I roughly agree with what you're saying. My problem with the Buddha is the part where he abandons his wife, child and kingdom, literally every one responsibility he had. Granted I don't know much about him, but I have yet to hear anything about him amends. All I hear is that he was enlightened and said and did nice things, I don't know what though I haven't really look into Buddhism. Then again the prophets from the old testament were also flawed.
Yeah the abandonment of his family was pretty bad. I don’t think the Buddhists necessarily recommend that sort of thing, although Buddhism is very hard to actually understand as a Westerner. Heck, Christianity can be the same way.
Not a Christian myself, so read the below points with this in mind. I'm largely in agreement.
1. Being religious usually means thinking your religion is the best, or correct one, but this doesn't have to translate into chauvinism. You can see other religions as simply being incomplete. This has been a point made by Christian and Islamic theologians - that other cultures, religions, and civilizations were just recipients of an incomplete revelation.
In Islam there's this specific idea that the true, moral, monotheistic religion is perpetually showing up and perpetually being lost, and some scholars have even debated giving prophet status to Buddha. Obviously they think Islam is the last, best word on the subject, but have a certain sympathy for pre-Islamic axial age religions.
2. The term "pagan" was first applied to the polytheistic greco-roman religions. I think the critique of "paganism" kind of makes sense when you're talking about pre-axial age religions. I don't have much problem calling "pagan" religions that practiced human sacrifice - like Wotanism or Aztec religion - clearly evil, but as a critique of universal, moralist, axial age religions it makes less sense to me.
Yeah I appreciate the point about chauvinism, and I agree. Amongst Christianity it mainly seems to be the Southern Protestants that have the hardest time with the whole demonizing other religions thing.
I had no idea Islam had that specific doctrine, that’s fascinating! I keep wanting to read more on Islamic beliefs but idk where to start really.
I agree with the human sacrifice religions - interestingly I mean the OT basically had genocide of the Canaanites for being pure evil, but the Jews were willing to co exist with the Greco Roman pagans. Fun contrast there.
For more on the Aztec religions and how they interact with the Christian faith, I can’t recommend enough the book Violence Unveiled. Really blew my mind on how important religion is for society and how different various myths can be.
For good work re: Islam I recommend the Youtube channel "Let's Talk Religion." The guy is an academic religious studies scholar, and he makes all kinds of videos about religion, but his main focus has been Islam, with an emphasis on Sufism. High quality, easy to digest.
I roughly agree with what you're saying. My problem with the Buddha is the part where he abandons his wife, child and kingdom, literally every one responsibility he had. Granted I don't know much about him, but I have yet to hear anything about him amends. All I hear is that he was enlightened and said and did nice things, I don't know what though I haven't really look into Buddhism. Then again the prophets from the old testament were also flawed.
Yeah the abandonment of his family was pretty bad. I don’t think the Buddhists necessarily recommend that sort of thing, although Buddhism is very hard to actually understand as a Westerner. Heck, Christianity can be the same way.
Religion nowadays is just all confused.
Not a Christian myself, so read the below points with this in mind. I'm largely in agreement.
1. Being religious usually means thinking your religion is the best, or correct one, but this doesn't have to translate into chauvinism. You can see other religions as simply being incomplete. This has been a point made by Christian and Islamic theologians - that other cultures, religions, and civilizations were just recipients of an incomplete revelation.
In Islam there's this specific idea that the true, moral, monotheistic religion is perpetually showing up and perpetually being lost, and some scholars have even debated giving prophet status to Buddha. Obviously they think Islam is the last, best word on the subject, but have a certain sympathy for pre-Islamic axial age religions.
2. The term "pagan" was first applied to the polytheistic greco-roman religions. I think the critique of "paganism" kind of makes sense when you're talking about pre-axial age religions. I don't have much problem calling "pagan" religions that practiced human sacrifice - like Wotanism or Aztec religion - clearly evil, but as a critique of universal, moralist, axial age religions it makes less sense to me.
Yeah I appreciate the point about chauvinism, and I agree. Amongst Christianity it mainly seems to be the Southern Protestants that have the hardest time with the whole demonizing other religions thing.
I had no idea Islam had that specific doctrine, that’s fascinating! I keep wanting to read more on Islamic beliefs but idk where to start really.
I agree with the human sacrifice religions - interestingly I mean the OT basically had genocide of the Canaanites for being pure evil, but the Jews were willing to co exist with the Greco Roman pagans. Fun contrast there.
For more on the Aztec religions and how they interact with the Christian faith, I can’t recommend enough the book Violence Unveiled. Really blew my mind on how important religion is for society and how different various myths can be.
For good work re: Islam I recommend the Youtube channel "Let's Talk Religion." The guy is an academic religious studies scholar, and he makes all kinds of videos about religion, but his main focus has been Islam, with an emphasis on Sufism. High quality, easy to digest.