Are you a TRUE Christian?!?

by brotherdan 152 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

mindmelda

If Christ is the only Shepard, then how do Christians explain that Buddha has many of the same teachings, and preceded Christ?
Is it because Christ is God, albeit in the image of man?
Some of Buddha's followers made him a god too, because of what he taught reflecting what they thought was divine wisdom.
Many of Buddha's words are so similar to Christs or to the Bible in general it makes one wonder if Christ simply had a convergence of thought or they were on the same wavelength, whatever?
Buddha's teachings:
"Death is not to be feared by those who lived wisely."
"Do not overrate what you have received, nor envy other. He who envies others does not attain peace of mind."
"Health is the greatest gift, contentment the greatest weath, and faithfulness the best relationship."
"How many holy words you read, however many you speak, they do you no good if you do not act on them."
"Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent to throw it at someone; you are the one who ends up being burned."
"In a controversy, the instant we give into anger, we have already ceased striving for truth and have begun to strive for ourselves."
"It is better to conquer yourselves than to win a thousand battles. Then the victory is yours. It cannot be taken from you by angels or demons, heaven or hell."
"Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment."
"All that we are is a result of what we have thought. If a man speaks or acts with an evil thought, pain follows him. If a man speaks or acts with a pure thought, happiness follows him, like a shadow that never leaves him."
"The tongue is like a sharp knife, it kills without drawing blood."
Well, that's a small sample...It's so biblical sounding that I imagine a lot of people would think those quotes were from the Bible if they hadn't read it a lot.
SweetBabyCheezits

Perry: The fact that all those different sheep have only one solitary shepherd - Jesus.
If I've learned nothing else about JW and Christian ministers' tools of the trade, it is this: Illustrations are like candy. They might taste sweet but they're typically devoid of any nutritional content. (Points for irony?)
No wonder the NT and WT writers love using parables. These can be created to illustrate any point one wishes, and whether the underlying assertion is true or the subject itself is even real... well, that's irrelevant.
mindmelda

Parables are useful for general principles, which is what they teach, I think, but for nailing down a specific point, nah. Like trying to nail jello to a tree.
AGuest

If Christ is the only Shepard, then how do Christians explain that Buddha has many of the same teachings, and preceded Christ?
I can't speak for others, dear Mindmelda (peace to you!), but I explain it this way:
The founder of Buddhism, Siddhartha Gautama, considered to be the "Supreme Buddha", lived in the region we know as Nepal (formerly "Lumbini") sometime between 563 BCE and 400 BCE, dear Mindmelda (peace to you!). Nepal is situated in the "east" or "Orient." Abraham's ancestors were from the east, although perhaps not as far away as Nepal. However, there wasn't the plethora of religions there are today, so it would seem logical that, given the sparse world population (as compared to today), there would have been similarities in beliefs/teachings... based on some common ancestry.
So what? So, Abraham reportedly lived long, long before Buddha (during 2nd millenium BCE, or 3400th Hebrew year, depending on who you ask)... and Christ is recorded to have said:
"Before Abraham was, I am/was/existed/happened to be/was present."
Perhaps, then, my Lord was the One who "enlightened" Buddha (and/or the 18 or so that came before him)... even in spite of what they teach today. Perhaps they grew tired waiting for "Messiah" and so let the "tale" spin... as it naturally would have, given that it was earthling man "handling" it. I mean, I did learn from my Lord that ALL religions have some similarities... because they are ALL merely offshoots of the oral teachings of ancient peoples. Given the tendency for results such as we find in the "telephone" game (where one person tells another something, that one tells another, and after several people have been "told" the story ultimately bears little resemblance to what it was initially)... there should be absolutely NO surprise as to the offshoots, differences, and discrepancies between beliefs/religions... while they all maintain some similarities.
I hope this helps and, again, bid you peace!
A slave of Christ,
SA
ProdigalSon

mindmelda, you're right on the money.
Jesus and Buddha were definitely on the same "wavelength", the Oneness that Jesus so beautifully described in the 17th chapter of John. Both were Masters. It has been said that Buddha achieved 80 percent awakened consciousness, while Jesus was the only one to achieve 100 percent. He truly was "perfect".
Personally I believe both of them have had many incarnations.
mindmelda

I suppose that is why I embrace a kind of universal ecumenicism. Most religions have convergence of thought to a surprising degree when people bother to compare them.
They may choose to focus on their differences, which are mainly human and political in nature, but in essence of thought and teaching, quite similar.
Witnesses try to use this to prove that all religion but their's comes from Satan and that Satan imitates God to trick people, but it seems fruitless to do that if you get people to behave in a beneficial manner if you're promoting evil.
ziddina

"Abraham's ancestors were from the east, although perhaps not as far away as Nepal. However, there wasn't the plethora of religions there are today, so it would seem logical that, given the sparse world population (as compared to today), there would have been similarities in beliefs/teachings... based on some common ancestry. ...."
Aaaaarrrgh...
Shelby!
Your comment, "However, there wasn't the plethora of religons there are today..."
Shelby, there were/are over TEN THOUSAND goddesses who were worshipped within the last 6,000 - 8,000 years. That hardly sounds as if there were FEWER religions back then...
If anything, I suspect that there are FEWER "religions" nowadays, ESPECIALLY with the vicious antipathy shown towards Polytheism by the monotheistic religions of the world....
As to "Abraham" being "from the east" - in actuality, "Ur of the Chaldees", which is in southern Iraq - that is hardly a region near Nepal - or even as far east as the location of the later Persian empire...
So the EARLIER versions of "Buddha's" words apparently pre-dated "Jesus'" words...
As with so many other theological ideas in the bible, they originated elsewhere, and were plagiarized and modified by Jewish scholars.
Zid
mindmelda

Much of Judeo-Christian thought, the more philosophical parts of it, shows definite evidence of Greek inflluences, and I'm sure that much of what is in the Bible is a convergence of thought from many middle eastern culture.
The similarities of the Bible to Babylonian/Chaldean and even Egyptian stories and tales can't be over looked. The Bible just had more staying power than a lot of other stories from that era, the Jews WERE scrupulous about preserving their laws, myths and culture through writing, as much as anyone can be. The Semitic peoples developed many things quite early in their history, among them writing. That's why their gods or God SEEM the oldest, the stories got written down earlier.
You can't read anything about comparative religion, such as Joseph Campbells "The Power of Myth" without being totally amazed at the convergence of thought between all myth, all religion. The only reason for that must be it all comes from the same place. From within us. If you're inclined, I guess it could also all come from the divine, but it certainly demonstrates the human psyche works pretty much the same regardless of culture, race and era.
( All this is probably why the JWs hate comparative religion classes, no doubt)
AGuest

Aaaaarrrgh... Shelby!
GREETINGS, dear Zid, and peace to you!
Your comment, "However, there wasn't the plethora of religons there are today..."
Yes?
Shelby, there were/are over TEN THOUSAND goddesses who were worshipped within the last 6,000 - 8,000 years. That hardly sounds as if there were FEWER religions back then...
Ummmmm... lots of gods/goddesses, yes. Lots of religions (as compared with today)... not so much. One religion could have had hundreds, if not thousands, of gods/goddesses, dear one.
If anything, I suspect that there are FEWER "religions" nowadays, ESPECIALLY with the vicious antipathy shown towards Polytheism by the monotheistic religions of the world
If you're counting each god/goddess as a separate religion, perhaps. I don't believe that's the case. I just think the western world doesn't know about all of them. For example, many don't know "voodoo" is a religion, but it is. Many don't know that a whole lot of indigenous natives still worship as the Mayans, Incans, Aztecs, and others did (but outwardly profess Catholicism). The viciousousness you speak of (and I agree it exists) just drove some (many) underground.
As to "Abraham" being "from the east" - in actuality, "Ur of the Chaldees", which is in southern Iraq - that is hardly a region near Nepal - or even as far east as the location of the later Persian empire...
Ummmm... I think I stated that it wasn't as far, dear Zid, yes. However, even if we initially evolved from a primordial soup (which we didn't, but for the sake of argument)... there would be some commonality in beliefs. I mean, it all had to start somewhere with someONE, yes? Or are you suggesting that at some point in time, scads of people "everywhere" said to their fellow towns/tribes/community folks, at the same or very close moments, "Heyyyyyy, let's start worshipping a god!"? No, all of them had an initial commonality that started with Noah... then to Shem, Ham, and Japheth... and then took off from there. Due, primarily, to the "telephone game" and things like that... but mostly to some making up their own "rules" as they went along. Which is understandable, given human nature...
So the EARLIER versions of "Buddha's" words apparently pre-dated "Jesus'" words...
As to some of them, perhaps, that was my point, yes (although your question was HOW could that be... to which I responded that Abraham came before Buddha... and Christ before Abraham, so....).
As with so many other theological ideas in the bible, they originated elsewhere, and were plagiarized and modified by Jewish scholars.
I absolutely do NOT dispute that, dear one. Not at all. I mean, isn't another running theme of the OT the tendency for Israel to turn away and walk after other gods? LOTS of other gods? Israel was exiled into Samaria. Judah into Babylon. They lived with and among other people... and other people lived with and among them. Are we really to believe that NONE of that got into ANY of the Writings?
I mean, I realize that there are those who consider the Bible infallible and the untainted Word of God (sigh!). But I disagree, as my Lord has taught me differently. Thus, his words, "WOE, to you... scribes..." (which makes me often wonder just what those who DO believe the Bible to be infallible think he was speaking of??).
Ennywho, I hope that clarifies and, again, peace to you!
YOUR servant and a slave of Christ,
SA
ziddina

"...I mean, it all had to start somewhere with someONE, yes? Or are you suggesting that at some point in time, scads of people "everywhere" said to their fellow towns/tribes/community folks, at the same or very close moments, "Heyyyyyy, let's start worshipping a god!"? No, all of them had an initial commonality that started with Noah... then to Shem, Ham, and Japheth... "
Nooo, Shelby.
First of all, "towns/tribes/community folks" DIDN'T
"start worshipping a god!"
......
They started worshipping GODDESSES... Many "Goddesses", in fact. It appears that most of the early Goddesses may have had some characteristics in common with the image of the GREAT Mother, a primal maternal image that was probably the initial deity of Homo Erectus - earliest primitive humanity's forebears...
Which was a deification of their earliest experiences as human babies clinging to a human mother for their very life - and you'll notice that I'm not limiting that to Homo Sapiens, by the way...
There is solid paleo-archaeological evidence that "Goddess" worship PREDATES Homo Sapien... Which is fascinating and astounding, when one thinks about it... Just check out the "Berekhat Ram" figurine...
"Worship" of a primal "Goddess" probably started with Homo Erectus, well over 200,000 years ago - quite possibly as long ago as 800,000 years... [That's if you consider Homo Erectus to be separate from Homo Sapien, who is generally believed to be only around 100,000 years old...]
"Homo erectus (1.8 to 0.3 million years ago)
Species Description:
"Homo erectus, unlike H. habilis and all of the Australopithecus species, ranged far beyond Africa. Some scientists have split H. erectus into three separate species, based on the geographic region in which specimens have been found: H. ergaster (Africa), H. erectus (Asia), and H. heidelbergensis (Europe). Homo heidelbergensis specimens are also sometimes classified as archaic H. sapiens. ..."
"Generally, H. erectus (inclusive) is characterized by large molars, an unpronounced chin, heavy brow ridges, and a long, low skull, relative to modern Homo sapiens. The skeleton of H. erectus was heavier, or "more robust," than the average modern human skeleton. Body proportions vary greatly from individual to individual. "Turkana Boy" was tall and slender, like modern humans from the same area, while the few limb bones found of "Peking Man" indicate a shorter, sturdier build. ..."
From: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/humans/humankind/k.html (That is the same website that I recommended to you several weeks ago, on a different thread...)
The worship of "Goddesses" also totally predates that mythological group that you mentioned:
"No, all of them had an initial commonality that started with Noah... then to Shem, Ham, and Japheth..."
The mythology which generated the tale of "Noah" probably isn't much older than 7,000 - 8,000 years - if one considers the flooding of the Black Sea as the origin of the "Noah's Ark" story, and not some more localized Mesopotamian flood....
"But it was not until the 1990's that geologists William Ryan and Walter Pitman gathered clues pointing to an actual ancient flood in the Middle East about 7,500 years ago. Sediment core-samples the scientists took from the bottom of the Black Sea revealed sections of once-dry, sun-baked land. ..."
From: http://www.pbs.org/saf/1207/features/noah.htm
your hypothetical "scads of people everywhere..." - with some initial "commonality" - who "said to their fellow towns/tribes/community folks, at the same or very close moments" - never happened. Human communities, especially at the time periods that you are referring to - around 4,000 to 3,000 years ago, were rather separated by distance, and many tribal groups lived out their existence with little to no contact with other civilizations - unless invaded by larger groups... Which allowed quite a variety of deities to develop.
I've said it before, I'll say it again - religion itself evolved - or perhaps devolved, as the range of options SHRANK... Polytheism was generally the RULE in older civilizations, not monotheism...
And Monotheism, by its very nature, LIMITS the number of deities available for worship. Therefore, the period of time in which Polytheism was common would NATUARLLY have MORE deities - and more methods of worship - than our modern, monotheistic world.
So, it didn't start out with "someONE"... It started out in MANY locations with many different kinds of humans... It WASN'T homogenous; it was - again - POLYtheistic, with a WIDE VARIETY of deities and methods of worship...
But, I guess you'll take the word ot that "guy" who "talks" in your ear, over the hundreds of thousands of hours of work by of hundreds - thousands - of archaeologists, paleo-archaeologists, paleo-anthropologists, paleontologists, and geologists, and all of the artifacts and data that they present...
Zid

Are you a TRUE Christian?!?

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