John J. Bannan
Registered Senior Member
Religion isn't going to spread without popular appeal. Does that make it untrue? Can't God want to be popular?
Proof of any Eastern Religion?
- Thread starter John J. Bannan
- Start date
You can be a Christian Buddhist if you want to, most oriental religions and beliefs focus more on self-experience (meditation) than in teaching you concepts of gods and reincarnations. Although you can find quite an extensive literature on the subject of oriental beliefs about god and reincarnations; experienced Buddhists and Hindu teachers will tell you the basics, and then teach you how to experience everything for yourself.
Not many religions do this, teach you how to experience what they teach for yourself.
Even Jesus meditated in the desert for 40 days, and was tempted by his ego; in case you haven´t noticed, they don´t teach you how to meditate in Christianity... Praying is the Christian´s replacement for meditation, althought I think is quite less eficient than meditation, in meditation you "speak to God" through experience.
John J. Bannan
Registered Senior Member
No religion has ownership of meditation. Why Buddhist meditation - and not some form of generic meditation?
I´m not limiting anything to Buddhist meditation, I´m just using Buddhism as an example. What I´m saying is that meditation is the most common practice ammong most Oriental beliefs, and all variations of Buddhism.
lol what are you talking about?. why on earth is 1 sillier than the other. both could be true. and niether could be true. they are both equally logical, and equaly stupid.
peace.
You shouldn't want to be a Buddhist, even Buddhists acknowledge that being a Buddhist is not the goal of Buddhism. Paradoxically, desire is something Buddhists attempt to overcome.
Fraggle Rocker
Staff member
A common definition of religion includes belief in something supernatural. I guess Hinduism has that, but the other well-known Eastern belief systems don't really. Or at least they are not central to the system and are sort of their version of Santa Claus.
Abrahamism (its three sects of Judaism, Christianity and Islam) is really in a class by itself, with its strong element of supernaturalism as its basis.
What's illogical about reincarnation or heaven? You seem to be using an argument from personal incredulity....
The reason's there's no proof or evidence is because it's impossible to gather any evidence...besides there is some evidence for reincarnation (the only form of evidence that can be gathered) where some people remember their past birth and verify everything they say about their past birth as being true....the book "Looking for Carroll Beckwith" provides such almost undeniable evidence...however nothing's convincing to an atheist, they have already made up their minds to never believe in anything religious...maybe one day these fools will realize that reincarnation is the truth....
if by proof you mean the empirical variety, then its kind of like trying to jump over your knees (if you examine the theoretical implications of the terms "reincarnation" and "nirvana", its obvious that they are beyond the scope of empiricism)
The idea behind reincarnation from what I understand is that it is a way to attain higher spiritual growth by enduring life here on earth and how we handle that life.Learning the lessons of selfless service and unconditional love and hopefully casting off the ignorance of the ego to embrace your "inner self"..the inner self that is alligned with God.
Some religions say people can be reincarnated into lower life forms , like as you say a butterfly; due to the bad karma they have acquired in a previous life.
People who have had near death experiences say they were told humans can reincarnate back into human form but never reincarnate into lower life forms
John J. Bannan
Registered Senior Member
Why would I not want my ego? Why throw the engine out of the car?
lol, your ego is not your engine my friend.
Ever since you are a baby, you start creating this "ego", in order to incorporate "beliefs" and "rules of behavior" that are imposed to you by others, starting with our mothers.
As strange as this may sound to you now, your ego is what suffers and your ego is that which makes you angry.
If someone else so something that goes against your “ego”, then you get angry. That is the reason why most religious people get angry when they are told there is no God, and the same reason why some atheists get angry when they are told that there is a God.
Most of your beliefs and judgments are in your “ego”, and that is not innate in you, that is something you learned from others. What you are born with: intelligence, intuition, instinct and imagination are attribute nobody taught to you, because you are born with that, that is not your ego, that is your true-self, the real you, as God intended.
“True-self” and “ego” are opposites, most people, myself included, cannot hear their true-self; and the only reason for this is your “ego”.
Jesus talks about “ego” very much, but he calls it “evil”, he calls it “the devil”.
Even Jesus had an ego, but he didn’t act upon it, if Jesus would have listened to his ego, then he would have never been crucified, and he would have been a legitimate King somewhere.
“Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. "All this I will give you," he said, "if you will bow down and worship me."
Jesus said to him, "Away from me, Satan! For it is written: 'Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.
Then the devil left him, and angels came and attended him.” (Matthew 4,8)
Just replace “devil” with “ego”, and there you go…
John J. Bannan
Registered Senior Member
Astounding claim! My ego is really the devil in disguise. Well, if I never bothered to learn anything from anybody, I would be a cave man. How do you justify learning language from your mother? Doesn't my "true self" abhore language as being taught to me by others? Without language your ability to think is greatly reduced. Your path leads to stupidity.
Everybody needs to create an ego in order to survive in society, not everybody manages to dissipate it thought, and that is the reason why there are so few Buddhas/Christs.
This is not the case of animals, even if they are illiterate, and have no knowledge whatsoever, they never create an ego. That is why you don’t see animals going depressed or committing suicide in the wild. Animals only get depressed or commit suicide when interacting with humans, like trapped in a cage or are being conflicted with “rules of behavior”.
Your ego don’t like living in the present time, because there is no point, you ego will always focus on the future or past. Even if you stand still, you cannot get your head to clear all your thoughts, and that is your ego.
Everybody has the same seed as Jesus and Gautama, they were only human, like us, but not everybody manages to make the tree grow. Some seeds fall into concrete, and they die, some fall into a river, and die… every now and then, a seed fall into fertile ground and become a beautiful tree, which gives shelter and food to the animals in the land and birds in the sky.
It has been said that the age of the maturity of the ego is 42, it is when you begin being more aggressive towards finding your spiritual path (Jung was the first occidental person to notice this, after looking at thousands of patients with Freud). But if you understand your ego, you are going to understand yourself better, and the transformation into a Christ may happen before that time. Like the case of Jesus and Gautama, they managed to dissipate their egos approximately at age 30, but they understood the ego way before that time.
John J. Bannan
Registered Senior Member
Let go my ego! Jesus didn't have an ego? Why did he bother to teach others? Why not sit in perfect contemplation of his union with God and forget the rest of us?
Why would he volunteer to die if he was concerned about the continuation of self?
John J. Bannan
Registered Senior Member
Ego has sent many to their deaths. This is not a refutation that Jesus had an ego.
Yeap, like spidergoat said...
Then thing is, the majority of people who manage to let go of their egos remain silent and sit in "perfect contemplation of their union with God", there are thousands of ego-less people, but you will never know of them because of their silence. The cause of this silence is mainly the inability to express their state in common language, they are not troubled because of this.
And Jesus didn’t have an ego, he taught others the same thing that he experienced, in order for more people to experience the same. If there were no people like Jesus or Gautama, that spoke outload and taught others the way, it would be harder for us to make sense out of this.
So Jesus taught in order to help others, no egotistical reasons whatsoever.
How do you interpret “helping others with no egotistic reasons”, as “having an ego”?