the original idea of christianity? :irritated: I get that you can't really say "Oh christianity is insane, all those rules in the old testament, that's just too weird". But what sort of religion has a holy book that's incorrect the first 1000 pages? Is the Bible like pick'n mix, choose whatever you like to belive? And I'm sorry if you thought I was trying to attack christianity, I'm just confused.

@Eudaimon,

Quote:

This is one of the things I don't understand about christianity. Isn't God God in the old testament?

Brilliant, I know this is off topic but it had to be said...

@Lily,

It is God as conceived of by the Jews. And of course its 'pick and mix', it's a several thousand year old document. Jesus was a jew, sure, but he attacked the traditional, old testament, religion, and reforge it into a new one. Not to say that the old testament became irrelavent, but it is reasonble to discount it where its message conflicts with that of the new testament, as that comes from the teachings of the incarnated God, as opposed to the prophets, and the iterpretations of those prophesys. So no I don't think that Christianity need be held answerable to a set of teachings it has inherited and massivly revised.
Realised that I hadn't quite answered your question, so I added this:
As for God being the same God, this was God as imperfectly interpretted by the Jews. The new testament has the benefit of God actually turning up. The incarnation fundamentally changed the understanding of God. The followers of Christ were making a concious decision to break with much of the old scripture- for instance breaking the sabbath to save a lamb.

@Eudaimon,

Actually, I have to say that, Jesus probably was not Jew. (Read Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary and History of Adoption Christianity). The other point is that he probably didn't exist at all. At least, he obviously could not be author of all what was ascribed to him.
The gospels were written in Greek, and I think they perform mixture of two traditions: Greek, philosophical, and Jewish, legalist.
I think also that Christ or those who composed gospels wanted to attract as much adherents as possible amongst Jews and they rearranged old testament therefor. It has always been very often to attribute one's own teaching to a famous person (Plato did the same).
Krumple, not that I am protecting Christianity, but I have to say that all religions had superstitions and buddhism had by no means less. I think we have to use those teaching but never adhere to any.

@Eudaimon,

Technically speaking, there's no proof whatsoever of Jesus' existence. Not even those who crucified him noted any such crucifixion.

God has changed just as the seasons change. The God of the Old Testament is different than the God of the New Testament or Jesus' God. Other ancient writings worship yet other Gods with are not the same as the the rest of them. There have also been other Christlike figures throughout history.

Fact is, man has written the stories. Man digs the dirt. Man creates and evolves and so does man's idea of God. Christianity today is not Christianity of yesterday either. Christianity was developed by men. It's that simple. One blind man leading another and now we have many different religions to divide people and fight over. Oh when will man discover God not in the heavens but within man himself?

I haven't read the entire thread completely and this is mainly a response to the posts above on this page.

@Eudaimon,

Quote:

Krumple, not that I am protecting Christianity, but I have to say that all religions had superstitions and buddhism had by no means less.

I am very familiar with Buddhist superstitions and why you think I would exonerate it as being free from them baffles me a little.

I have tried to study as much as I could and can from many religions. Sometimes you can't absorb it all at once and often times the stuff is so remarkably silly it almost insults your intellect to be giving it your time.

See some theists will out right bash other religions without knowing a single thing about them. They adhere to their faith as if they are absolutely certain they chose the right one, but the funny thing is, on the flip side the other person is thinking the exact same thing.

One nice day I was sitting on my porch and two guys were walking by. One of them decided to approach me and invite me to go to their church with them. My response was, if I were to go with you to your church, shouldn't I also go to everyone else's church to be fair. The guy replied no and then tried to give me a metaphor to explain why he said no. He said, "You see that tree over there..." pointing to one of the trees in my front yard. "If you went to everyone's church it would be like digging up that tree and replanting it, then digging it up and replanting it in a new spot each time. The tree will eventually die because the roots never take hold." I liked his metaphore and me being the ass that I can be replied, "Well quit digging me up then..." He imediately got my point, smiled and walked off with his buddy and I never saw those two ever again.

My point was, I look into as much as I can, and spend far more time studying than what I feel they deserve to be honest, but I do it, so that I can know that what I have chose is right for me.

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