We chant Daimoku, NAM MYOHO RENGE KYO. It basically means I take refuge in the beauty of the cosmic mystery of the power that is greater than a man. In my opinion there is destiny, and we all live it every day of our lives. The we die and go to our next destiny, until we reach the ultimate spiritual achievement. Because I believe in life after death I do not fear the death of my earthly body.
Flame away if you want. I only throw this out there to see who among you shares my beliefs. Plus, I'm bored and thought I would see if I could start an interesting conversation on faith.
Do you mind if I say a prayer for you?
That you might realize the error of your way and repent?
I pray in Jesus name that you return to your roots. God’s love and grace can reach you and restore you.
Amen!
http://www.pemachodrontapes.com/store/
(Aka great path books)
It’s ok as long as you help out my sister and her hubby with their Buddhist business. Buy from them! LOL
No flames yet...
KIDDING! Just kidding!
I am not the least bit freaked about anything you wrote. Evil? I think not! We’ve seen evil and you ain’t it.
I found it interesting that you had a similar story to that of Steven Seagal (LAWMAN-love his show). He also took in the Japanese culture and embraced non-Christian concepts, as noted by earlier posters to this thread.
PEACE
Why would you think we would hate you? That’s just insulting to christians; to think that we would hate you because you’re not a christian.
Almost every sentence in your screed contains the word “I,” often multiple times.
This reveals more than you’re likely to want to face right now.
Think about it.
Have you run into Christians before who hated non Christians merely because the were non Christians?
I don’t mind. I’m not exactly your grandparent’s Christian myself.
I can’t speak for God, but I can’t imagine him being too hard on a non-Christian who is devoted to righteousness, either.
I'd even go so far as to say that he may have even been a prophet sent to prepare the way for Jesus Christ, at least by the time he comes again. I've also known Baptists who are very decent people as well as those who would put Fred Phelps to shame the way they espouse hatred for Mormons, Catholics and anyone else who does not subscribe to their narrow little brand of Christianity.
I hope this isn't what turned you off on Christianity, but if it was, I hope you will understand that they are a narrow-minded minority who make up in venom and volume what they lack in numbers. There are hundreds of brands of Christianity out there and I think you have a good chance of finding one which will meet your needs, because Jesus Christ is the son of God and will not force anyone to accept him as their Savior. But his helping hand is there for any who make that choice despite all the noise out there.
My dogma ate your karma.
Chuck, Im not going to try to talk you out of your beliefs. If you aren’t attacking us or trying to legislate against us, I’m comfortable. I wasn’t always a Christian but I later decided as an adult that it was the right decision and was baptized.
So, no hate from me. I’m guessing if you’re in this forum because you’re conservative, you and I have more in common than we don’t. I feel sorry for people who would try ti chase you away. I hope you don’t feel like anyone is trying to chase you off.
I'm a Christian (a Catholic, in fact), and the only things that make my skin crawl are liberals. And centipedes.
Glad you're here.
Why would a Christian hate you for not being a Christian?
Stand up Chuck and take a bow.
It’s not often we get a chance to chant Daimoku here at FR.
There is a God, a supreme creator who engineered all this. All this could not have happened due to evolution or spontaneous reactions.
God wants us to love our neighbor/brother/sister as ourselves. We are to reach out to those in need. We are to feed the hungry etc.
Beyond that, you pays your money and you takes your chances. I've read the menu, and I'm going with Jesus Christ.
Every knee will bow & every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.
Yes, you do.
Cordially,
As a Christian, I have no problem with your faith as there are many things about Buddhism I admire. We are fortunate to live in a country where we have freedom of religion, and the freedom to not have any at all.
I had a Zen Buddhist friend many years back, and came up with some entertaining koan (thought problems) for him. These involve questions with no clear answer that can be determined rationally, but more intuitively. And the value is not in finding the answer, but in the process to figure it out.
It just so happened at the time that a still little known branch of computer science was devised. Artificial Intelligence had sort of hit a brick wall in its development, so some of its top brains came up with a troubleshooting concept called Artificial Stupidity. AS was a way to figure out the ways programming could go wrong.
Interestingly, AS is not easy, as designing a working system is much easier, and far more rational, then figuring out the many ways to foul the system up. But in figuring out how to mess things up, you learn much that would have been missed had everything worked.
And this is where we invented the idea of a “counter-koan”, which is a nonsense question, that is answered with an ignorant ease befitting its lack of value as a thought problem.
We quickly thought of an example, by Bill Cosby, who as a college student majored in Physical Education, but had to take a course in philosophy.
His professor asked the philosophical question: “Why is there air?”
To which his response was, “How else would we blow up volleyballs?”
While on the surface this just seems silly, in truth it is profound. Because his process, and his answer, is not the same as that of a philosopher. Nor is it the process, or the answer, that perhaps a Buddhist would use. But it is still a valid answer in the path of a Physical Education student.
This is the value of the counter-koan. Though a koan has a “right” answer, the value is not in the answer, but the process. Yet if the process used is just the Buddhist process, many other, different processes are not examined.
And this adds a third dimension to a koan, one that most people miss.