RE:Buddhism was never a religion!
by Anand Iyer on Jun 10, 2007 04:13 PM Permalink
Common buddy dont compare buddhism to christianity and Islam. What harm have buddhists done to anyone??????????????
RE:Buddhism was never a religion!
by Kumar on Jun 10, 2007 07:11 PM Permalink
Madhwa you apparently have no idea about Buddhism. Buddhism is the soul of Indian subcontient. It challanges people to not waste their time in knowing the true 'nature' of God but to instead concentrate on your own 'nature'. It teaches tolerance, non-violance and moderation. These teaching whom we call Indain come from Buddhism and Jainism and not Hinduism.
RE:RE:Buddhism was never a religion!
by Kumar on Jun 12, 2007 12:14 AM Permalink
Part2: Not everybody likes scientific thinking hence Shankara frustration against the competing 'religion' of Buddhism. Also, do you know that people don't even consider Hinduism as a religion since it lacks one holy book like the Koran, the Bible or the Torah? In my opinion this is an advantage and not a drawback of Hinduism since we are leaving space open for debate rather than shutting debate down and hence allowing knowledge to stagnate. As a north Indian one never worships Muruga or Ayappan but does them make them non-Hindu Gods? The British coined the term Hinduism when they ran into the diverse cultural, spiritual and religious beliefs of the people staying in India that cannot be classified as either Islamic or Christian.
RE:RE:Buddhism was never a religion!
by Kumar on Jun 12, 2007 12:14 AM Permalink
Part1: Madhwa, Buddhism doesn't lack spirituality. To a certain degree all religions have some degree of spirituality in them since religion is man's response to spiritual needs, the fear of the unknown, need for security and inability to figure out the mysterious world. When Hinduism got infected with too much karma kanda and started worrying about the nature of the God rather than the behavior of the humans, Buddhism was the answer. The basic essence of Buddhism is to correct our personal behavior rather than interpret the God's behavior. As per Buddha, we are wasting too much time in trying to know the true nature of God rather than improving our own behavior and critically evaluating our own nature. Hinduism has great amounts of spirituality derived from the tribal religions that it encompassed, Buddhism was arrived at after scientific and rational thinking hence it might appear to have less spirituality as compared to Hinduism. In fact, Rajneesh called Buddhism the most scientific religion. Same is true with Jainism. As per Jainism, the universe was created in a sub second out of nothing and is billions of years old (only religion in the world to say so). Also, do you know that most of the nuclear scientists in the world are Buddhist? Scholars have even translated lotus sutra into English so that modern physicists when they face the unknown, mysterious universe can learn from the thinking of the ancient masters and why we are here.
