Good Morning Gideon,

Pushy Buddhists? Hmmm. Not my sangha. We are as low profile as you can get. Not door knocking, pamphleting, signage, neon lights. Just black robes and a cushion facing a plain wall. No one is ever asked to take the refuges, in fact, it is fairly sdtandard practice to turn people away at least three times. Hardly pushy. What has been your experience?

Be well.

We live on different continents, they could well be completely different where you live. I can't say.

Numbers shouldn't increase or lessen INDIVIDUAL accountability to hold to the tenets of their faith. "But there's more of you" doesn't give you an excuse to be an A***. I mean, there ARE more females than males in the world, right? So should that justify chauvinism? You be the judge.

I've heard that there's a belief out there that both Christianity and Buddhism work well together and I have to say, that's not true. While there are some good teachings from Buddhism that go along with biblical teaching, as a whole the two would not be able to reconcile.




We need to remember that Buddhism came out of Hinduism but unlike Hinduism Buddhism can point to a specific founder. I would have to say there is dogma tho and it comes out of their sacred scriptures which is about 11 times larger than the bible. I do believe that Buddhism as a whole tho is really like Hinduism still, a family of religions rather than a single religion or faith.



It's very clear....... he said I AM the way. I AM the truth, I AM the Life. Not, I'll show you the way. He IS the way. Remember he said, "I AM the door."

The issue should not be whether or not we like this claim, but whether or not it is true. If true, we have two conclusions to follow. One is that we are deceiving ourselves if we think that we can get to God (or heaven) any other way. Second, if we are already following this way (Jesus) we are called to be witnesses to the truth.

When Pilate washed his hands before the soon to be crucified Christ, he asked "What is truth?"

Truth was standing right in front of him.

Gideon,



I agree with you on this, for sure. Yet, there are those who continue to be hypocritical, regardless. It is just the way some people are, or, to couch it in Buddhist terms, it is their nature.

KFC,



This is incorrect. Buddhism came out of India, which is predominantly a Hindu nation but it didn't rise from Hinduism.



I don't know how you can say you believe it to be like Hinduism. Do a little research and you will find it to be very different indeed. To put it in your terms, Christianity could also be viewed as a 'family of religions' too.

Who was justifying it?

Abe,

Well, your answer seems to.

My point was, and is, why we don't hold people of other faiths to the same standard as Christians. Numbers should have nothing to do with it.

Gideon,

I thought the point of your article was to ask why there is more criticism of Christians in America (my assumption, if you meant worldwide please correct me). This is an entirely different question than, "why we don't hold people of other faiths to the same standard as Christians".

The above was the question posted verbatim, which is exactly that question, abe. I didn't think it was that complex when I asked it but obviously it needed more elaboration

The way I've heard it put is that people living at the time had become disillusioned with certain beliefs of Hinduism including the caste system which had grown extremely complex. The number of outcasts was continuing to grow. Many of the Hindu beliefs were met with dread so the people turned to a variety of beliefs including the worship of animals to satisfy this spiritual vacuum. Many diff sects of Hinduism arose with Buddhism being one of the most successful with Siddhartha Gautama as the founder.



I say that because of the many forms it takes. From what I understand (and I'm not an expert here) there is a wide variety of belief in the diff sects with much that is contradictory. There is so so many forms within Buddhism (literally hundreds of forms) that's why I called it a family of religions rather than a single religion.

Obviously.



What are you talking about? You did exactly that in this very article. Are you saying you are the only one to have ever done so? Of course you aren't. You are saying you just don't hear about it very much. Why? Because there aren't very many people of other faiths in this country (comparatively).

I was being sarcastic. Of the people that read this, you are the only one who struggled with comprehension, Abe. That would tend to indicate a problem at your end, not mine.



No, I asked a question. I stated that the very same things are true of EVERY faith, yet they are pointed out in Christians.

I asked a question, abe. A valid one.



That's funny. I'll have to tell all of the Jews, Buddhists, Muslims and Unitarians I know that they don't exist.

No! Really? (hint: I was responding with sarcasm to your sarcasm when I said "obviously").



Oh, I see! You were making statements, not criticisms. So nobody else has ever made these "statement" other than you? When others make these same "statements" about Christianity those are criticisms, right?



And you accuse me of a reading comprehension problem?

Ya know what, abe? I've tried and tried to get around you just being a troll. You're simply picking arguments for the sake of making them.

Attack the issue, not the person. I don't care if you hate my guts, leave it behind when you comment on my blog or I'll deny you that privilege.

You have an interesting take on the issues, one that I'd like to keep listening to. But you're going to have to address the issues more directly or I don't want to hear it. You completely missed the question, then spun it around to suit your needs.

Read my blog or don't read it. It makes no difference. But let's not get TOO far off the mark in our rebuttals, shall we?

Your response in #23 was way off target, Abe. That wasn't even CLOSE to the question I asked. Yet you asked it that way because you wanted to see it.

I don't hate you Gideon. If I did, I wouldn't try to have discussions with you. If you didn't like the tone of my responses, then you should first look at how you responded to me.

Well, sometimes it appears as if you come in to play devil's advocate. Honestly, I followed you up until the aforementioned response #23...because that was way off what I said.

My point was and is that, while the charges against Christians are true, they are truths that are equally true of every other faith on the planet. So why single out Christians? I don't think it has to do with population, honestly, I think it has more to do with a higher standard being expected of Christians, which leaves me asking the question "why"?

And Sodaiho, my reference to Buddhism wasn't to single it out above all of the other faiths, but to offer a reference to a faith where I have seen the exact same behavior, inconsistent with the tenets of the faith. You may be justified in feeling that Buddhism is not a "faith" (although your argument DOES echo that of Christians who insist Christianity is not a "religion", whether you want it to or not), but the fact is, there are teachings that are true of Buddhism, teachings that aren't held by a good number of people who profess to be Buddhists. Now, MY answer to that is because there are "pretenders" to the Buddhist faith, just as there are "pretenders" to the Christian faith. And those pretenders are in no way representative of the faith. I think we could agree on that, could we not?

The point I've been trying to make here is that when Christians point out that there are pretenders to the faith, most people who ask about Christian hypocrites don't accept that. In my personal experience (and not in any study based on anything remotely scientific), the number one excuse people give for not attending church is that "it's full of hypocrites". I've never once heard them say that about ANY other faith.