Any Buddhist here?

[Trolly]

I don't wanna start a war, but I'm a big Christian, and I'm fairly sure this is wrong:

Jesus and Moses peace be upon them were all muslims

If they were Muslims, they would've said so. Saying Jesus is Muslim seems pretty ludicrous to me as well.

Otherwise, I have no quarrel, Muslims' religious beliefs are incredibly similar to Christians'. The history in the religions is pretty intertwined too. Guess we'll see who got it right when we're dead aha

.

QUOTEPeople mould their religious texts around their views, not vice versa.

Anyone who does that (and you're right, a lot of people do do that), isn't following their religion correctly. Religious texts give you definitive rules in pretty much all areas. For example, in the Bible, it pretty much clearly says gay sex is not right (when the guy asks to have sex with the men in a house, it is said to be unnatural and that he is a sinner). Those who say there's an ambiguity here and think they (when I say they, I mean Christians) can say gay sex is okay is blatantly defying what the Bible says.

Those who "mould their religious texts around their views" are clearly doing it wrong.

Anyway, yeah, probably best if we don't go into some long debate/argument right now.

 

[Extreme Coder]

I don't wanna start a war, but I'm a big Christian, and I'm fairly sure this is wrong:

Jesus and Moses peace be upon them were all muslims

If they were Muslims, they would've said so. Saying Jesus is Muslim seems pretty ludicrous to me as well.

Otherwise, I have no quarrel, Muslims' religious beliefs are incredibly similar to Christians'. The history in the religions is pretty intertwined too. Guess we'll see who got it right when we're dead aha

.

QUOTEPeople mould their religious texts around their views, not vice versa.

Anyone who does that (and you're right, a lot of people do do that), isn't following their religion correctly. Religious texts give you definitive rules in pretty much all areas. For example, in the Bible, it pretty much clearly says gay sex is not right (when the guy asks to have sex with the men in a house, it is said to be unnatural and that he is a sinner). Those who say there's an ambiguity here and think they (when I say they, I mean Christians) can say gay sex is okay is blatantly defying what the Bible says.

Those who "mould their religious texts around their views" are clearly doing it wrong.

Anyway, yeah, probably best if we don't go into some long debate/argument right now.

That's true.. The internet isn't for religious discussions, it's for.. some other reasons

 

[BlueStar]

Anyone who does that (and you're right, a lot of people do do that), isn't following their religion correctly. Religious texts give you definitive rules in pretty much all areas. For example, in the Bible, it pretty much clearly says gay sex is not right (when the guy asks to have sex with the men in a house, it is said to be unnatural and that he is a sinner). Those who say there's an ambiguity here and think they (when I say they, I mean Christians) can say gay sex is okay is blatantly defying what the Bible says.

Then how come there are so many different sects within Christianity, all of which believe they are interpreting the bible correctly? From when you chose the translation of the bible youa re going to follow you make a choice. If you've ever seen two fan subs of the same anime you'll know that translating text is not simply a matter of transposing words which mean the exact same thing, there's a huge amount of inference in the word you choose, which means it can lose meaning or take on other meanings. Is the commandment "Thou shalt not kill" or "Thou shalt not murder" for example?

Gay sex is ranked up there with eating shellfish and wearing clothes of more than one fibre in the bible, but people look at other parts of the bible to justify which parts of it to take more seriously than others. There are people who think that homosexuality, something which was never spoken about by Jesus, is a bigger sin than some of those things directly condemned by the big J himself.

QUOTEActually, we can't change the Quran at all. The way the Quran is right now, is the same way it always was, if that's what you meant by mould.

In the case of the Quran, there aren't problems with translations but there are with interpretations - and not just amongst extremists, there are many different moderate sects with very different views on what muslims are told by their Quran, both the trivial and the critical. What I mean by moulding the text around their views is this - as a moderate, peaceful muslim, if I were to produce war-like, scaremongering quotes from the Quran (which I'm sure you've had people pull on you before) your first instinct would be to try and look at the passages around it, put it in a context where it will fit in with your view of what the Quran is - a book of peace. If however I were to demonstrate passages of the Quran which do extol the virtues of peace and tolerance, you probably wouldn't feel the need to do this and would accept it at face value. And people with a more extreme view of Islam would do the opposite, they would be able to find ways to frame the passages to support their argument. We see in some countries Imams calling for a ban on the owning of pets, and they back this with the teachings of the Quran and ideas about dogs being unclean animals. But the more moderate voices in the political process can also cite the Quran - showing how the Prophet Mohammed showed such kindness to animals as to cut away part of his clothing rather than wake a cat which was lying on it.

 

[oliebol]

I used to believe in god, but when I got a subject about that at History class I suddenly thought that it's kinda weird. So now I believe in myself

 

[UltraMagnus]

eh, I used to be, but its just too difficult for an arachnophobe....

nowadays I don't really have a clue what I am, I don't believe in anything specific, but still consider myself spiritual, so I just call myself ignostic

 

[jaxxster]

is there any books i could pick up about the subject? Im not planning on becoming devoute, just wanted to get a more indepth idea about it all.

 

[gizmo_gal]

Sites like Yahoo!Search and Google are your friendly internet tour guides. They are your virtual slaves and will serve you at any hour on any day and in all types of weather. They come when beckoned as quickly as your internet connection will allow. They never tire and never sleep, you dont have to pay them--heck, you can partner up with'em and get paid yourself--they dont ask for weekends or want days of just because someone died. They never steal the pens from your desk and they dont get impaitient with you. They are are the perfect servants and slaves, they dont cost a cent.

So why for the love of all that is real, fake, alive, dead, spiritual, scientific and mythical wont you just USE THEM?!!

You didn't even really expect to get a single on-topic response from this thread--did you?

 

[jaxxster]

Because i thought itd be nice to really get a personal response from people on the subject, see if it was a common religion

Christ, get off the rag.

 

[Raestloz]

IDK, topic about religion is VERY VOLATILE.

You know, I'm a buddhist.

And you know what? In my university, there's this particular time where you should go to a class and be preached about Buddhism, not a bad one, rather, a full of laugh! And they preach us about "Why Buddhism?" "Do ghosts really exist?" "God in Buddhism's way", full of laugh I tell you, no student there not laughing

Particularly "Why Buddhism" is a very good topic that can start flame wars, since that's what happens when you want to convert people, only educated people can discuss inter-religion things without an unofficial SMACKDOWN scene happening

I can tell you one thing though:
1. Buddhists believe in God, as in, something who wasn't born but exists
2. Buddhism cycles around Karma, what you are now, what you will be, what you were, is decided by your own Karma
3. The best way to overcome grief is to wipe the source: This earthly happiness
4. All life forms has the right to live, the only problem with this statement is the debate whether the plants are life forms or not
5. The ultimate goal of being a Buddhist is not to stand side-by-side with Buddha, rather, to become Buddha yourself

And you know what? The best part of being a monk is the fact that you own high-human abilities, few of them is body temperature control and ignore physical material

that rocks, but I'm not ready to be amonk yet, let me be a mere human and enjoy this sinful life

 

[jalaneme]

i really like the Buddhist beliefs as it's spiritual side of it is very spot on in what i believe in, i have a few books about Buddhists and their beliefs in life after death.

 

[knipri]

I try to live by the values of tibetan and zen buddhism.

 

[kikuchiyo]

is there any books i could pick up about the subject? Im not planning on becoming devoute, just wanted to get a more indepth idea about it all.

Well, despite the spelling mistakes, poor knowledge, and general whatever-ness of this thread, let me chime in with the following:

This thread isn't about Islam (although I am a practicing Muslim). It's a good religion for me. There are a lot of stupid people in it (granted some of that has to do with the fact that most Muslims countries got the short end of the historical stick during the West's colonial period). Jesus and Moses were Muslim by Islamic standards (not formally - there was no official Islam as there was during Muhammed's (pbuh) time), but Islam considers anything acting "naturally" (i.e., your hair, your organs, etc.,) to be Muslim. Jesus was technically a Jew anyway, which hasn't stopped Christianity.

Anyway, the real topic of this thread is Buddhism (which I studied in college and I know live in Japan so I know a bit about).

First, for whoever said Buddhism was about "being one with nature" and whatever is wrong. There might be some forms of Buddhism that emphasize that and most Budhists emphasize having empathy for living things, but that's not an important part of world wide Buddhism.

Second, Buddhism as practiced by Siddartha Guatama and in some sects today (Zen, for example, and many of the East Asian varieties) isn't really a religion as much as it is a philosophy for life. In some places Buddhism has been mixed with native religion (Tibet, Southeast Asia) but that's not the end all, be all of Buddhism (that's why I found knipri's comment odd - Zen and Tibetan Buddhism are pretty different - enough to be contradictory on a few levels). Some sects believe in God or gods, but some thoughts (especially some in Zen, which I tend to know better) think that "god" is in an acceptance of this life. Others think that the point of everything is to disappear; this world is suffering and the way to get out of it is to cut our ties with everything worldly; sex, money, power, family, God/gods.

That said, Buddhists aren't all pacifists just to clear that up (and to educate those people who think all wars/terrorists are Muslims or Islam related). Aum Shin, probably the biggest Japanese terror group was a Buddhist sect. Buddhist temples were highly involved in wars in Japan in the country's history and on an individual level gave birth to some highly skilled warriors. Corruption in Buddhist temples in history (again using Japan as an example since I know it best) is not uncommon.

Out of the book's I've read as an introduction to Buddhism as a philosophy or religion (as opposed to history) The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching by Thich Nhat Hanh was probably one of the most interesting.

 

[Raestloz]

Hey kikuchiyo, you seem to know alot about Buddhism, do you by any chance know what Buddhism think about plants? Are they life forms or not? Since I don't know till today

 

[UltraMagnus]

3. The best way to overcome grief is to wipe the source: This earthly happiness
4. All life forms has the right to live, the only problem with this statement is the debate whether the plants are life forms or not

I don't know if I read this correctly, but don't these two kinda contradict each other?

 

[PBC]

No. The first sentance doesn't tell you to destroy anything or to be unhappy it simply tells you that the root of true happiness is not through pride and joyous things but instead selflessness and suffering.
And just for the record, you can suffer happily.

 

[kikuchiyo]

Hey kikuchiyo, you seem to know alot about Buddhism, do you by any chance know what Buddhism think about plants? Are they life forms or not? Since I don't know till today

As for as I understand it there are two major beliefs here (I will admit I'm on somewhat shaky ground - there may be more), though even these two are interrelated.

Anyway, first is that a Buddhist should strive to do no harm to any living thing and while that should be the goal, that is not entirely possible, so to sustain one's self, it is necessary to consume plants.

Second, plants are smaller "subdivisions" of souls than animals or people, so it is OK to consume them. Their "life" or "soul" is much smaller than that of animals or people (the example I read was think about how much it takes to sustain you compared to the amount of meat). Plants are more transitory (again grass lives in the spring and summer and dies in the fall and winter).

For those that emphasize the second point, there is a moral distinction between eating animals and eating plants.

 

[V!olaPlayer]

Well, Buddhism is a very broad religion, (I'm a Catholic myself), but I believe that all major religions may have pieces of the truth, well, except for atheism of course.