Buddhists should be burning down restaurants.

 

Aside from that YouTube link SuperWatto provided, The Book of Eli is the best movie ever about the bible, evil and suffering. It was on tv the other night, but I have a complaint:

Spoiler

Real-life braille bibles are ******* huge.

 

Eh Buddhists have a pretty good PR team when it comes to acts of political violence. People assume there isn't any Buddhist political strife. There is, but you just don't hear about it.

 

The thing is, God does love, but when he lets war wage, it is threw Justice. For Instance
Revelation 19:11
“I saw heaven standing open and there before me was a white horse, who’s rider is called faithful and true. With justice he judges and makes war.”
To God, sin is like Poop. He wants it all wiped out, he tries to clean it up, but we roll around in it like pigs. He cleans us up again, and we go back and do it again. Sometimes, like a farmer, he will get annoyed, and just let the pig go, because he refuses to stop rolling in the mud. And the pig gets infested, and dies. And what do you mean about God hiding before love, while he is a loving God, he is also angry at times, he is slow to anger, but I believe he does get angry.
But God still loves. For instance
Isaiah 2:4
He will judge between the nations and will settle disputes for many peoples. They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore.

And according to my beliefs, that will happen.

Tacky or not, It means a lot to me. We all have opinions.

I actually don’t mind when people challenge my religion, as long as if they do it respectfully. It gives me a reason to share the gospel with others, which the bible tells others to do. And it is very interesting to hear other people’s ideas. I’m simply doing this because I’d like to get MY beliefs and opinions on this topic. And I’ll defend my opinions, in the same way non-Christians would defend their stances on God. And I think a lot of Christians are like that too. Everyone is entitled to their own opinions. I can’t make anyone decide to be a Christian, but I will openly admit I am one.
I do enjoy hearing about other people’s stances on God. I even enjoy hearing about other religions to, while I may not agree on most of their points, I do think it is interesting to have other people’s stories.

 

dude just doing my part to get people to watch it

 

oh damn. Now I've watched it too. #humiliating

 

True, especially concerning issues like Tibet. But a lot of that involves self-immolation suicides.

 

No, beyond that. Actual terrorism.

 

im going to register the twitter account "pharisee#2"

 

Endordude please stop posting that video. Yes it's the story of Jesus through Twitter, WOW. I'm glad it means a lot to you. To me it means nothing. To me there is nothing special about it at all, and if people want to watch it they can because you've already posted or quoted it in a post 3 or 4 times now.

I got more out of the ILLIAD.

 

stop hatin', yo

stop being a thread pharisee

 

The Pharisee's kicked ass dude. They had those cool black cloaks. Atleast they did in that story of Jesus mini series in the 70's.

 

all i remember from the picture bible is they wore purple and had badass beards but im sure that was illustrated by some yokle liberty university grad or something so who knows if it was accurate

like im willing to guess pretty confidently that the guy who made the comic book picture bible that i grew up on... the vast majority of that dude's research probably consisted of charleton heston movies

 

Do the Buddhists even really have any kind of organization, similar to the big Christian denominations?

 

yes. any sect of buddhism ive ever heard of except american "zen" "buddhism" has a system of monks and llamas or rimpoches or something of that nature

 

Yeah but there doesn't seem to be any kind of overarching organization, like the Catholic/Anglican/Mormon/etc. Church. It seems each temple/sangha governs itself, they just each have a similar setup. Could be wrong, though.

 

what. no.

catholocism and anglicanism and mormonism are all sects of christianity. some sects of buddhism are more organized than others but all the ones ive heard of have a heirarchical structure of clergy like the christian sects youve named. for instance the dalai lama of tibetan buddhism finds his opposite number in the high rimpoche of bhutanese vajrayana buddhism

 

Please don't mention Liberty U. I live right smack dab in Falwell Town Virginia(Lynchburg), the home of Liberty University. I see these LU kids everyday, and it's horrible.

 

Do you not have Google and/or Wikipedia?

Simply put, Buddhism has no god. Which means no guilt except what you bestow on yourself; and no need for craven liars to invoke The Big Dude's wrath to justify their socially conservative policy decisions.

 

I know that.

I was saying I was under the impression that they have no real national/international organization that could be compared to the Catholiic Church or Anglican Church or Mormon Church etc. That Buddhism seems a lot more decentralized, more like Congregationalist Christianity if anything.

 

Mahayana Buddhism has the Dalai Lama (not to be confused with the Dalai Llama, an entirely different beast) to speak on spiritual matters. Theravada Buddhism isn't centralised in that way, but I think it's worth noting that Buddhism isn't a major religion in the West. In South East Asia and South Asia, it is. You would expect to hear more about it there than here. Contrast this with Islam (another minority religion from Asia), which shares a monotheistic root with Christianity and is generally in the media when a senior figure says something backwards and repugnant, and yes you will see it's "quieter" on the spiritual side.

 

However Buddhism is also an interesting tangent to touch on here because you aren't plagued by an Epicurean paradox in this religion. In simple terms; Buddha was a man. He achieved nirvana, but that did not make him a god. Anyone can achieve nirvana, in theory. So Buddha never claimed omnipotence and omniscience. He could not claim to command all matter, and there's no point in trying to present him as benevolent as a) It's self-evident in his teachings (man sways from opulence to asceticism and finds a middle road that judges noone? Yeah, that's what I mean), and b) Buddhism is less carrot and stick than the monotheistic faiths. So there's no way to justify the theological inconsistencies (or canonical plot holes, as I prefer) by saying the bearded dude, who is benevolent and everywhere, can't be second guessed.

Instead, the Four Noble Truths embrace the notion that life is dukkha (suffeing). There's no pretense here, just straight up - stuff is bad. We make it better in our own way by being not-dicks. That way, apparently, suffering dies the death of a thousand cuts.

I'm shabbily summarising because it's ages since I read any of this stuff, but at first glance the Wikipedia article's on track: http://boards.theforce.net/threads/...-and-suffering.50003725/page-27#post-50384962

In short:

Christianity has a god, has suffering, has a god that in theory could alleviate that suffering but chooses not to. We make excuses for them like a drug-addled partner. Jerk.

Buddhism has no god, has suffering, and empowers the individual to make as difference whilst explaining you can't really get rid of suffering.

 

Dude what. No. He's a strictly Tibetan thing, they think he's the boddhisattva Avalokiteśvara. Literally no other school thinks he's anything other than a bald old guy with some nice thoughts on not being an ***hole.