C. S. Lewis has pointed out that one important difference between Christianity and other religions is that Christianity gives us the bad news right up front, while others do not; some ignore it, some conceal it or even deny it. Then Christianity follows with the good news while others leave us to work that out for ourselves.

The challenge results from the fact that life in human communities teaches lessons which make both the bad news and the good news hard to believe. I think much of the conflict involving Christians derives from the fear that the bad news may be true but the good news may be too good to believe.

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I respect C. S. Lewis. However, your statement is the sort of overstatement and distortion that drives me up the wall. Buddhism begins with the bad news.

Blaise (imported) wrote: Thu Sep 29, 2005 1:03 pm I respect C. S. Lewis. However, your statement is the sort of overstatement and distortion that drives me up the wall. Buddhism begins with the bad news.

Sorry you found my post objectionable. I thought I made it clear that I was paraphrasing Lewis; I claim no knowledge of Buddhism on my own.

It is certainly possible that I misunderstood Lewis in the first place or just do not correctly remember what he wrote. If you know of somewhere in his works where he made a statement more to your liking I would be grateful for the reference.

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No, I apologize to you. I do not find your post objectionable. Lewis is a fine apologist. There is nothing wrong in essence with being an apologist.

I usually refrain from taking part in discussions about religion. I barely know anything about Christianity and even much less about other religions. Please forgive my hasty response to your post.

Buddhism does begin with the human condition and the suffering inherent in being a human being. In that sense, the quotation is mistaken.

Religions do not necessarily share the same outlooks or answer the same questions. They may have congruent patterns, but different forms. I hesitate to build a defense of one religion by denigrating another one. However, an effective apologist might do just that.

kb57z (imported) wrote: Fri Sep 23, 2005 12:15 pm I don't think it's so much anti-Judaic, as anti-narrow-minded-"fundamental 'Christian'"-hypocrisy. The Jews do not, in general, think that everyone else should do things their way.

That's because Jews don't think everyone can really even be Jewish. Judaism has a very distinct us versus them thing, where they think they are chosen to sort of take care of the rest of us. The one good side effect of that view though is that they don't therefore invest much in trying to convert people.

Christianity emphasizes one thing that I feel makes it a bit more progressive than Islam or Judaism -- the focus on forgiveness, turning the other cheek, and meek inheriting the earth is strongest in Christians. Both Islam and Judaism tend a bit more toward the eye for an eye mentality. The effect of Christian forgiveness is seen in how there is little real animosity between US and Britain despite bloody revolution, and little real animosity between North and South after an extremely bloody civil war. In almost every other culture, such wars would still stir deep feuds.

Buddhism of course also has a lot of forgiveness, but overall it is quite a nilistic religion and requires very abstract perspective. It is a difficult mindset for most Westerners to get into.

Taoism is very pragmatic and emphasizes naturalness. I probably am most sympathetic to Taoist philosophy. Unfortunately, the cryptic nature of most of the Taoist texts makes it inaccessible to many.

Atheism and Agnosticism are logical conclusions from science, but if we're really just a collection of molecules that obey unchangeable physical laws how does science explain our subject perception of awareness? Somehow, science does not quite satisfy our search for meaning and wellbeing.

SplitDik (imported) wrote: Thu Sep 29, 2005 9:57 pm Atheism and Agnosticism are logical conclusions from science, but if we're really just a collection of molecules that obey unchangeable physical laws how does science explain our subject perception of awareness? Somehow, science does not quite satisfy our search for meaning and wellbeing.

SplitDik,

Actually, there is good scientific evidence for a Creator. One scientist was converted on the basis of studying haloes from radioactive material in granite. He concluded the granite must have "poofed" into existence.

I could go on and on since it's been an area of personal interest (was instrumental in my conversion), but that would be thread drift (and would start a never-ending controversy).

bryan (imported) wrote: Fri Sep 30, 2005 10:29 am Actually, there is good scientific evidence for a Creator. One scientist was converted on the basis of studying haloes from radioactive material in granite. He concluded the granite must have "poofed" into existence.

You are getting perilously close to the bit in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy about the Babelfish - you stick one in your ear and it works as an instantaneous universal translator. It is so obviously impossible for the babelfish to evolved that it must have been Created. However, this "proof" of the existence of a Creator is directly contradictory to the concept that the existence of the Creator cannot be proved. Therefore the existence of the babelfish is actually a proof against the existence of a Creator!

Pure Hokum, but it does point up the intellectual 'dry rot' at the heart of 'Intelligent Design', which is that ID is a matter of belief, not of science.

For all the hoohah, Evolution is not in conflict with the Bible, unless you believe that a document written in English in the early 17th century by a set of scholars with a particular slant on the theology accurately represents the totality of a story set more than 3000 years earlier and not even written down for 1000 years.

Evolution does not require the existence of a Creator, but equally you can't use it to argue against the occasional angel popping in to apply a bit of 'supernatural selection' to nudge things in the desired direction. After all, Genesis contains several subtle examples of this, (such as global floods and BBQd cities.) It's all a matter of what you want to believe.

It's when you start trying to teach theology as 'science' that you get onto the slippery slope that leads to the imposition of somebody's set of beliefs on everyone.

bryan (imported) wrote: Fri Sep 30, 2005 10:29 am I could go on and on since it's been an area of personal interest (was instrumental in my conversion), but that would be thread drift (and would start a never-ending controversy).

kb57z (imported) wrote: Fri Sep 30, 2005 11:21 am For all the hoohah, Evolution is not in conflict with the Bible

[or Creator].

Well, I agree that science doesn't dis-prove a Creator, in fact The Big Bang kinda sounds like something a god would do. However, science leaves very little room for free will. If we're really a collection of molecules obeying physical laws, then we actually have no choice in life. I understand chaos theory allows for some interesting things to happen, but still overall science doesn't give any meaning to one's life -- yet people feel that they need meaning.

From a scientific point of view, each of us is only one of 6 billion people on one of billions of planets in the universe and we exist for only one billionth of the universe's timescale -- that perspective makes us insignificant. Yet the way we perceive life is almost entirely the opposite. Science is extremely useful but doesn't totally satisfy.

SplitDik (imported) wrote: Fri Sep 30, 2005 10:47 pm Well, I agree that science doesn't dis-prove a Creator, in fact The Big Bang kinda sounds like something a god would do. However, science leaves very little room for free will. If we're really a collection of molecules obeying physical laws, then we actually have no choice in life. I understand chaos theory allows for some interesting things to happen, but still overall science doesn't give any meaning to one's life -- yet people feel that they need meaning.

From a scientific point of view, each of us is only one of 6 billion people on one of billions of planets in the universe and we exist for only one billionth of the universe's timescale -- that perspective makes us insignificant. Yet the way we perceive life is almost entirely the opposite. Science is extremely useful but doesn't totally satisfy.

So, what does satisfy religion-wise?

How about this?...

How about an Iraqi insurgent wearing Nike tennis shoes, old jeans made in mainland China, fruit of the loom underwear, a T-shirt bought in France at Disney World that says "Mickey Mouse" who was born in Pakistan but who was educated in American but trained in Afghanistan driving a Japanese car bought with Saudi Arabian money that is wired with American blasting caps and Russian manufactured C-6 to connected to South Korean batteries into a crowd of Iraqi civilians and blowing them all up by tripping an ignition switch that was made in Japan, just so that he can make Iraq safe for Islam, remove all of the traces of infidels and their products from Iraq and go to paradise (Heaven) so that he can have sex all day long with 72 perpetual virgins?

There, now, better dead than infidel... Kind of reminds you of the old American battle cry "kill them all and let God sort them out." Except, in the American version, there is no sex in heaven because we will all be too busy fighting each other.

...Ah!, YES! The paradise that we all seek, no?"

A-1

A-1 (imported) wrote: Sat Oct 01, 2005 12:05 pm So, what does satisfy religion-wise?

How about this?...

How about an Iraqi insurgent wearing Nike tennis shoes, old jeans made in mainland China, fruit of the loom underwear, a T-shirt bought in France at Disney World that says "Mickey Mouse" who was born in Pakistan but who was educated in American but trained in Afghanistan driving a Japanese car bought with Saudi Arabian money that is wired with American blasting caps and Russian manufactured C-6 to connected to South Korean batteries into a crowd of Iraqi civilians and blowing them all up by tripping an ignition switch that was made in Japan, just so that he can make Iraq safe for Islam, remove all of the traces of infidels and their products from Iraq and go to paradise (Heaven) so that he can have sex all day long with 72 perpetual virgins?

There, now, better dead than infidel... Kind of reminds you of the old American battle cry "kill them all and let God sort them out." Except, in the American version, there is no sex in heaven because we will all be too busy fighting each other.

...Ah!, YES! The paradise that we all seek, no?"

A-1

Obviously martyrdom DOES satisfy some people's sense of belonging and meaning. If we want to avoid that sort of association of martyrdom with meaning we have to give people a good substitute. The person you described above has sampled materialism and still needs to go out and do something "big". We need to think about this as a society ...