Why should I be a Christian instead of some other religion?

[Aloysium]

Then the Bodhisattva Manjushri said to Vimalakirti, “We have all given our teachings, noble sir. Now, may you elucidate the teaching of the the entrance into the principle of nonduality.”
Thereupon Vimalakirti kept his silence, saying nothing at all.
The Bodhisattva Manjushri applauded Vimalakirti: “Excellent! Excellent, noble sir! This is indeed the entrance into the nonduality of the Bodhisattvas.”

IMHO:

Basically a Bodhisatva is one who has awaken to Truth, attained Nirvana, but returns or remains in the world for love of mankind.

There are issues with translation and with the interpretation of eastern thought into western understanding.

In remaining silent, Vimalairti speaks volumes:

• We cannot think our way into “wakefulness”. (God is transcendent - to reach Him we must repent in the Greek meaning of the word, metanoia: a change of mind.)
• There is no set of actions that lead one to the Truth. (We are not saved by works alone.)
• There is no true distinction between this world and God. (We can meet God face to face here, in loving our neighbour.)

 

[Lucy107]

IMHO:

Basically a Bodhisatva is one who has awaken to Truth, attained Nirvana, but returns or remains in the world for love of mankind.

A bodhisattva is per definition not enlightened, not awakened.

*bodhisatta

“A being (striving) for Awakening”; the term used to describe the Buddha before he actually become Buddha, from his first aspiration to Buddhahood until the time of his full Awakening. Sanskrit form: Bodhisattva.
*
accesstoinsight.org/glossary.html#b

In Mahayana Buddhism, a bodhisattva refuses to enter nirvana, so that he can continue to wander around in samsara in order to “help” living beings there.
Theravadans point out that an unenlightened being cannot really help others, though.

 

[rossum]

This is not the answer I was hoping for. My question is, how do you differentiate the Christian God from the Buddhist gods, who can be safely ignored.as you have said in other threads?

I have posted this before, but the powerful creator-God gets a mention in Buddhist scripture:

“I am the Brahma, the great Brahma, the conqueror, the unconquered, the all-seeing, the subjector of all to his wishes, the omnipotent, the maker, the creator, the supreme, the controller, the one confirmed in the practice of jhana, and father to all that have been and shall be. I have created these other beings.”

– Brahmajala sutta, Digha Nikaya 1

That Buddhist god shares a number of characteristics of the Abrahamic God: omnipotent, creator, supreme, father to all. He is treated like all the other Buddhist gods.

What is the essence of a god in Buddhism?

Nothing has an ‘essence’. Not men, not gods.

What powers does a Buddhist god have?

That depends on the god. Just like humans, gods have different powers.

Are Buddhist gods eternal?

No. All living beings have finite lifetimes. Gods’ lifetimes are longer than humans, but they are still finite.

Do Buddhist gods come into existence? How or why do they come into existence?

They come into existence because they failed to attain nirvana in their previous life, and so are reincarnated. They had accumulated a great deal of good karma to be born into one of the lower heavens. For one of the higher heavens, they had good karma and significant meditational attainment. The eight highest heavens correspond to the eight highest levels of meditation.

What relations do they have with humans?

Some ignore humans. Some talk to humans. Some want worship. Some aren’t bothered. Gods are extremely varied, just like people. Every god has spent lifetimes as a human.

Can they help humans fulfill their destiny.

Yes. Some of the higher gods can help with meditation training, though it is usually easier to go to a human teacher. Most gods can give advice on moral behaviour, though taking Zeus’ advice on adultery is probably not a good idea.

Do they create the universe and everything in it?

No. Each of us creates ourself by our previous actions. That goes for both humans and gods.

Are they omniscient? Are they omnipotent? Are they infinite.

No, no and no. Though at least one of them claims (mistakenly) to have these properties. They may well be very knowledgeable, very powerful and (for the higher gods) immaterial.

All these questions are answered in Christian theology.

As they are in Buddhism. However, Buddhism also answers the question, “How do I attain nirvana?” which Christianity does not.

Are they also answered in Buddhist theology?

Yes. See above.

Why do we hear so much about Buddhist atheism?

Gods are an optional extra in Buddhism. It is possible to follow the Buddhist path while ignoring the gods entirely. That may be easier for some Buddhists. The Gods are there, if you wish them; if you don’t wish them, then you can ignore them.

Christian atheism is, of course, a tautology.

Christians disbelieve in a great many gods: Zeus, Athena, Allah, Durga, Loki/Trickster, Amaterasu and many many others.

rossum

 

[Lucy107]

As they are in Buddhism. However, Buddhism also answers the question, “How do I attain nirvana?” which Christianity does not.

If nirvana is the state in which there is no greed, anger, and delusion, then it seems similar to what is called “heaven” in Christianity.

 

[commenter]

If nirvana is the state in which there is no greed, anger, and delusion, then it seems similar to what is called “heaven” in Christianity.

For Christians, “heaven” is being directly present to the one who loves us most of all.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

So how did much of the Middle East and North Africa which used to be Christian become Muslim? BTW, although most of this area was conquered by Muslims in the 7th century, these Muslims only constituted the ruling class for a long time and it took several centuries until most of population was fully converted to Islam.

This may b e yet another reason why there are so few defections from Islam compared to Christianity or any other religion. And so this helps to explain the phenomenal growth of Islam through the centuries right up to the present.

Submit or die.

telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/saudiarabia/11431509/Saudi-Arabia-court-gives-death-penalty-to-man-who-renounced-his-Muslim-faith.html

 

[Bahman]

This may b e yet another reason why there are so few defections from Islam compared to Christianity or any other religion. And so this helps to explain the phenomenal growth of Islam through the centuries right up to the present.

Submit or die.

telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/saudiarabia/11431509/Saudi-Arabia-court-gives-death-penalty-to-man-who-renounced-his-Muslim-faith.html

The same rule applies to Christianity as well: accept or go to hell.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

The same rule applies to Christianity as well: accept or go to hell.

Not really.

You are free to choose hell.

It is Islam that chooses death if you choose not to submit.

In no country in the world do Christians behead their own if they do not submit.

 

[SonSearcher]

So you think that Eastern religions are being promoted to undermine Christians in Western countries? But what about the huge promotion of Christianity in many parts of the world by Christian missionaries? Surely they’re not trying to undermine the religions already practiced there are they? We wouldn’t want to undermine the faith of Muslims or adherents of native African religions or Buddhists or Hindus would we?

Me thinks I smell a troll.

 

[Bahman]

Not really.

You are free to choose hell.

It is Islam that chooses death if you choose not to submit.

In no country in the world do Christians behead their own if they do not submit.

What is the difference? In Islam you die and go to hell right away versus in Christianity you go to hell after death! Who said this: “justice delay is justice denial!”

 

[Thorolfr]

This may b e yet another reason why there are so few defections from Islam compared to Christianity or any other religion. And so this helps to explain the phenomenal growth of Islam through the centuries right up to the present.

Submit or die.

telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/saudiarabia/11431509/Saudi-Arabia-court-gives-death-penalty-to-man-who-renounced-his-Muslim-faith.html

As I pointed out in #54 above, many of the Native Americans in Mexico and other parts of Latin America were converted to Christianity by force. So this use of coercion in the conversion process is not something that only happened to some Christians at the hands of Muslims in the Middle East. Also, it is incorrect that all the Christians in the Middle East and North Africa were converted by force. For centuries,more than half of the population in Muslim lands were not Muslims and there have still been significant historical populations of Christians in those areas including the Copts in Egypt and other denominations of Oriental Christians. See, for example, Sidney H. Griffith, The Church in the Shadow of the Mosque: Christians and Muslims in the World of Islam (Princeton University Press, 2010). The blurb in Amazon says about his book:

Amid so much twenty-first-century talk of a “Christian-Muslim divide”–and the attendant controversy in some Western countries over policies toward minority Muslim communities–a historical fact has gone unnoticed: for more than four hundred years beginning in the mid-seventh century, some 50 percent of the world’s Christians lived and worshipped under Muslim rule. Just who were the Christians in the Arabic-speaking milieu of Mohammed and the Qur’an?

The Church in the Shadow of the Mosque is the first book-length discussion in English of the cultural and intellectual life of such Christians indigenous to the Islamic world. Sidney Griffith offers an engaging overview of their initial reactions to the religious challenges they faced, the development of a new mode of presenting Christian doctrine as liturgical texts in their own languages gave way to Arabic, the Christian role in the philosophical life of early Baghdad, and the maturing of distinctive Oriental Christian denominations in this context.

Offering a fuller understanding of the rise of Islam in its early years from the perspective of contemporary non-Muslims, this book reminds us that there is much to learn from the works of people who seriously engaged Muslims in their own world so long ago.

amazon.com/Church-Shadow-Mosque-Christians-Muslims/dp/0691146284/ref=sr_1_14?ie=UTF8&qid=1424811788&sr=8-14&keywords=Christians+under+islam

 

[Magdalena59]

I think this is a question we all deal with at some time or another. I understand is that most all religions believe in the historical facts that there was a person named Jesus who did and said the things he said and did but only one religion believes he is the Son of God, Christianity, and that is the question you need to answer for yourself. Do you believe Jesus is the Son of God? I believe it was one of the videos here on Catholic Answers where Tim Staples explains either Jesus is the Son of God or he isn’t. Christianity says he is the Son of God and the rest of the world and the religions in it say he is not. It can’t be both.

My suggestion would be to study Jesus and his teachings and the historical facts surrounding his life, death and resurrection. Read and learn how he has changed lives and the miracles surrounding his life and those that have happened in peoples lives after his death, when they call on Him.

Pray and ask him to reveal himself to you and to help your confusion. I was once confused too and prayed and asked for his help and he helped me and I am sure he will you also.

What about the religions of Native Americans? Are those also, in your opinion, not comparable to Christianity in terms of being religions and not worthy of respect? The Franciscans who converted the Mayas and other natives in what is now Mexico apparently did not think so. According to Inga Clendinnen, *Ambiguous Conquests: Maya and Spaniard in Yucatan, 1517-1570 *(Cambridge University Press, 1987), pp. 47-48:

I did want to make a comment on this. There are always two sides to every story. Much of the conversion of Mexico did not happen until Our Lady of Guadalupe came. The natives of Mexico at that time were practicing some horrible acts of human sacrifice and the Spanish wanted to bring the love of God and faith in the true God to them. Many ancient manuscripts that the soldiers wrote told of how they could not sleep at night for the horrible things they could hear going on.

The conversions were very slow and many Mexicans refused to convert to Christianity and leave the horrible practices behind until the appearance of Our Lady of Guadalupe and she brought help and then the conversions began to just pour in.

Check out the history of the Black Legend of the Spanish:

catholicism.org/the-black-legend.html

catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=6625

Also, check out the magnificent story of Our Lady of Guadalupe, one of Jesus’ great miracles. Read about her beautiful image on Saint Juan Diego’s tilma.

catholicnewsagency.com/news/god_intervened_through_our_lady_of_guadalupe_to_evangelize_the_americas_explains_guadalupe_expert/

sancta.org/

God bless.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

As I pointed out in #54 above, many of the Native Americans in Mexico and other parts of Latin America were converted to Christianity by force. So this use of coercion in the conversion process is not something that only happened to some Christians at the hands of Muslims in the Middle East.

There is no record of missionaries beheading Native Americans, and the fact of the matter, if you read the account of Junipero Serra’s work in California, is that many of the missionaries taught the Indians they converted many survival skills, including farming and ranching. On the other hand, there is documented evidence of native Americans massacring the missionaries and in some instances, in West Texas, even beheading them and playing ball with their heads.

See my article here:

serralubbock.org/Serra%20USA%20Article.pdf

 

[SonSearcher]

As I pointed out in #54 above, many of the Native Americans in Mexico and other parts of Latin America were converted to Christianity by force. So this use of coercion in the conversion process is not something that only happened to some Christians at the hands of Muslims in the Middle East. Also, it is incorrect that all the Christians in the Middle East and North Africa were converted by force. For centuries,more than half of the population in Muslim lands were not Muslims and there have still been significant historical populations of Christians in those areas including the Copts in Egypt and other denominations of Oriental Christians. See, for example, Sidney H. Griffith, The Church in the Shadow of the Mosque: Christians and Muslims in the World of Islam (Princeton University Press, 2010). The blurb in Amazon says about his book:

amazon.com/Church-Shadow-Mosque-Christians-Muslims/dp/0691146284/ref=sr_1_14?ie=UTF8&qid=1424811788&sr=8-14&keywords=Christians+under+islam

Seriously something smells very trolly 'round here.

 

[Dorothy]

The same rule applies to Christianity as well: accept or go to hell.

We strive to love the Lord with all our heart, soul, and mind, or we can ignore Him and do what we want.

To be without Him who is all Love, is hell. We get to choose.

 

[HelenRose]

When Christians proselytize non-Christians, what do they tell them?
Something along the lines of:
“Convert, for the end is nigh!”
“Repent before it’s too late!”

Proselytizing stands and falls with the belief in God’s wrath.
Without the threat of God’s wrath, there is no point in proselytizing.

You are over generalizing and watch to many movies.

Some Christians may take this approach. It is seldom successful.

It is not the norm. In fact I personally have not seen much of this at all.

 

[Lucy107]

You are over generalizing and watch to many movies.

Ah, how nice of you.

Some Christians may take this approach. It is seldom successful.

It is not the norm. In fact I personally have not seen much of this at all.

Why would anyone proselytize anyone, if not in an effort to threaten them with eternal damnation?

That threat can be verbalized directly, or in more subtle ways.

Saying “I really care about you and I don’t want you to suffer, so I want you to know that God loves you and wants to have a relationship with you” is a veiled threat with eternal damnation.

 

[commenter]

Ah, how nice of you.

Why would anyone proselytize anyone, if not in an effort to threaten them with eternal damnation?

That threat can be verbalized directly, or in more subtle ways.

Saying “I really care about you and I don’t want you to suffer, so I want you to know that God loves you and wants to have a relationship with you” is a veiled threat with eternal damnation.

You yourself are doing something like “proselytizing” on this thread. That doesn’t mean you intend any threat of damnation. The same holds true for Christians. We communicate truths to other people, because truth is what should be communicated. In my Catholic school, we teach Math, for instance, as well as religion. We discourage students from sinning, just as we discourage them from smoking. Both have consequences that could make them unhappy in this life. My religion not only affects how I die, but how I live. The fact that Hell exists is not the centerpoint or emphasis of how I teach students, my children, or strangers I happen to meet, though if they ask I would acknowledge it exists.

 

[Thorolfr]

I’ve always been a little interested in Native American religions, especially those of Mexico and Central America such as the Mayans, and although I can’t say that I would be interested in following these religions, I’m still very disturbed when I read about how many of these Indians were forcibly converted to Christianity. This reflects, I think, the exclusivity of Christianity when compared to some other religions and the triumphalism of many Christians, especially in the past. This attitude is not exclusive to the history of Catholicism since Protestants (including my own Puritan New England ancestors) didn’t really treat Native Americans any better. But over the last week I’ve been reading Inga Clendinnen, Ambivalent Conquest: Maya and Spaniard in Yucatan, 1517-1570 (Cambridge University Press, 1987) and her account of how the Franciscans converted the Mayan Indians in the Yucatan in what is now Mexico to Christianity.

For example, in his “Account of the Things of Yucatan,” Diego de Landa, Bishop of Yucatan from 1571-1579, wrote (p. 70):

These people also make use of certain characters or letters, with which they wrote in their books their ancient matters and their sciences, and by these and by drawings and by certain signs in these drawings they understood their affairs and made others understand and taught them. We found a large number of these books in these characters and, as they contained nothing in which there was not to be seen superstition and lies of the devil, we burned them all, which they regretted to an amazing degree and which caused them great affliction.

In 1561 some years before becoming Bishop of Yucatan, Diego de Landa was elected head (Provincial) of the Franciscans in Yucatan. Shortly after this, it was discovered that some of the Mayan Indians had been secretly keeping some idols from their old religion and Bishop de Landa therefore conducted an inquisition. So, according to a Spanish eyewitness (p. 74):

When the Indians confessed to having so few idols (one, two or three) the friars proceeded to string up many of the Indians, having tied their wrists together with cord, and thus hoisted them from the ground, telling them that they must confess all the idols they had, and where they were. The Indians continued saying they had no more…and so the friars ordered great stones attached to their feet, and so they were left to hang for a space, and if they still did not admit to a greater quantity of idols they were flogged as they hung there, and had burning wax splashed on their bodies.

According to Clendinnen (p. 76):

More than 4,500 Indians were put to the torture during the three months of the inquisition, and an official inquiry later established that 158 had died during or as a direct result of the interrogations. At least thirteen people were known to have committed suicide to escape the torture, while eighteen others, who had disappeared, were thought to have killed themselves. Many more had been left crippled, their shoulder muscles irreparably torn, their hands paralyzed ‘like hooks’.

 

[philipofJMJ]

The only answer can be this: no one can be saved outside of the True Catholic Church. No pagan, no Moslem, no Buddhist, no protestant, no schismatic, no atheist, no one. Even if a non Catholic shed all his blood for his false god, or his false Christ, even if he shed his blood, he cannot be saved, unless, before he die, he become a true Catholic by valid and licit Baptism, and profession of Faith/Abjuration from the Great Apostasy, and to die in the state of grace, repenting of his past sins and heresies,… As well, even true Catholics cannot be saved, unless they seek to live an die in God’s grace, and seek to become holy and perfect as God is Holy and Perfect, and when they die to be in the state of grace. For detailed definition of this and all Catholic dogmas, please go to www.johnthebaptist.us and study, and pray, seek, knock and ask The True Catholic God for His helps. Also please See: “Apostate SSPX Bows to Vatican II Church and Apostate Jews” 2/21/15 – Corrections to RJMI video and audio lecture:

· Apostate SSPX Bows to Vatican II Church and Apostate Jews

I deleted the heresy that sins of omission regarding heresy make offenders suspect heretics. The dogma is that sins of omission regarding heresy make the offenders heretics. I also deleted the part in which I said that those without the use of reason in the SSPX are in the way of salvation. The dogma is that they are outside the Catholic Church, not Catholic, and thus on the road to damnation. (See RJMI book Damned Infants.)…
this is in “What’s New” section, at RJMI site, by RJMI. www.johnthebaptist.us