What the Buddha never told us

[Tab]

They may be still searching, but so are you. The Hindus may be waiting for the next age/round, but you're waiting for the second coming of christ. What if it was found that reincarnation was true? Christianity would have to change. You seem to think just because you have an athropomorphic being at the head of your religion, something tangible, graspable, something that seems more real to your phenomenalistic mind, that yours is the absolute. Quite the opposite my misguided friend.

You also appear to be trying to make the point that Christianity has the absolute truth while the other religions fail. Then explain to me why in the age of such a great absolute faith we have a polar opposite competitor of truth by the name science.
It is merely because modern religion has become so devoid of truth and sense that we have science as the logical, phenomenal counter-truth to religion. You seem to forget, o truth-seeker, that in ancient India science WAS religion and religion WAS science. Not because they were deluded and unintelligent, but because the religion of the Aryans was sufficiently logical and spiritual, it's 'truths' were all encompassing.

[curiousgirl]

sigh.... there are also plenty of people who have given themselves to christ and found only despair.  it depends on the person, what is the right spiritual path for them.  everyone has their own individual needs.  this truth seeker did not find it in "eastern way of life", but there are many who have found what they are looking for in it.  allanon, why don't you go ahead and join beth's discussion on bible interpretation instead of heckling people of other religions?  it's fascinating, and maybe you'll learn something that you need for yourself.  []

[Narrow Path]

quote:sigh.... there are also plenty of people who have given themselves to christ and found only despair. it depends on the person, what is the right spiritual path for them. everyone has their own individual needs. this truth seeker did not find it in "eastern way of life", but there are many who have found what they are looking for in it. allanon, why don't you go ahead and join beth's discussion on bible interpretation instead of heckling people of other religions? it's fascinating, and maybe you'll learn something that you need for yourself.

To put it simply..........

You guys are wrong.

[jilola]

Each seeker of truth will find their own interpretation of it.
That may or may not be something embraced by the extant religions.

J. Christ is for me the default truth of a person raised in the western world. Buddha that of one raised in the eastern. Neither is the absolute as itself.

The truth one seeks should be found within regardless of the surrounding concensus.

2cents & L&L
jouni

[Tab]

quote:Originally posted by Narrow Path

To put it simply..........

You guys are wrong.

oh really? I'm wrong that science and religion exist today and conflict each other? I'm wrong that the ancients needed no distinction between them because both were correct and actually worked together?

Hm. Guess you've been living in a different world than I have.

[Tenacious]

How can we debate with someone who claims everyone is wrong.  I'll ask you, please be open minded on these forums, if you can't do that, why are you here?  Don't come here to pester us, thats not what these forums are for.  You sound like a very unique individual, but do not tell me things of which you have no knowledge of.

-Thank you,

Tenacious[]

[MJ-12]

-vb

[Narrow Path]

Acts 17
31For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead."

[Tab]

Well since you've regressed to threatening bible verses again, I'll throw out some criticizm to the verse.

Think about your concept of judgement. Think about your concept of hell. Think about your concept of heaven. Think about your concept of God.
God is, undoubtedly, the wisest of all, even above all wisdom. Now, he created heaven to be the abode of the righteous, and hell as the abode of the punishable.
Thus, in judgement, based on one's actions and faiths, they are either rewarded for all eternity, or punished for all eternity. Now, just, think about this.
IT MAKES NO SENSE. None! It makes absolutely no sense why God would set up a system where the unfaithful are punished, nonstop, forever. Just ponder the concept of being punished forever for past mistakes. No good at all can come from eternal punishment. It's not like in Hell people are punished and eventually relieved after learning their lesson, they're not, they're just punished eternally. Giving hell no rational purpose whatsoever. Could God, the creator of all, possibly be that stupid? How could the creation exceed the creator in such a simple logical conclusion?

Before you jump on with reasons for why god would do it, take a minute and really analyze the reasons. I have, extensively, and you'll always come up with the conclusion that hell is irrational.

That's food for thought if anything.

[Narrow Path]

I read a book about a Truth seeker once.

In it the writer decided to give himself to the east and to the path of meditation to find the Truth. He spent a couple years at this sect and embraced the eastern way of life in the best way he possible could.

He found only dispair.

All the meditation and all the chants would not give him inner peace. He decided at the end of his stay that there was no Truth and that there was no Way.

He found that the point of life is that there is no point.

Is this what you hope to find by embracing the circular false religons of east? Is this the Noble Truth you so desperately claw for in your projections and meditations?

The Dali Llama was asked a very imporatant question once. "What would it mean to the Buddhist ideology if it was found out that reincarntion was not True?"

He responded that "buddhism would have to change".

There is no rock solid Truth in these new/old age religious belief systems because they are still searching. They are still doing all they can to find the Truth. They are looking for Christ. The Alpha and the Omega. The first and the last that does not change and will not change.

The end result of the searcher is Jesus Christ.

[soma-sight]

Tab,

1 Corinthians 1:19 (King James Version)
 
  19For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.

[Tom]

I'm a very happy Buddhist. When I first read the Four Noble Truths back in 1990 it felt like I had finally found what I was looking for. The whole point behind them was that people make their own suffering and that they can choose to stop doing it. This is not blaming the victim. If people were not responsible for their suffering then it would be outside their power to do anything about it.

[no_leaf_clover]

IT MAKES NO SENSE. None! It makes absolutely no sense why God would set up a system where the unfaithful are punished, nonstop, forever. Just ponder the concept of being punished forever for past mistakes. No good at all can come from eternal punishment. It's not like in Hell people are punished and eventually relieved after learning their lesson, they're not, they're just punished eternally. Giving hell no rational purpose whatsoever. Could God, the creator of all, possibly be that stupid? How could the creation exceed the creator in such a simple logical conclusion?

I don't think Tabs been around for a while, but I totally see where this is coming from and completely agree. Either God is some sick bastard that lets people be tortured eternally for no real purpose.. or else Hell might not be eternal? According to the original versions of the Bible, it's not. Go back to the Greek. There've been some mistranslations.

Hell makes a lot more sense in the Greek version. However, you hardly hear anything about that mistranslation today. Most Christians, that I know of at least, are convinced Hell is eternal and don't really put much thought into it as Tab has, they just blindly accept whatever they are told. There hasn't been a lot of effort put forth by Christian institutions to clear this up, either, simply because an eternal Hell is a lot scarier than a temporary one.


Must be fun to throw around Bible quotes like that XDD So much wisddommm..


Psalm 137:9

"Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones."

[Potential]

Buddhist Proverb,
"Nothing" is greater than God.

Essence of the Prajna Paramita Hydriya Sutra.

[Gandalf]

This 'soma-sight' sounds very much like Exothen and Narrow-path before him.. are they all the same individual i wonder?

Doug

[karnautrahl]

They're trolls .

[Telos]

Gandalf, good observation!

The Dali Llama was asked a very imporatant question once. "What would it mean to the Buddhist ideology if it was found out that reincarntion was not True?"

He responded that "buddhism would have to change".

This was from a famous conversation between Carl Sagan and the Dali Lama and, unfortunately, you left it unfinished. The Dali Lama responded with, "but how are you going to disprove reincarnation?" At which point Sagan acceded that it was indeed difficult to disprove that various spiritual phenomena could exist.

[no_leaf_clover]

This 'soma-sight' sounds very much like Exothen and Narrow-path before him.. are they all the same individual i wonder?

Doug

I noticed and wondered the same thing. Same styles of quoting the Bible, etc. What I'm wondering is why someone would do that, and if they use the same IPs for posting.

[Michael_E]

The Dali Llama was asked a very imporatant question once. "What would it mean to the Buddhist ideology if it was found out that reincarntion was not True?"

He responded that "buddhism would have to change".

many buddhists and other spiritual people see ego boosting as something that should be avoided. One way to do that is by dethroning yourself and your ideas of what you believe as true. Which is what i belive the dalilama was getting at.

Look at it as a way to counter our innate tendencies toward self defense and aggression that have been ingrained in us since we became predators around the paleolithic era. Many people very similarly react in an aggressive way towards their ideology. If you can make a repeated deliberate effort to change this aggression it could be possible to evolve consciousness by thwarting some ego.

[exothen]

karnautrahl,

I certainly am no troll. I post to attempt to dispell all the misconceptions about Christianity and the Bible that are so prevelant around here.

Gandalf,

I certainly am not soma-sight nor narrow path. Life has been extremely busy the last month-and-a-half so I haven't been around, but I will try to agitate you a little more often as things are winding down a wee bit.

I do miss narrow path though...remember, he once believed like all of you but quickly gave it up when he found the truth. And did he ever turn.

[karnautrahl]

If the cap fits...

I am biased on a personal level against those who have what I feel are very narrow beliefs, whether it be christian or muslim, buddhist or closed skeptic.  This is how I am, a creator would not be as closed and as narrow as this in my view. I also believe that life in part is meant for discovery, exploration, sharing and above all perhaps the expression of love through the finding of as complete knowledge of self and all that is as is possible in a lifetime.
Quoting scriptures to me is irrelevant, they mean nothing to me. This is my truth, it is not up to anyone to evangelise any belief system-that to me feels very wrong when it is stated with such certainty.
If I feel one day the bible or other holy books is truth, it will be from my own heart and never because someone managed to persuade me of their viewpoint.

If a creator exists and is real, and wishes me to know them, then without any intermediatories they will make themselves known to me and to all I am sure.

Isn't it true that such creators are said to be omnipotent and omnipresent? If so they need no middle men such as evangelisors, fundementalists and people who simply do not APPEAR to me to think for themselves.

This isn't a nice beautifully structured arguement designed to pierce holes in anyone else's arguement or viewpoint. It is simply a portion of what I personally feel to be true.  

I understand that someone deeply wedded to the bible will refute some statements here with scripture quotes-perhaps that saves thinking? Such as the evangelising thing for example, I'm sure there is a quote or a passage commanding the followers to spread the word and other stuff.

Followers with such intentions are not welcome in my house or my life. Followers of a faith who just accept others how they are, are always welcome.

I understand that it is rare or perhaps impossible when discussing religion for those who hold strong beliefs to decide another opposing viewpoint is right, so I seek not to persuade you of the correctness of my view.  I cannot say that I am correct, I just know in my heart that for me what I say is true and no-one can argue that away from me.  . In other words no-one can be argued out of their faith can they?

Soma-sight appeared to me to be a troll. IMO only.

[Tom]

What it sounded to me like was that there was a specific Buddhist who took up meditation for a couple of years, ended up less happy than before, and is now a reason to say Buddhism is wrong. This person was obviously doing it wrong.

[NickJW]

There is no proof that the bible is real.
I think it is a mere fairytale.
Jesus died in Japan after studying with BUDDHISTS and HINDUS.
Or more likely, Jesus didn't exist at all.
Or maybe he payed a guy to pretend he was blind so it would look like he was someone special.

You see, Christianity has no proof whatsoever.

New Age has more. It is hard to deny OBE's when people hear conversations etc that actually took place.

Putting bible quotes proves nothing. Some random author from 2000 years ago wrote a story. Big deal.

It is possible to be an open minded Christian.
There's no need to discrminate.
But expect it back, if you're gonna discriminate against other people's beliefs.

[markulous]

I don't have an organized religion.  The first "religion" I read about was Buddhism and agree with almost everything in there.  It's a pretty open minded philosophy that leads you on to many paths.  Which lead me to Christ and my belief in him.  There are some things that I don't agree with in the bible and some things that I think need to be more open ended and dynamic but I agree with some stuff too.

I have OBE's and am into metaphysics but I still believe in God and Jesus Christ.  I feel the presence of God and when I pray for something my prayers are usually answered(not ALL the time because God knows whats best for me).  

I think people need to just have a little faith and know that everything doesn't have to appear front of you in a logical pattern for it to be believable.  Why does something have to be "logical" for it to be true?  We are not omnipotent, so a lot of things happen for reasons we can't comprehend.

And like some people have said you can't prove or disprove which way is right.  That being the case just let go of the conflict and let the truth reveal itself.

[karnautrahl]

I finally believe something exists, as I've detailed elsewhere from recent experiences. None of those experiences compel me to get into religion, something I am grateful for. I really don't want to be a part of any one particular faith, even though I'm happy now with the idea of a "higher power" of some description.

That's as much as I need to know actually, along with the fact I know that it's kinda contactable(ish), or at least a sense of touching the smallest part of it perhaps.. Either way, the whole religion debate thing has suddenly felt irrelevant.  Of course it's still fun though .  but I'm gonna feel a whole lot of satisfying very unspiritual ego boost the next time a Jehovah's witness knocks the door and asks me if I've found God...hehe,