Those who used to be Buddhist

[scottdoesntknow]

@ChangeofHeart— I’m actually kind of a reverse of you. I was raised in the Catholic faith and now am a Nichiren Buddhist. I appreciate the ideas and teachings I learned from Catholicism, but it didn’t spiritually fulfill me and I had a lot of disagreements with aspects of it.

I really honestly think that Buddhism and Christianity are more alike than people think they are when you boil them down— they contain similar teachings about how to conduct your life in compassionate and meaningful manner. The main and most prominent difference is the concrete idea of God that is present in Christianity, and the absence of reincarnation, which is what people get so caught up on.

In Buddhism, being one with God is more about letting go of the earth and all of its desires to reach Nirvana, which would most closely compare to the idea of heaven in Christianity; the difference there between the faiths is that, in Christianity, you have only one lifetime to find God. In Buddhism, unless one is able to attain Buddhahood, you remain in Samsara (the endless cycle of birth, old age, and death) and continue to reincarnate until you are able to reach Nirvana. Buddhists also believe in different states of life, one of which is hell, and believe that they are all present in everyday life and are a part of Samsara.

In summation:

Christians ultimately believe the earth is an evil place and that one must repent to pay back the debts of Adam and Eve through the salvation of Christ.

Buddhists believe that life on earth— although not evil— is eternally bound with suffering, and that until one can break free of it and reach enlightenment (and ultimately Buddhahood), then one will continue to be reborn and suffer.

I think all religions really are striving toward the same thing, but everyone is so stubborn that they just don’t want to strip down their belief systems and acknowledge a common goal.

 

[scottdoesntknow]

I always had a difficult time reconciling rebirth in that sense. This is especially true because the Buddha taught that there was no soul and that what we perceive as “I” or our soul is mental formations. So if there is no “I” then how am “I” reborn? Not to mention if a person is reborn how is it that the population continues to grow? I guess if you believe that bugs could have the karma to be reborn as animals who can be reborn as humans or whatever it could be possible but I never bought into that.

One thing that you have to understand is that a lot of Buddhism could be compatible with just about any belief system, especially when you think about the 4 noble truths, the 8 fold path, cause and effect, etc. But there are parts of it that are no such as the belief in no-soul and reincarnation. Buddhism is very attractive (and it was to me) because it doesnt give you a lot of “dont do this and dont do that” so people are able to easily shoe-horn in their personal beliefs. You have some Buddhist who believe you should only eat vegetables and then you have some that say meat eating is alright. The Buddha did admonish people for sexual misconduct but there’s a lot of room to wiggle on what exactly that conduct is. This is what makes it attractive for so many people especially moral relativists.

A lot of people do find it intriguing because there aren’t such specific rigid laws that are abided by, and that is one reason it sat so well with me. Of course there is the Eight-Fold Path and the Four Noble Truths as you mentioned, much like there are the Ten Commandments in Christianity— however, in Buddhism, there is no eternal hell where you suffer for your sins and wrongdoings. In Buddhism, you suffer in the here and now for the bad things that you do, and it all goes back to the law of cause and effect. Karma is the allocation of your actions and thoughts that determine your future. Basically, your karma is what constitutes your life, and your life is what constitutes your karma. Negative thoughts and negative actions reap negative consequences; if not in this present life, in later lives. You pay for your “sins” in full, but not in a literal and eternal hell like Christians believe. In Buddhism, your “sins” are paid for with suffering in the cycle of Samsara (birth, life, old age, and death) which continues until you attain enlightenment. In that sense, Christianity is linear and Buddhism is circular.

“Sins” in Buddhism also aren’t as particular as they are in Christianity, and that was a massive point of contention for me because the Christian answers as to why certain sins were sins did not make sense to me. Buddhism basically teaches compassion as the ultimate form of living (MUCH like Christianity, minus the frills).

For instance, in most sects of Buddhism, homosexuality is not a negative thing. I’m gay, so this issue has made religious faith a struggle for most of my life because Christianity has placed massive negative emphasis on it. I’ve been gay as far as I can remember— I’m talking 5 years old I was attracted to other boys in those puppy love stages we all have as kids, and you can’t tell me that a good little Catholic boy from a stable family had been corrupted by Satan before he’d made it into 2nd grade. Not buying it. I’ve never been attracted to girls romantically. I tried to pray it away all my teen years, which didn’t work. So unless I wanna try out electroshock therapy or a lobotomy (which is INSANE), I’m as gay as they come and it looks like it’s just gonna be that way.

ANYWAY, in Buddhism, a committed and loving gay couple is a positive— two people in a committed same sex relationship are not gaining negative karma for being together. There is no “sin” in that. On the other hand, a gay couple who are unfaithful and deceitful and cheat on one another WOULD be allocating negative karma and thus suffer for their actions.

It’s not that Buddhism doesn’t have a moral code, it’s just that it has a much more concise and succinct moral code which, in many ways, resembles many core teachings of Jesus if you compare the two. If you do hurtful, cruel, and spiteful things, you receive hurtful, cruel and spiteful consequences. If you do compassionate, loving, and positive things, you sow as such. When I encounter a Christian who tells me that I’m going to burn in hell for eternity for being attracted to men and that I deserve it, I feel like they’re missing the bigger picture of their own faith and are hung up on the finer details (not to mention are being extremely mean), those of which Jesus himself never actually spoke upon. To me, it feels like Christians have taken certain writings in the Bible so far that they have taken back seat to the Ten Commandments, which makes absolutely no sense.