I can’t say Buddhism is the best religion: Dalai Lama

You have made quite clearly the argument of where you think Christians & Christianity stand with respect to the teachings of Christ but what has all this got to do with Buddhists & Hindus? Surely, if they were remotely interested or convinced by such a position they would be Christians by now. Not really sure how you can stop them from picking and choosing whatever it is that they want.

Was very surprised at the rigidity in your argument. If Christ was replaced in your post with Mohammad and Christians with Muslims, this could well be the doctrine of the Taliban and the hardline mullahs. Purely speaking as a person with a completely different view of religion and the world from your own, your post seemed more an indictment of Christianity and Christians than anything salutary. I am sure that there are a few takers (I’m hoping very few) for your outlook but you can count me out as a fan. This is precisely why the world could do with more people who share the underlying sentiments that the Dalai Lama expressed.

Thank you very much for your time. I sure did learn a lot. Wish you the very best.

Surely, if they were remotely interested or convinced by such a position they would be Christians by now. Not really sure how you can stop them from picking and choosing whatever it is that they want.

I fail to see anywhere you can get from my posts that I believe I have any power or indeed desire to stop Hindus, Buddhists or anybody else from picking and choosing whatever they want. I fully support freedom of religion for anybody whose religion doesn't instruct him to kill me or make my daughters walk around in a tent. I even support freedom of religion for him, as long as it stays in the realm of belief and not action.

Obviously Hindus and Buddhists are perfectly free to accept Jesus as an avatar, a moral teacher or however else they choose. My point has been all along that Christians cannot reciprocate without ceasing to be Christian. No doubt you think an absence of Christians, in that sense, would be a good thing.

Possibly you are right. Certainly the exclusivist orientation of the Abrahamic religions has led directly to a great deal more violence (for religious reasons) than the more inclusive nature of "Eastern" religions. Not that people believing in the Eastern religions haven't found lots of other reasons to engage in violence. :) My considerable reading in Chinese history, for instance, has led me to the conclusion that a much higher percentage of Chinese people have died over the centuries in warfare than have Europeans.

I am quite surprised back at your opinion that my sincerely held beliefs are interchangeable with those of the Taliban. Perhaps you can enlighten me how the following beliefs line up with theirs:

Absolute freedom of belief, although with no exceptions for illegal actions taken for religious reasons.

Full and complete freedom for an individual to switch religions, or to reject all religious belief.

Freedom of speech with regard to religion. Feel perfectly free to criticize my beliefs. I may be offended, but I won't make any effort to shut you up.

Complete freedom of press for religious discussion. Produce and publish images of Christ and Mary submerged in urine or smeared with dung if you choose. Although I'd prefer not to be taxed to subsidize such production.

Full non-discrimination in favor or or against religions or believers by the State.

That's just a start, but I think it's quite different from Taliban belief and practice.

When Christ said he was the only way to salvation, he was either right or wrong. Obviously I pick choice 1 and you pick choice 2. Fine. If there's life after death, maybe we'll find out who was right.

But there really is no 3rd option. Since he said such things about himself, he can't really be considered just another wise moral teacher. If he was not correct in making such claims, then he was a madman.

I agree, and so would the Apostle Paul and the early Church Missionaries. The reason Christianity spread through the Roman world so quickly, and why it spreads so easily in the poorest and most oppressed areas today, is because of charity. That is, selfless love. No other religion has love as it’s center point.

When Jesus was asked what is the greatest commandment, he said there were two. The first was to love the Lord God with all your heart, mind and soul. The second was to love your neighbor as yourself. All other commands flow from those.

Now stop and think about that: all other commands from God flow from love. Why does God command us to do something? Because he loves us and he loves everyone else. And because we are beings created in his imagine, he wants us to love him and each other. Completely. Selflessly.

And what did Jesus say about love? No greater love has a man than this: a man lays his life down for his friend. And then Jesus did.

And what was the last command that Jesus gave his followers? Tell everyone about what has happened.

That God, continuing his theme of love, offered his son as a sacrifice for the sins of the world. That Jesus laid his life down for his friends. That sin and death were defeated by the death and resurrection of Jesus. That he has gone to make a place with us in the house of God after we die.

What great news! And we, as believers, are to love our fellow men as we love ourselves. So, we send teams of believers to give clean water to Haitians. We send teams of believers to clear debris from the beaches of Thailand. We send teams of believers to help feed the refugees of Darfur.

What other religion has Missionary teams whose complete focus is helping other people who can’t do anything to help back? Selfless love. The basic tenant of Christianity, and the true Gospel of Jesus Christ.

That is why we can’t and won’t sit back and say “Well Christianity may not be the best religion for everyone”, because it is the only way to eternal life, and if we truly believe that, and we truly love our neighbors, then we want them all to know that good news and want them to share in it.

It was and is not my contention that your belief is interchangeable with the Taliban. The very fact that we have been engaged in a discussion shorn of any personal rancour speaks volumes to that end. All I have said was that your earlier post as written had the same religious rigidity as the teachings of hardline mullahs.

I have no interest in asserting that the beliefs of any religion is better than any other. I have little fear or interest in such arcane matters as life after death. In any case, even if it turns out that you are right and I find myself with no place in “heaven”, I would certainly find myself in the company of my friends and family. I personally cannot think of any other place I would rather be.

I rarely enter into a debate with anyone on matters regarding faith. I have little or no interest in questioning the beliefs of others as long as what they do does not directly affect me. A debate on Christianity was not the aim or the point of this thread.

You are obviously an intelligent and well read person. I must admit that it took me by surprise that a person with your knowledge actually sees things so sharply in terms of black & white something that I who see mainly shades of gray cannot identify with.

Your strong belief on freedom of thought is both refreshing and troubling at the same time. Refreshing because it shows a not very common ability to separate deeply felt personal beliefs from a more general acceptance of freedom for contrarian thoughts of others. Troubling because if it is so difficult to persuade a person of your intellect to be a little less rigid in your thoughts, what chance do we have against the uneducated mullahs and their equally uneducated followers.

Thank you for your intelligent and courteous reply.

I find it surprising right back that a person of your obvious intelligence is so absolutely, positively convinced that everything must be shades of gray. Which is, oddly enough, a binary choice.

While I will agree many aspects of existence, perhaps most, are shades, many aspects are indeed a black/white binary choice: life-death, up/down, above the water/under the water, and, IMO, many aspects of right/wrong.

It is my personal belief that a recognition that the world has both binary black/white and shades of gray aspects fits reality more accurately than one that insists that everything can be ONLY shades of gray. This means that the most important issue in life then becomes determining what is binary, and what is SOG, and then of course placing the SOG issues appropriately along the spectrum.

There are, of course, a third class of people. They view everything as either black or white and are determined to force others to do the same. I believe most Islamists fall into this group. Historically, so have many Christians, sadly.

I would also contend that when “everything is shades of gray” people run up against motivated “everything is black or white” people, the SOG guys lose. Who wants to fight and die to prevent another 1% darkening of the gray tone? So the SOG people gradually lose as they are forced backwards a shade at a time.

Shades of gray people, in my experience, tend to be arrogant and self-congratulatory. I obviously exclude present company, as you have demonstrated otherwise in our conversation. But most view themselves as superior mentally and philosophically to those who see some aspects of existence as binary. The Kerry campaign, with its obvious pride in its own “nuance” is the classic example. Obama’s obvious contempt for “bitter clingers” is another.

Liberal SOG people pull a dishonest trick here. Everything conservatives believe in: country, God, sexual morality, etc. is shades of gray and therefore not important.

Everything liberals believe in: government is good, racism is bad (they get to define what constitutes racism), sex is always good (since rape is bad it isn’t really sex), etc. is black and white and beyond discussion. They are so immersed in this worldview they can’t even see the inherent contradictions.

To get back to the Buddhist/Hindu vs. Christian worldview that started our conversation. The eastern religions, in my admittedly not comprehensive understanding, tend to view existence as SOG. Christianity, in my hopefully more thorough understanding, view some things as binary and others as SOG.

It does not bother or worry me that you believe everything is shades of gray. In fact, your inalienable right to do so is one of the things I consider black/white.

Yet you seem, and pardon me if I misunderstand, to find the fact that I believe some things to be binary to be frightening and disturbing. This is, of course, why I said in an earlier post that SOG people are often, in my experience, much less tolerant, in a real sense, than people who hold the middle viewpoint that the world has both binary and SOG aspects.

I would appreciate it if you could explain to me why we have such different views of how someone should respond to another who has a fundamentally different worldview.

If this request sounds snide, I apologize. It is something I have struggled with for many years. I find that my conservative views are highly offensive to most liberals, so I keep quite about them much of the time as I have no desire to offend them. They, of course, do not reciprocate.

“many aspects are indeed a black/white binary choice: life-death, up/down, above the water/under the water, and, IMO, many aspects of right/wrong.”

It could be argued that none of the above are actually black/white binary choices. Each one of these are processes moving from one stage to another spending the longest amount of time in the grey zone. When are you above water and when can it be said that you are under? Same with up/down. Life/death? We are all still struggling to define when life begins and when death takes hold. Technology has made sure that the definition of life & death today is vastly different from what it was a hundred years ago let alone a couple of thousand years. Right & wrong are relative to the time & society the person is born in. What we find clearly wrong today was not thought to be so by decent people born in a different era. You have yourself made the point that you and i have different perceptions (though not fundamentally) of right and wrong.

“.......is so absolutely, positively convinced that everything must be shades of gray”

I only said mainly grey, not all grey. I’m not absolutely, positively convinced of anything to the point where I see no alternative reasoning or explanation possible. My beliefs are alterable when I am convinced that such alteration is necessary. I make no apologies for the fact that my beliefs and opinions are in in a continuous state of evolution.

“I would also contend that when “everything is shades of gray” people run up against motivated “everything is black or white” people, the SOG guys lose.”

Probably true historically in direct conflicts but not necessarily true in a battle of ideas over longer periods of time. The Black/White people have almost always lost those battles.

Your beliefs are neither frightening nor disturbing in themselves. They however can be both in the hands of someone less discriminatory about the niceties of such “liberal” attitudes as tolerance. You point that out yourself in your post.

“Tolerance”, in my opinion is a much overrated attribute. In its truest sense it incorporates within itself both derision and condescension. I believe that it is far better to ‘respect’ than it is to ‘tolerate’. That can only be possible if there exists a will to accommodate within oneself, opinions different from one’s own. It necessitates a willingness to allow some long held opinions to wither away and new ones to sprout in their place.

“I would appreciate it if you could explain to me why we have such different views of how someone should respond to another who has a fundamentally different worldview.”

Not sure that they are different unless you have been repressing feelings of wanting to do me great violence.:-)

I have tried to have a dialogue wherein I have tried to understand your position and then incorporate that understanding in my own replies rather than indulge in simultaneous monologues where at the end, there is neither movement nor understanding. The outcome here may not reflect that but it is certainly not for want of effort.

Thank you very much for your time and I hope you have enjoyed this discussion as much as I have.

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