Interfaith Dialogue

Casual conversation between friends. Anything goes (almost).
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PadmaVonSamba
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Re: Interfaith Dialogue

Post by PadmaVonSamba »

GarcherLancelot wrote:I have seen quite an amount of Islamic miracles and worries me quite a bit ,for example:

http://www.anvari.org/cols/Islam_Miracle.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
I really want to know why does it worry you?
This is nonsense.
Why is this nonsense?
Because what is being presented is merely a combination of appearances,
and these appearances merely remind people of other appearances,
things that people have just made up.

For example, in these photos, there is some shape.
All it is is a shape.
To people who read Arabic, I am guessing that this shape vaguely resembles some kind of Arabic writing.
Writing is just something that people made up.
and since the concept of "miracle" is introduced, I am going to guess that this writing spells "Allah" or something.
But I don't know, and it really doesn't matter.
It could look like the Arabic word for pizza. Whatever.

Look at the second picture, some kind of plant. maybe a cactus. From this angle, the branches resemble that Arabic writing shape. But if you take the picture from a different angle, that will not happen.

There is a box of what...sand? salt? and a melon in which some Arabic writing has been carved. You can do that with any kind of melon, squash, or pumpkin. It is a kind of scarring.

I can't tell what the rest of the stuff is. Half of a tomato?
If you cut an apple in half horizontally, there appears to be a five-pointed start shape.
But this is only a projection of the mind. It is only because we already have some notion of a five pointed star that this occurs. There isn't really a five-pointed star shape. there is only a grouping of seed areas.
The 'star' you see is just the play of the imagination. That's all these 'miracles' are.

In some religions, the cross shape "+" is sacred. Now, tell me, how many examples can you find, of two lines intersecting this way? Is every four-way street intersection miraculous?

Consider the arrow symbol, used to point one in a particular direction, "ONE WAY" and so forth. This is very interesting, because if you had lived in a culture that had never used arrows, but maybe just used clubs or boomerangs or something in order to hunt animals, seeing an arrow a sign would mean nothing. The meaning is just something that somebody made up. And when you think about it, does it really make sense that you should look in the direction of where the arrow is pointing? Why not go in the direction of the source of the arrow, from where it was shot, which is in the opposite direction?

The same thing can be said of star constellations. From the Earth, we see the Big Dipper ,the Little Dipper, and so on, as though they were dots on a flat chalkboard. But in fact, these appearances only occur from our point of view. If you see the same stars from some other point in the galaxy, they would not have that "constellation" shape at all. That's why astrology based on these apparent groupings of stars is bogus. They aren't really arranged in those shapes.

The circle is a sacred shape to many people. How many circle-shaped miracles can you find in the world?

In some religions, people will not spell out "God". They write "G-d" as though replacing the "o", which is merely a symbol for the vowel sound, replacing that with "-" makes a difference. It is still just a graphic symbol of that vowel sound. In fact, maybe "-" is really just "o" but it fell over, and we are seeing it from its side. "-" is just as much "o" as "o" is. and
"- - - " is "o" in Morse Code.

I can't believe people still fall for this crap.
.
.
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EMPTIFUL.
An inward outlook produces outward insight.
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Grigoris
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Re: Interfaith Dialogue

Post by Grigoris »

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rose
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Re: Interfaith Dialogue

Post by rose »

Topic temporarily locked to enable a clean up of this thread at some point over the next few hours.

This topic will be unlocked in the not too distant future so please do not start further "interfaith dialogue" topics as they will be merged with this one.

When this topic is eventually unlocked please stay on topic and refrain from making personal comments about other members.

Please note once this topic is unlocked new posts which are either off topic or contain personal attacks will be removed without further notice.

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Wesley1982
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Orthodox Christians study/compare/contrast Buddhism

Post by Wesley1982 »

I studied and practice Christianity for about 12 years. In a email dialogue with a Orthodox priest I asked him about finding common ground in Eastern Christianity and Buddhism that originated from the East.

I was recommended a link to a specific article here:http://www.pravoslavie.ru/english/7423.htm . . .

So, what I'm looking at is -Eastern traditions and holistic practice & ritual methods.- :reading:
greentara
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Re: Interfaith Dialogue

Post by greentara »

I found an amusing take on interfaith dialogue on a Ajhan Sumedho You Tube clip. Apparently all the different faiths came to an understanding but the buddhists did not agree with the outcome.
Ajhan Sumedho is well worth listening to; his calm explanations and infectious laughter have a magnetic quality.
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Son
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Re: interfaith christenity and buddhism

Post by Son »

Tatsuo wrote:To me the Christian deity looks more like an asura as in the Bible. It is characterized as seeking power and fighting wars by killing innumerable beings, but also by being jealous of other gods. This are the classical characters associated with asuras in the Buddhist cosmology.
The "being" referenced in the Old Testament, is not the deity of Jesus's teachings, and what's more Christians worship Jesus, not the Old Testament Yhwh. But the asura description is spot on, huh.
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Son
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Re: God in Buddhism

Post by Son »

adinatha wrote:
Serenity509 wrote:I agree more with Mahayana Buddhism than I do with Hinduism.
Stop kidding yourself. You think Brahman is the ultimate reality of Godhead. In Mahayana, ultimate reality is basically a void, not a sentient being called God. Buddhists look at the beginning of the universe similar to physicists, that it just sprang out of nothing. Buddhism is atheistic. The universe and living beings are made of elements, nothing more.
The universe is void--but, that void is Vairocana. The universe is void, but in that void is a pure, endless consciousness, luminous all around, primordial consciousness, lying outside spacetime. It is the substratum of all that is. You can call this Vajradhara, the basic self-understanding pure consciousness, in other words the primordial Buddha, from which other Buddhas emerge. Akshobhya, Amitabha, Ratnasambhava, and Amoghasiddhi.
Neither a thought nor an emotion, it is rather the steady conscious realization of reality's transience.
The Buddha described a mind filled with equanimity as "abundant, exalted, immeasurable, without hostility and without ill-will."
This voidness cannot be an Impersonal God because it doesn't do anything and it's not a person. The substratum consciousness cannot be an Impersonal God because it is not impersonal, and never can be extracted from "the person." You cannot experience it unless you are it. This Dharmakaya is not an individual being, it is realized Buddha Nature, it is something that we represent. Is an Impersonal God a self-realized being who is awakened...? Nope, no Impersonal God can be found there. The Impersonal God is thus an illusion. The ultimate God is the awakened self, the awakened self is within us all, ergo God is within us all. Rationally, God is impersonal while we are ignorant, and God is real once we are not ignorant. But then, Impersonal God is not real, it's just your ego. Are sambhogakayas Impersonal God? No, they are very personal and come from the awakening of Buddhas.

In short, Impersonal God is the ego-self, and the ego-self is an illusion. However, if Christians pray to Amitabha in the form of Jesus Christ, I see no problem with that. Christ called himself the Morning Star (Lucifer) which has the same meaning as Amitabha, and Avalokitesvhara is the representation of compassion. Therefore Christ seems analogous to Guanyin. For me, in the fundamental since, Christianity today is just very primitive Buddhism. I think that Jesus was a bodhisattva who learned from the Buddha in a previous life, and that he represents Amitabha and embodies Avalokitesvhara. I've even spoken to some Catholics who basically explained their personal spirituality to be identical to Pure Land faith, and they even accepted that if you used Buddha you could still reach salvation as long as you have that faith--I hadn't even mentioned Buddhism.
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Wesley1982
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Re: interfaith christenity and buddhism

Post by Wesley1982 »

Son wrote:
Tatsuo wrote:To me the Christian deity looks more like an asura as in the Bible. It is characterized as seeking power and fighting wars by killing innumerable beings, but also by being jealous of other gods. This are the classical characters associated with asuras in the Buddhist cosmology.
The "being" referenced in the Old Testament, is not the deity of Jesus's teachings, and what's more Christians worship Jesus, not the Old Testament Yhwh. But the asura description is spot on, huh.
A trained Orthodox or Catholic theologian would explain it differently than what is construed in Buddhist thought.
Red Faced Buddha
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Re: Buddhism on God

Post by Red Faced Buddha »

gregkavarnos wrote:
KevinSolway wrote:
Namdrol wrote:The only reason why Brahma though he created the universe is that he was the first being to take rebirth in the brahmaloka. When other beings popped out after him, he convinced them he was the creator since he himself did not know where he had come from.
You are speaking of a lower form of Brahma. The highest form of Brahma, to whom the Buddha himself turned for advice upon his awakening, is identical with Brahman.
Source please.
:namaste:
If I remember correctly,wasn't the Brahma who visited Buddha shortly after his enlightenment an arhat who had been born in the Pure Abodes?
A person once asked me why I would want to stop rebirth. "It sounds pretty cool. Being able to come back. Who wouldn't want to be reborn."
I replied. "Wanting to be reborn is like wanting to stay in a jail cell, when you have the chance to go free and experience the whole wide world. Does a convict, on being freed from his shabby, constricting, little cell, suddenly say "I really want to go back to jail and be put in a cell. It sounds pretty cool. Being able to come back. Who wouldn't want that?"
Nicholas Weeks
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Re: Interfaith Dialogue

Post by Nicholas Weeks »

This long thread showed much interest in Interfaith issues, but rather than extend it, I suggest visiting Dharma Paths. David The Admin's latest site, which aims toward Interfaith understanding and perhaps more harmony.

http://dharmapaths.com
May all seek, find & follow the Path of Buddhas.
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