[QUOTE=Chimera]
That being said, there is no point in attacking others for their beliefs. It doesn’t serve any purpose but to feed your own need for drama and offense, which is ultimately about your own need for attention and anger, and not anything to do with the other person’s beliefs or their person.
[/QUOTE]
Really, Sigmund fucking Freud? Tell me more about my personal need for attention and anger. Is it because my mommy saw my pee-pee when I was 2?
I didn’t attack anybody for their religion. I don’t even know what his religion is. I corrected a misstatement of fact. If that displeases you, perhaps a message board dedicated to fighting ignorance is not for you.
[QUOTE=Don’t Call Me Shirley]
Actually, it doesn’t go without saying, because christians don’t believe in personal accountability. The entire religion is based upon somebody else paying the price for their sins.
[/QUOTE]
Well I don’t desire to really debate the issue. With that said, yes Christianity states that Jesus paid the price of sin, but Christians are still responsible for not sinning, and we still suffer the effects and consequences of sin, especially if unrepentant.
The way I think about is that when you sin, you sin against a person and against God. The person part is easy, but how can God forgive you? If He just brushes it off, then He’s not just. Somebody has to pay the price, but what possible price can be paid to bridge the gap between humanity and God? I suppose some sort of system of micro-justice could have been arranged; I’m not an expert theologian. In any case, Jesus’ sacrifice makes it so repentance leads the way to salvation.
That minor witnessing probably rattled a hornets’ nest. Oh well.
[QUOTE=Don’t Call Me Shirley]
Really, Sigmund fucking Freud? Tell me more about my personal need for attention and anger. Is it because my mommy saw my pee-pee when I was 2?
I didn’t attack anybody for their religion. I don’t even know what his religion is. I corrected a misstatement of fact. If that displeases you, perhaps a message board dedicated to fighting ignorance is not for you.
[/QUOTE]
You did not correct a misstatement of fact - you tossed out a hand grenade of bullshit into the thread.
[QUOTE= Chimera]
See, that isn’t entirely correct. It’s a double standard buy-in that completely avoids the idea of personal responsibility.
1> Everyone is damned to an eternity of suffering for their sins, no matter how great or small. Since Original Sin is not a choice, personal accountability doesn’t enter into the equation. You’re fucked just by being born. Period.
2> Unless you buy-in (accept Jesus), in which case you’re off the hook.
[/QUOTE]
See, that isn’t entirely correct.
No one is damned to an eternity of suffering at all, and even if you do accept Jesus, the obligation BEGINS there, it doesn’t stop there.
[QUOTE=Don’t Call Me Shirley]
Really, Sigmund fucking Freud? Tell me more about my personal need for attention and anger.
[/QUOTE]
Self referential posting, eh?
No, you didn’t necessarily do that and I apologize if you read my post as if to accuse you. It was a general statement on my part for everyone, not targeting any particular person.
[QUOTE=Chimera]
And yet, most Christian denominations teach that failure to accept Jesus/The Church leads to eternal damnation.
[/QUOTE]
I’m Catholic. The Church is clear that only those who meet certain criteria (e.g. accept Jesus/drink His blood/) will be saved (e.g. enjoy life after death), nowhere does it say that failing to do so will lead to eternal damnation. That’s quite a distinction.
The first Noble Truth preached by the Buddha is that life is suffering. The rest of the Noble Truths explain how you escape from it - by realizing that suffering is inevitably caused by attachment and sensual cravings (Noble Truth #2), that relinguishing such cravings and attachments leads to the end of suffering (N.T #3), and that the way to do this is to follow the Buddhist eightfold path (N.T. #4).
Proclaiming it as “realism” just means that you happen to believe it. Which is fine. To me it seems that it may well be true, at least in part. But it is certainly a very pessimistic philosophy, and the sort of thing one could well wish were not true, if it was. I do not however think it totally true - attachments can be bad and good.
I won’t get into the comparison with Christianity, as I’m not Christian, though I will say that the notion of a universe composed of suffering isn’t incompatible with what I understand of Original Sin - both religions are essentially saying that you are literally in a world of hurt unless you follow the religion, only Buddhism does not require a god to impose said hurt - the world just naturally is like that.
[/QUOTE]
I tend to think of “suffering” in this context, as strife. I think it’s a bad translation.
[QUOTE=devilsknew]
I tend to think of “suffering” in this context, as strife. I think it’s a bad translation.
[/QUOTE]
I was once told by an Eastern Religion prof who was familar with Pali, that the best translation of the 1st Noble Truth would be that “Life is unsatisfactory.”
[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic]
That karma thing is not inherent to Buddhist philosophy, by the way. It got incidentally imported from Hinduism in some strains, but it’s not a necessary Buddhist belief.
[/QUOTE]
I sure hope not, because I’ll probably be reborn as a pig and then Anthony Bourdain will eat me.
[QUOTE=acsenray]
My hypothesis, which, yeah, is entirely speculative, is that if it were entirely up to them, Hindu Gujaratis would prefer not to stock bibles in all their guest rooms and they don’t view them exactly the same way as travel brochures. If you accept that, then coercion is almost necessary for things to come out the way they do.
[/QUOTE]
Coercion is a pretty strong word, don’t you think? I’m sure that all businesses do things that they would otherwise not do in order to please customers. I would rather lie on the beach and drink instead of going to work, but in order to make a decent living for my family I have to run my business in a responsible manner and a large part of that is responding to the wishes of my customers.
If that means I own a hotel and my customers would be turned away if I tell the Gideons that they can’t leave Bibles in the rooms (even if the customers don’t read the Bibles) then I better damn well let the Gideons leave them. That’s a good business decision; hardly coercion.
[QUOTE=devilsknew]
I tend to think of “suffering” in this context, as strife. I think it’s a bad translation.
[/QUOTE]
Whether “suffering”, “strife” or “unsatisfactory”, the message is similar - it is something worth escaping from, a state of being that is, in effect, not good. Hence the other three Noble Truths, which point out the cause of this situation and how to remedy it.
To my mind, ignoring for a second the mythological format, this isn’t all that different from some forms of Christianity - the message, at its most basic, is that you as an individual are in a bad state (even if you don’t realize it); and that the religion holds the answers as to how to remedy it - by following the way of either Jesus or the Buddha.
They differ of course in the origins of this unsatisfactory state - in Christianity it is the Fall of Man, derived from the Adam & Eve myth; to Buddhists, it is just the way the universe is structured. Buddhism is generally uninterested in origin myths.
[QUOTE=jtgain]
Coercion is a pretty strong word, don’t you think? I’m sure that all businesses do things that they would otherwise not do in order to please customers. I would rather lie on the beach and drink instead of going to work, but in order to make a decent living for my family I have to run my business in a responsible manner and a large part of that is responding to the wishes of my customers.
If that means I own a hotel and my customers would be turned away if I tell the Gideons that they can’t leave Bibles in the rooms (even if the customers don’t read the Bibles) then I better damn well let the Gideons leave them. That’s a good business decision; hardly coercion.
[/QUOTE]
I stated in my hypothesis that the vast majority of hotel guests wouldn’t notice or care that there was no bible in the room. So I’m assuming that there is no significant customer demand.
[QUOTE=acsenray]
I stated in my hypothesis that the vast majority of hotel guests wouldn’t notice or care that there was no bible in the room. So I’m assuming that there is no significant customer demand.
[/QUOTE]
The customer demand is not for Bibles in the hotel room. The customer demand would be for allowing the Gideons to place the Bibles in the hotel rooms.
In other words, there are a significant number of people who may never open a Bible, but have an overall favorable view or it, and would look down upon a hotel owner that didn’t allow the Gideons to place them..
