Suffering is certainly central to Christianity. The goal of Christianity is salvation from suffering and death, which is also the goal of Platonism and Buddhism. — Apollodorus
Life is painful due to ignorance and sin (i.e., wrong conduct). This is what motivates all three traditions to engage in ethical conduct and seek higher knowledge.
I don’t think scholars need to personally practice any of these systems in order to identify parallels between their intellectual frameworks.
If you happen to live in Eastern Europe it is probably correct to say that non-European systems there are not in general highly regarded. But in the West the reverse is often the case, especially in large cities across the English-speaking world.
I don’t think scholars need to personally practice any of these systems in order to identify parallels between their intellectual frameworks.
This assumes that it is possible to ascertain the truth of a religion without practicing it.
It's not clear how such is in fact possible. And if it is, it means religion is nothing more but a process of going through the motions. — baker
Christianity threatens with eternal suffering -- eternal suffering -- everyone who fails to pick the right religion in this lifetime.
It takes more imagination than I have to portray that as being concerned with "salvation from suffering and death". — baker
Such as by reading Machiavelli?
— baker
Of course. The West has never produced anything other than Machiavelli. — Apollodorus
And India does not have its own Machiavellis.
Western spirituality has no equivalent to (serial) rebirth or reincarnation, thus making a person limited to what they have here and now and to what they can do here and now.
— baker
Not true.
Some are reborn in the womb, those who are wicked in the underworld, the righteous go to heaven, those who are pollutant-free are emancipated (Dhammapada 22.1)
This is exactly what Plato is saying in his dialogues like the Phaedo:
The impure souls wander until the time when they are bound again into a body by their desire for the corporeality that follows them around (81e).
The soul that has performed an impure act, by engaging in unjust killings or perpetrating other similar deeds goes to the lower regions of Hades where it suffers every deprivation until certain lengths of time have elapsed and the soul is by necessity born into the dwellings suitable for it (108c; 114a).
On the other hand, each soul that has passed through its life both purely and decently receives Gods as companions and as guides alike, and then dwells in the region appropriate to it (108c).
The pure soul goes off into what is similar to it, the unseen, the divine, immortal and wise, where after its arrival it can be happy, separated from wandering, unintelligence, fears, and other human evils ... (81a).
Platonism of course places less emphasis on reincarnation than Buddhism and Hinduism.
But this is exactly what one would expect from a system that focuses on liberation.
This is one of the reasons why I think that Buddhism’s ability to create an ideal society is more wishful thinking than reality.
The way I see it, in order to find spirituality you need to be spiritual yourself. In which case you will tend to find spirituality wherever you are.
Realistically speaking, “Nirvana” or whatever we choose to call it, is either (a) unattainable (which is the case in the vast majority)
or (b) it is attainable through meditation or introspection.
If (b), then Nirvana or enlightenment cannot be something distant, or different, from the meditator. If it is experienced, then there must be an experiencer. And the experiencer is the consciousness that gradually disengages itself from lower forms of experience until it experiences itself.
We may not be in a position to say what is beyond that, but I think all forms of meditation, Platonist, Buddhist, or Hindu, must logically lead to a point where consciousness experiences itself qua consciousness, i.e., not thoughts or consciousness of things.
If we posit a reality other than consciousness, we need to explain what that reality is, which is an impossible task especially in non-materialist terms. Even if we were to deny the existence of consciousness we would merely confirm it, as consciousness is needed to conceive that denial.
Or it means that religions are explanatory systems around which rituals and practices are constructed, and as such one can compare their explanatory structures from a critical distance.
— Joshs
I refer to the emic-etic distinction. — baker
I'm no expert but there are earlier Christians traditions of universalism - all people will be saved and no one burned. Hell being a more recent idea in the history of Christianity. David Bentley Hart writes a lot about universalism and the early beliefs from patristic sources. If you read Christian writers like Father Richard Rohr, Thomas Merton, Cynthia Bourgeault (and Hart) you can see there were and remain other traditions utterly opposed to the judgmental, punishing, evangelizing tradition so well known to us all. Contemplative prayer (essentially mediation) plays a big role in this expression of Christianity, along with allegorical readings of scripture (which Hart maintains were the original readings in most cases). — Tom Storm
You think you can have insider knowledge without being an insider? — baker
I think you can have better than insider knowledge by subsuming insider thinking within a more encompassing framework that transcends its limitations. Lapsed Catholics , former cult members and reformed drug addicts are examples. — Joshs
Karl Rahner accepted the notion that without Christ it was impossible to achieve salvation, but he could not accept the notion that people who have never heard of Jesus would be condemned"
"Anonymous Christianity" means that a person lives in the grace of God and attains salvation outside of explicitly constituted Christianity. A Protestant Christian is, of course, "no anonymous Christian"; that is perfectly clear. But, let us say, a Buddhist monk (or anyone else I might suppose) who, because he follows his conscience, attains salvation and lives in the grace of God; of him I must say that he is an anonymous Christian; if not, I would have to presuppose that there is a genuine path to salvation that really attains that goal, but that simply has nothing to do with Jesus Christ. But I cannot do that. And so if I hold if everyone depends upon Jesus Christ for salvation, and if at the same time I hold that many live in the world who have not expressly recognized Jesus Christ, then there remains in my opinion nothing else but to take up this postulate of an anonymous Christianity. — WIkipedia, Anonymous Christian
The basic principle that we are aware of anything, not as it is in itself unobserved, but always and necessarily as it appears to beings with our particular cognitive equipment, was brilliantly stated by Aquinas when he said that ‘Things known are in the knower according to the mode of the knower’ (S.T., II/II, Q. 1, art. 2). And in the case of religious awareness, the mode of the knower differs significantly from religion to religion. And so my hypothesis is that the ultimate reality of which the religions speak, and which we (Christians) refer to as God, is being differently conceived, and therefore differently experienced, and therefore differently responded to in historical forms of life within the different religious traditions. — John Hick, Who or What is God
You seem to have missed the point. If it can be established that Christianity originally was not about suffering or punishment in the way you describe, that would be a noteworthy contribution. — Tom Storm
I see you fishing around for early Buddhist accounts to get close to the original meaning, so how is this different?
I'm wondering if you explored the similarities between contemplative prayer and meditation and if you have any observations on this. — Tom Storm
Religious truth is...a species of practical knowledge. Like swimming, we cannot learn it in the abstract; we have to plunge into the pool and acquire the knack by dedicated practice. Religious doctrines are a product of ritual and ethical observance, and make no sense unless they are accompanied by such spiritual exercises as yoga, prayer, liturgy and a consistently compassionate lifestyle. Skilled practice in these disciplines can lead to intimations of the transcendence we call God, Nirvana, Brahman or Dao. Without such dedicated practice, these concepts remain incoherent, incredible and even absurd. — Karen Armstrong
Going anywhere near Christianity, one has to deal with the issue of eternal damnation one way or another. — baker
Hence the supremacy of the emic. — baker
You think taking failed insiders, who are therefore not insiders (anymore) at all, are the best source of insider knowledge??
That's like saying that college drop-outs are the best sources on what college is like and what it is supposed to be like. — baker
You can bet that in Buddhist cultures there will be some monks who will teach that Christians and Muslims are all doomed for the Buddhist Avici hell unless they convert. Fundamentalism is cross-cultural. — Wayfarer
Hence the supremacy of the emic.
— baker
For those who haven't encountered it, 'In anthropology, folkloristics, and the social and behavioral sciences, emic and etic refer to two kinds of field research done and viewpoints obtained: emic, from within the social group (from the perspective of the subject) and etic, from outside (from the perspective of the observer.
But the situation of today's global culture tends to blur that distinction.
I'm not meaningfully Buddhist in any ethnic or even cultural sense, so am an 'outsider', like a lot of Western people who have encountered Buddhism through popular books and visiting teachers. And I'm often suspicious of Westerners who adopt Buddhist cultural trappings as it so easily seems like pretence.
For many people, this means that they are facing the prospect of not accomplishing much and dying miserable. Hardly something to look forward to. — baker
It's for the academic writing a study that the emic-etic distinction is final, has a sense of finality. — baker
I'm interested in the descriptions of contemplative prayer as per Rohr's accounts - where there are no words, no request is made, no ideas are formed - it is about emptying the mind - a focus on union with higher consciousness — Tom Storm
Christianity threatens with eternal suffering -- eternal suffering -- everyone who fails to pick the right religion in this lifetime. — baker
I generally dislike the term "spiritual", "spirituality". I do not consider myself "spiritual". I feel sickened if I read about "spirituality". — baker
My only interest is in the Pali Canon, and because of this, I'm actually resented by Easterners and Westerners alike. — baker
The way I see it, Christianity does not "threaten" anyone. It is simply stating what it believes to be a fact, namely that those who do not follow a path of ethical or righteous conduct will suffer in the next life. — Apollodorus
If the Buddhism of the Pali suttas "is not concerned with creating a society at all", then it has little practical value — Apollodorus
If I'm not mistaken, someone mentioned the phrase "Red Guard" in connection with your comments — Apollodorus
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