Because the Bible says so.
My problem is similar to FriendRob’s.
When Jesus spoke of scripture, He wasn’t talking about the Gospels or the Letters of Paul. After all, they weren’t yet written.
So it seems to me that Christian literalists believe in the inerrancy, not of scripture, but of a group of high priests selected by the Roman Emperor.
H4E: What do you know of the Buddhist scriptures?
I don’t know anything about the Buddhist scriptures. About all I know is they worship somebody named Buddha, I’ve seen statues of a big bellied man sitting with his legs crossed.
They don’t really worship the Buddha, since he isn’t a god – he didn’t create the universe, and he doesn’t rule over it. It’s more that they respect and/or revere the Buddha. Buddhism is typically seen as an atheist religion (or philosophy), since it teaches that the gods, while powerful and long-lived, are still fallible and mortal (i.e. they’re not gods in the Judeo-Christian sense of the word).
Usually the response to this is that since the Bible is God’s word and He wants to have it, councils and other human things would not get in His way. I guess the problem with this for most fundies is that for 1500 years the Roman Catholic Church DID get in the way, by including those books that Martin Luther later realized shouldn’t be there.
loin: Well, Buddhism itself isn’t really concerned with gods or goddesses. The religion (or philosophy, if you prefer) is more concerned with living right.
H4E: It’s amazing to me that you post this comment
not so long after you posted this comment
Both of these are in this very thread. In short, you asserted something you knew that you did not have any knowledge of its veracity. You admit you do not know what the Buddhist scriptures say. Not having that knowledge, you cannot know if those teaching agree with Christianity or not.
Let me make it simple for you: Read some of the stuff you condemn before you decide to condemn it.
As for the NT, Protestants probably do believe that the selection of which precise “books” to include in the anthology was guided by the hand of god and proclaimed (as I mentioned previously) in 392 at the Synod of Hippo. As for the OT, they quote some passage (which escapes me now) about god or Jesus putting the authority of defining the scriptures (OT in this case) with the Jews. Thus they adopt those OT books chosen by the Palestinian faction of Jews in the era following the destruction of the temple. I suppose they could just as easily have used the Alexandrian/Hellenistic faction’s determination, which accepted the deuterocanonicals. Luther probably had some irrational aversion to them, he was after all a paranoid quirky guy by some accounts.
Note also that Jack Chick favors the Palestinian faction with rabid determination over the Alexandrian, going so far as to suggest that the Alexandrian faction was guided by evil forces. Thus his obsession with the KJV over later English versions, because the KJV used the Palestinian manuscripts, while later translations apparently use the Alexandrian. (In addition to his paranoid fantasies about the KJV translators being inspired by god, working in secret to avoid assassination by the RCC, and their subsequent demise at the hands of the RCC, naturally in league with Satan to destroy God’s Holy Word in All it’s Glory.)
I’ve actually never met a Protestant who knew anything at all about the selection of books, other than some vague idea they have that the Catholics use a few “extra” texts. It would be interesting to hear from a Protestant who knew a little about the subject, get that perspective in addition to the Catholic one about which I have seen alot of material on this subject.
**H4E wrote:
I don’t know anything about the Buddhist scriptures. About all I know is they worship somebody named Buddha, I’ve seen statues of a big bellied man sitting with his legs crossed.**
YIPES
Please, please, please, His4Ever, read a good book dealing with comparative religion! I highly recommend Huston Smith’s The World’s Religions. Not only is it informative, but it’s written in a highly readable style. Excellent for the beginning student.
Dr Lao wrote:
I would remind those respondents that Jesus said they do in fact get in the way:
“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the kingdom of heaven in men’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to.” — Jesus Matthew 23:13
Does Buddhism teach that Jesus Christ is the Saviour and that He’s the only way to heaven for everyone? Does Buddhism teach that Jesus died on the cross for our sins and that by trusting in Him we have eternal life? Does Buddhism teach that Jesus is divine? I highly doubt it. And if it doesn’t believe these things, I’ll say in my believe system so as not to irritate, then I don’t agree with it. Same goes with Hinduism, Islam, Rosicricianism, Wiccan, or whatever “ism”, etc.
But why? What makes the Bible (and its attendant belief system) better than all other holy books (and attendant belief systems)?
Are we ever going to get past this “Look, I’m just right, OK?” posturing and actually find out why you believe you’re right, H4E? - that’s what everyone really wants to discover.
But she’s been saying that over and over again.
Because she doesn’t know anything besides her bilble (or how it is explained to her) nor does she want to know.
She has been saying time and again that she is ignorant of other world views, and bible interpretations and is happy to remain ignorant.
She doesn’t want to hear all this stuff that would put her on the ‘slipery slope’ of doubt. Doubt isn’t nice, better to stay in your nice little cocoon.
His4Ever wrote:
Does Republicanism? Buddhism is a philosophy, honey, not a religion.
Hmmm…
Comment: The latter two passages make it clear that Saturday is the Sabbath, and that one should keep it holy.
Comment: In this commandment, bisexuality is obviously prohibited – you can be gay or straight, but pick one; don’t lie with a man as with a woman.
In these three quotes, Bible verses are quoted without context for a result that is completely at odds with the Christian understanding of the text. The point is, of course, that they have to be read in context. (The first quote in fuller form is: “The fool has said in his heart, ‘There is no god.’”)
When one reads the entirety of Scripture, bearing the context of particular passages in mind, one develops a clear sense of the growing understanding of the Jewish people of the mind and intent of a God whose goal was to be paternal towards His chosen people, to show love towards them, in part by a healthy set of rules under which they could develop into a people that would set an example for the rest of the world, and then showing what such a love might mean acted out in the form of a man who lived out God’s intent to the fullest, even to death – and whose example we are called to follow.
When one is called to take Jesus as Savior and Lord, it is not only to accept His offering of Himself as a means whereby god and man are brought out of being at odds with each other into a common life that is more fulfilling and joy-filled, but also to do what He commanded and to follow His example.
The problem I have with the evangelical approach to salvation is not that it says anything wrong per se, but that it superimposes the context of Romano-Germanic criminal law over the top of Jewish covenant law to make us all guilty of capital crimes merely by existing, offers a solution to this problem in a magical system whereby cleansing through blood and ritual rebirth is sublimated into verbal assent to a formula, and stops there. Though we humans are so constituted that ritual plays an important part in how we interact and understand our world, the evangelical stance ignores the greater context of a moral life that is lived for others as well as self, and the virtues of compassion and self-sacrificing love are also ignored except as they are attributed to a Jesus who apparently wasn’t really human (witness the reaction to the idea that He as a boy entering His teens might have had sexual feelings, on the thread that agentfroot started) but some sort of magical super-entity. None of this is a part of what Christianity had said for over 1500 years when the rudiments of the evangelical view first came into play.
H4E, I don’t think anybody here is trying to turn you away from your religion. There are no “tempters” here. All that has been suggested is that you read about what philosophies like Buddhism say. If you don’t agree with it, fine. But when you refuse to even learn, that’s like a child who decides broccoli is bad without even trying it.
FWIW, there are Christian scholars (sorry no cite available, I just know from hearing discussions on Public Radio and Television) who have studied Buddhism and found it to not be incompatible with Christianity.
Besides, how can you comment on Buddhism unless you know what it’s about?
Really.
sigh
And H4E - what I really think you need to take away from this - there are ALSO Christian scholars who have studied other religions and found them incompatible with Christianity :eek: - but the key thing is that they took the time to learn what the heck they were talking about. You’d have a lot more credibility in your arguments if you actually knew what you were talking about when you disagree with other religions.
Mars is on target. I personally reject Islam, but I do that based on a knowledge of what it says and does not say, not because Franklin Graham or Jerry Falwell or Kenneth Vines lies about what it says. (And all three have.)
His4Ever, a gentleman whom I hope you someday come into communication with posts here and on the Pizza Parlor as Longhair75 – he’s a Christian Buddhist, who believes wholeheartedly in Jesus’s redemption of us for our sins, but sees much of Jesus’s teachings as echoing much of what Gautama had to say about learning to take the things of Earth as of little account and seeking not self but the Truth. Though I cannot master his understanding of how they mesh, he’s always struck me as a gentle, compassionate, and saintly individual whose walk with Christ is enhanced, not damaged, by his interest in Buddhism.