Buddhism, Hinduism and Christianity fitting together?

[Trevor_Stamm]

Absolutism, exclusivity and religious snobbery are the work of the father of all lies, and in your faith, the father of all lies is Satan. Narrow thinking is his playground.

Your friend,
Sufjon

Is that statement absolute? That absolutism is absolutely wrong?

I wonder why God would make the entire physical realm bound by absolutes from physical law to mathematics to biology to just say, the ultimate truth is not absolute. To say the only thing in existence that is not absolute, is true way to Him. Why would He create multiple paths, religions, ways that contradict each other at every doctrinal level and most of all the all rebellious religion of the entire world that speaks to the others saying, you are not truth only Christ is. It is either Christianity is truth or, as you have put it, a work of the devil. Upon examination of the doctrines, it is clear that the practice is clean of evil, what answer are we left with then?

It is Satan, the devil, most evil, the father of lies that creates lies to attack truth with confession and most of all lawlessness. It is law that shines froth from God and what are the traits of law? Stability, justice, peace, power, and truth that can only be defined in a singular manner. How could God, who rules with law, allow a chaotic and unlawful thing such as relativism be acceptable in a stable and lawful existence? A clear contradiction, and so heavy with misery to live in such uncertainty.

To quote Chesterton:

“Be careful not to be so open-minded that your brains fall out.”

 

[Sufjon]

I

I wonder why God would make the entire physical realm bound by absolutes from physical law to mathematics to biology to just say, the ultimate truth is not absolute.

 

[benedictus2]

Since God is infinite and we are finite it is inevitable that there are things we believe (or don’t believe) about God that are wrong. We cannot know all of God so our own internal image of God is always a pale reflection of the reality.

True, but there will be internal images of God that are not even a pale reflection but outright distortion of His true image.

Also, our internal image remains an internal image unless God decides to do a self-revelation. And this He did in Christ.

The Hindu approach tends to ignore the differences between these various pale reflections and merely bears in mind that all they can ever be is just pale reflections. Is it worth getting so worked up about a mere reflection?

It is. Because a false and distorted reflection can lead you away from Him instead of towards Him.

To know Him is to Love Him.

Is the Jewish God the same as the Christian God? One is a trinity, the other isn’t.

rossum

Yes. Except that the Christian God is a fuller revelation of the Jewish God.

That is why we say Christianity is the fulfillment (not the abolishment) of Judaism

 

[benedictus2]

This could cause persecution of Christians, the people of India did not ask the Church to come.

So therefore because the people of India did not ask the Church to come it makes it wrong that the Church came. Rome, Antioch, etc, etc, did not ask the Church to come.

The Church spread in response to Christ’s great commission:“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations baptizing them in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit”.

There was nothing there that said, make disciples of nations who ask you to come.

 

[benedictus2]

This would all be rather cogent if God were to be trapped within the confines of limited thinking. God is beyond the physical realm, but able to express Himself within it in any way He sees fit.

And some of our ideas about Him are not necessarily His “expressions” but rather our projections of our own distorted concepts.

If He is able to be Both the Father and the Son and also the Holy Spirit, this means He is** capable of being One** thing expressed as three, and if He can be expressed as three, He can be expressed as more than three.

Here’s the error in that thinking.

God’s being Three Persons in One is NOT His expression of Himself and is Not His capability. It is His nature.

To explain that: My nature is Human. My capability is expressing myself in music and writing, but I am not music and writing.

And the fact that He has certainly revealed Himself to others long before Jesus,(and many times since as well) further supports His ability to be existent as a being, and manifest in more than one way.

The others are not self-revelations. The others are hints.

He has revealed Himself to Israel through the prophets but Jesus is the only Incarnation of God.

Since you believe that there are other incarnations of God, then obviously Chrsitianity and Hinduism don’t see eye to eye and therefore can’t both be true. Therefore you can’t say that is your path and this my path, because obviously one these paths must be wrong.

And as such, He is reaching out to various peoples in various ways.

He does, but it does not mean that all these people apprehend Him correctly.

 

[benedictus2]

I’ve come to this thread a little late, but still would like to address the OP’s original thoughts.

In my opinion, albeit perhaps unpopular on this forum, religion is simply a means for accessing the divine.

There is only one God in the same way that there is only one Internet. Some of use Internet Explorer, while others use Firefox, Safari, or Opera to access the Internet. Same Internet, different methods access it. So what browser are you using to connect to God?

But some are trying to access the internet with their 1930s analog telephone handset. So I wonder what sort of connection they are getting. Perhaps there is not even static on the line.

Secondly, the Internet is unable to make a self-revelation, God can, did and does.

 

[CompSciGuy]

In all fairness, if you weren’t born into a culture where Christianity was dominant, you would probably think that a man dying on a cross then been raised from the dead in three days’ time is pretty absurd. And that’s just the main tenet of Christianity, it gets even stranger with talking snakes who tempt women in a garden with a forbidden tree, a man being swallowed by a whale, a man wrestling with an angel on desolate road, and a massive body of water being parted so some Jews can tarry across. Not to mention the Gospel authors can even get their stories straight.

And, if you want to talk about funny looking, lets talk about a Cherub with four wings with a calf’s feet and man’s hands, or a seraph with six fiery wings.

Umm, you do realize that Christianity is a religion that spread purely through evangelization over a period of two millenia, right? And you doooo realize that it spread ALL OVER THE WORLD, not just in Europe, that is to say, into non-Christian cultures, right? And the people in these non-Christian cultures accepted it.

Just sayin’.

 

[Ahimsa]

Umm, you do realize that Christianity is a religion that spread purely through evangelization…

Let’s not get crazy now. Christianity was not spread purely through evangelization. It was also spread by the closing of non-Christian temples and the social and legal privileging of Christians over non-Christians. From Codex Theodosianus, 4th-5th century:

C. Th. XVI.v.1: It is necessary that the privileges which are bestowed for the cultivation of religion should be given only to followers of the Catholic faith. We desire that heretics and schismatics be not only kept from these privileges, but be subjected to various fines.
…
C. Th. XVI.x.4: It is decreed that in all places and all cities the temples should be closed at once, and after a general warning, the opportunity of sinning be taken from the wicked. We decree also that we shall cease from making sacrifices. And if anyone has committed such a crime, let him be stricken with the avenging sword. And we decree that the property of the one executed shall be claimed by the city, and that rulers of the provinces be punished in the same way, if they neglect to punish such crimes.
…
C. Th. XVI.v.iii: Whenever there is found a meeting of a mob of Manichaeans, let the leaders be punished with a heavy fine and let those who attended be known as infamous and dishonored, and be shut out from association with men, and let the house and the dwellings where the profane doctrine was taught be seized by the officers of the city.

 

[Contarini]

Umm, you do realize that Christianity is a religion that spread purely through evangelization

No, it didn’t. There was a great deal of coercion involved–Charlemagne’s forced baptism of the Saxons is the most famous example, but there are plenty of others–St. Olaf’s violent methods in Norway, for instance. The first chapter of Gerd Tellenbach’s The Church in Western Europe from the tenth to the early twelfth century summarizes the story of early medieval Christianization.

In the Roman Empire, Ramsay MacMullen has estimated that perhaps ten percent of the population became Christian by the time of Constantine (purely through non-coercive means and in the face of sporadic but sometimes vicious persecution), with about 50% of the Empire being Christian by the end of the fourth century (after most of a century of government support of Christianity but without direct coercion applied to those who wished to remain pagan). The other 50% became Christians after pagan sacrifice had been forbidden on pain of death and the power of the despotic late Roman Empire had been enlisted on the side of the Christian Church.

Edwin

 

[Contarini]

It seems that most people today are under the false impression that if something is scientifcally verifiable, it is objectively true, whereas everything else is only “subjectively true” that is, sentiment or opinion.

This is a good point. However, the other side of the coin is that conservative Christians then assume that anything that is not purely “subjective” in this sense must be subject to something corresponding closely to scientific verification. Hence the concern with certainty and the question “how do you know that your religion is true” that is so evident on this forum.

If one follows Kuhn’s account of how scientific theories develop, then it isn’t clear that even science is as “objective” as many folks on this forum seem to believe religion to be.

Because of this demotion, relativists are able to say thing like “jesus is God for you, but Vishnu is God for someone else”. By this, they mean, not only that people see God differently but that God is, in fact, different for each person

Sure, there are people who think this. But this is somewhat of a straw man. The much more interesting question is that since people see God differently, and since Christians believe that God is far beyond our capacity to understand fully, then we should be very careful about declaring that people who see God differently are simply mistaken. It is quite possible that they see a different aspect of the truth than we do. Why doesn’t your author deal with this issue instead of focusing on the silliest and most extreme version of the position he wants to refute?

However, if an intelligent and personal God really exists (as over 95% of the world’s population would contend) then he has attributes that our individual or collective opinions don’t create or change, just as you have attributes that aren’t changed by what people believe about you.

Unlike make believe characters, a real God would be a Being who exists indepent of what we think of Him and with attributes that our beliefs don’t affect. This means that some people believe things about God that are wrong.

What I find questionable about this statement is the assumption that there are some people in the world who don’t believe things about God that are wrong. That seems highly unlikely. It also seems highly unlikely that there is anyone in the world whose ideas about God are entirely false. And (this is where I offend the sensibilities of postmodern culture) it also seems highly likely that some people have more correct views of God than others. And finally (here’s where I offend the sensibilities of conservative Christians), it also seems likely that our propensity to assume that we’re the ones with the more correct views owes at least as much to our natural bias in our own favor as it does to objective reality.

In short, there’s nothing startling about the idea that some people believe things about God that are wrong. That doesn’t entitle us to assume that all our ideas are right and that anyone who differs with us is wrong. It is both wise and humble to consider the possibility that sometimes it is the other folks who are right.

And of course, sometimes it may not be as simple as some folks being right and other folks being wrong. The “blind men and the elephant” story has often been abused and misinterpreted to support relativism. But it remains a valid caution. Sometimes it is really true that one person sees one part of the truth and another sees another. We shouldn’t assume that this is true whenever people seem to disagree. But we shouldn’t assume that it isn’t true, either.

Edwin

 

[Contarini]

I’ve come to this thread a little late, but still would like to address the OP’s original thoughts.

In my opinion, albeit perhaps unpopular on this forum, religion is simply a means for accessing the divine.

There is only one God in the same way that there is only one Internet. Some of use Internet Explorer, while others use Firefox, Safari, or Opera to access the Internet. Same Internet, different methods access it. So what browser are you using to connect to God?

If God is like the Internet, then I do not want to worship him.

The Internet is the sum of what people put into it. As the quote benedictus2 pointed out, many people seem to think that God is like this as well. But that’s not a God worthy of worship.

And if God is in some sense analogous to a Person (or in Christian thought, three Persons)–if God in fact likes some aspects of what we call reality better than others–then different “browsers” may in fact bias us toward a truer or less true understanding of what God likes and what God doesn’t.

Edwin

 

[Contarini]

Hate is hate. A hatred of evil is hate nonetheless.

No, it isn’t. Hatred is a relative term. If you love being, then you will hate the corruption of being–the privation of those goods that pertain to the nature of a particular being. You can’t have one without the other. You’re misunderstanding what Christians mean by “hating evil” because you aren’t taking the privation theory of evil seriously.

To hate evil does not mean that one doesn’t love all beings. It means that one does. Evil is simply the privation of the goods that pertain to particular beings.

Edwin

 

[Contarini]

If it is not the same you, then why should you incur karma for something that was not done by you.

Because there’s continuity between you and “former you.” Many of the things that people who lived before me did affect me. Why shouldn’t things that my “former self” did affect me? I think you are interpreting karma in terms of legal guilt, whereas as I understand the Hindu/Buddhist view it’s simply a form of cause and effect.

The new born baby was you and we can prove it was you. Same DNA.

Why are you defining humans in terms of DNA? Is this an orthodox, traditional Christian understanding? Surely not, since we didn’t know about DNA until relatively recently. All that DNA proves is that there is information that caused the newborn baby to be a certain way, and that that same information is found int he present “me” and thus causes me to be a certain way. This doesn’t answer the fundamental philosophical question the Buddhists are raising.

Note that I’m not necessarily denying that DNA is a good way to define an individual. I’m just saying that this isn’t self-evident in light of the basic questions raised by Buddhism, nor is it a criterion that was available until recently.

Edwin

 

[Ahimsa]

Note that I’m not necessarily denying that DNA is a good way to define an individua.Not a good way at all: see identical twins.

 

[Contarini]

Not a good way at all: see identical twins.

Good point. I wasn’t necessarily saying that it was, either. I had a limited purpose and didn’t want to get sucked into the question of how DNA relates to personal identity. My only point is that identity of DNA is hardly obvious proof that I am the same person as my newborn self in the manner challenged by Buddhists.

Perhaps the best way of putting it is that DNA is a good way of explaining how it is that I am the same person as my newborn self, but it isn’t proof that I am.

 

[Fone_Bone_2001]

In all fairness, if you weren’t born into a culture where Christianity was dominant, you would probably think that a man dying on a cross then been raised from the dead in three days’ time is pretty absurd.

Nonsense. Many cultures have similar myths - often with astonishingly similar details. Greek mythology (the City Dionysia, right?) and Norse mythology are just two of many, many examples.

And that’s just the main tenet of Christianity, it gets even stranger with talking snakes who tempt women in a garden with a forbidden tree, a man being swallowed by a whale, a man wrestling with an angel on desolate road, and a massive body of water being parted so some Jews can tarry across.

Oh, please. If you want to emphasize the absurdities (on a rational level) of Christian beliefs and paradoxes, then use your imagination! There’s nothing inherently ridiculous about talking animals, a man being swallowed by a whale, wrestling with an angel, or parting some water. Those occurrences are unusual but easily imagined. Those are small beans compared with the extraordinary, intellect-shattering expansiveness of the Trinity, the Incarnation, and the eschatological implications of the Resurrection.

Seriously. Violating the laws of nature is no big deal to anyone with an ounce of imagination. What’s really crazy about Christianity are the aspects which test the limits of metaphysics and reason themselves!

Not to mention the Gospel authors can’t even get their stories straight.

Why would we expect them to? Different people remember even mundane event(s) in their lives differently than others do, and the life, teachings, and ministry of Jesus are far from mundane or ordinary.

I’d be highly suspicious of the veracity of, say, the Resurrection accounts if the details were all perfectly aligned. Not a chance that regular human beings experiencing the monumental aftereffects of such an anthropologically unparalleled event would remember the details the same.

 

[wisdomseeker]

A BIG amen to you, sister! That is exactly how I feel! God loves us too much to send us to hell for living a good life and loving others, but not praying to Jesus. Because I was born in America, Jesus is my way and my salvation but may not be for others. I think God will judge our hearts mercifully and see where our love and devotion lies.

Really? what happened to the Jews that although loving God, did not accept Jesus?

 

[theyuha]

I think we need to back up a minute. Buddha never claimed to be God and Buddhists don’t believe he was God. Hindus are polytheists, Christians are monotheists. As Christians we believe that all mankind is searching for God, but that He has been revealed in the person of Jesus Christ. There are good attributes to all religions, mostly from a moral standpoint. But Christ is completely different and unique. He tells that we only come to the Father through Him, not Buddha, not Shivna, and not Muhammad. Only Christ claimed to be the Almighty God. So while there is good and truth, to one degree or another, in all religions, that does not mean they are on equal footing concerning our salvation.

Dont speak falshoods about Hinduism, here is a quote from the Vedas 6:45:16 “THERE IS ONE GOD,WORSHIP HIM” We also believe God is present here on earth-- God is not just in heaven like the Our Father indicates. I know no Hindu that believes in more than One God and the Gurus of different denominations teach we are to worship ONE God but many different names are used. Some names they use are comparable to angels or saints. Christians also have this thing about the Devil, I agree there are evil spirits and in Hinduism there are exorcists but No evil spirit can fight God or stand up to God in any way. The name Jesus is a latinized version of the real name that He was called by so you are not even calling the Man by His real name, I do not think he would know you were saying His name if you said it unless He could read your mind, perhaps people would think you are talking in a different language. I have a website on myths spread about Hinduism at theyuha.blogspot.com i fell for these lies too so dont feel bad, when I met Indian people they practiced much differently than Christians described them as. By the way the Vedas are older than 4000 years old so they did not copy anything from newer religions and modern satelite imagery and archeology proves the age and authenticity of the scriptures just as Jericho was found by scientists. Apologetics: theyuha.blogspot.com/p/hinduism-sanata-dharma-catholicism.html

 

[theyuha]

So therefore because the people of India did not ask the Church to come it makes it wrong that the Church came. Rome, Antioch, etc, etc, did not ask the Church to come.

The Church spread in response to Christ’s great commission:“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations baptizing them in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit”.

There was nothing there that said, make disciples of nations who ask you to come.

He did not ask the Church to buy conversions or insult the religion. There are media reports that Catholic Priests ask converts to stomp on Hindu statues. Not even one priest should do this, I also heard converts are $12 a head. The Church should come down hard on those who do this. They also say Hinduism is evil and ask the converts to avoid non-converting family members. They build concrete Churches but Amma builds concrete homes for 200,000 people plus hospitals all without asking for conversions. Christians are violently attacking hindu temples and Hindus may strike back. This is unethical and is not what Christ tought. The Catholics are ignorant of what Hindus believe, if they were smart they would learn about them and work with them against the real enemies of humanity such as poverty and communism. As it is now the communists are getting the new Christian converts to go against the Indian government. If you want to help India send the money to amma.org – all of the money goes to charity including New orleans, Japan, and India. See my website for details-- see the pages: theyuha.blogspot.com

 

[theyuha]

An Excerpt from Absolute Relativism - the New Dictatorship by Chris Stefanick

It seems that most people today are under the false impression that if something is scientifcally verifiable, it is objectively true, whereas everything else is only “subjectively true” that is, sentiment or opinion. Such a belief reduces God from the status of actual living Being to personal sentiment that can legitimately vary from person to person.

Because of this demotion, relativists are able to say thing like “jesus is God for you, but Vishnu is God for someone else”. By this, they mean, not only that people see God differently but that God is, in fact, different for each person, as if each person is able to create his or her own deity based on his personal tastes, much in the same way that he would craft his own drink at Starbucks. There’s a joke that the main difference between humans and God is that God never thinks He’s us. By subjectifying God, relativism sets us up as creators of God rather than God as the Creator of us.

This idea is incompatible with the notion of God as actual being. If God is someone or something that each person creates - rather than someone we discover or someone who seeks us out - then he is no more real than a creation of a person’s imagination. He is reduced to a mere projection from the mind of the believer, or group of believers. However, if an intelligent and personal God really exists (as over 95% of the world’s population would contend) then he has attributes that our individual or collective opinions don’t create or change, just as you have attributes that aren’t changed by what people believe about you.

Unlike make believe characters, a real God would be a Being who exists indepent of what we think of Him and with attributes that our beliefs don’t affect. This means that some people believe things about God that are wrong.

theyuha.blogspot.com see blog for details
Objectivity and relativism have no place in spirituality. God does not change with the ages. There should be nothing new in a religion that wasnt discovered long before. If someone comes down here and teaches other than the tried and true they are in error. Spirituality is like math it can be written in different languages but the equations always come out the same unless there is error. Scripture such as the Bible or the Quran should not contradict older established scripture and spiritual laws do not change. Genesis talks of a world where animals were not eaten, the Vedas condemn flesh eating and now there is evidence Christ abstained from all flesh as well as the Essene group He belonged to. The rules do not change, the Jews in the desert got tired of manna and wanted to eat birds and they ended up staying out in the desert. The Jews, some worshippers of a few other religions and Christians either eat meat or sacrifice it to God. Christ said we are to be perfect as our Hevenly Father is perfect or we do not go to Heaven. people who are not perfect or sin do not get tortured forever for finite deeds, there is no ancient scripture that paints a picture of a God who tortures people for finite crimes. The early christians were vegetarians as well because he tought vegetarianism along with Daniel, Genesis and the Vedas which predate both. God does have a real name, it is not Jesus but He will answer to it. Jesus is a Romanized version of the real name. It is really more like Yesua. Vishnu and Jesus (Yeshua) should be basically 2 sides of the same pillar, if they are not someone is in error but God answers prayers even when the understanding is flawed. It says in the Bagrivatim that if you pray to a different name of God or an imperfect name that the true God who does have a proper name does answer you. It is better to call God by His real name though. We should not create our own Gods, or names for God, it is best to take them from scripture or a trained spiritual master who will assing to us what we use for our invocation. Each name for God emphasizes a particular virtue that we are to learn about and absorb, the sounds of the name actually have a power of their own. So the name of God is also a spiritual gift given to us to call upon to receive graces but we must use the original spelling or sounds or else it is a different name. remember spirituality is a science-- the Vedas are much longer and detailed than any other scripture, there is a lot to God and no one person except someone like Yeshua can know all about God. Different sounds have different spiritual values- another thing modern physics is proving. I do believe God allowed His name to be changed because if He didnt his real name would be used in profanity and for political purposes. This is to protect the Holy Name and maybe more so to protect us who misuse it, some day it will come back into use when we become obedient to His loving embrace. I bow down to the Name of God who was born of a Virgin. Amen