For instance, the Buddha did not teach nihilism, and, in fact, he taught against it. It's true that he didn't believe in a creator god (because in Buddhism the view is that creation happens over and over, like a tide coming in and going out, eternally, and there is no original creation to require a creator) but that does not suggest that he taught that life is meaningless or without moral values. Quite to the contrary, he was very specific about life's moral values and purpose, which he believed was to live with compassion for each other and all other beings.
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Not only are Vedantists not nihilists, they aren't even atheists. Members of the Vedanta Society believe in the existence of a creator god with whom one may have a personal relationship. That's simply a fact. In addition, Vivekananda had no intention or ambition to convert the West to Hinduism. He believed that all people of faith are united in their mutual desire to improve the world, and that in their essence all religions are broadcasting the same message.
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We live in a world where Christianity is often misrepresented to its detractors, for instance in the Middle East and South Asia. If we want fair treatment from other religions, isn't it important to get our facts straight about theirs?
You selectively rejected the Christian comments in favor of an obvious monist.
Be that as it may, the professor of world religions admonished:
” Buddha did not teach nihilism, and, in fact, he taught against it. It’s true that he didn’t believe in a creator god (because in Buddhism the view is that creation happens over and over, like a tide coming in and going out, eternally, and there is no original creation to require a creator) but that does not suggest that he taught that life is meaningless or without moral values. Quite to the contrary, he was very specific about life’s moral values and purpose..”
Ideas have consequences, and as the professor’s understanding of how ideas work is extraordinarily shallow he cannot see the logical inconsistencies and nihilism lurking at the deepest level of Buddha’s ideas.
Did Buddha mean to teach nihilism? No. But like a man who does not foresee the consequences of drinking and driving Buddha neither saw the logical inconsistencies nor the nihilist consequences of his teachings. And the foolish professor has placed his faith in the claims made by an egoistic fallible man who could neither see nor envision the inconsistencies, hypocrisy and other failures of his own teachings.
According to the professor creation “just happens” meaning that ‘something’ came from ‘nothing’(creation ex nihilo) but unaided by a living Creator. The professor adds that this ‘something’ is like a tide coming in and going out.
By virtue of Buddha’s naturalist belief system (monism) both he and the professor are aspects of nature, mere grains of sand on a cosmic beach, making them fully determined and caused by natural forces acting upon the sand.
The beach is the monist ’whole-thing’ or one-substance (known as Chaos to the Babylonians, Greeks, and Romans) of which everything—including Buddha and the professor— is comprised. Buddha and the professor then are as grains of sand helpless against the forces of nature—wind, rain, tide and the things that sea gulls do on sand.
Logical consistency demands that neither the Buddha nor the professor be free to choose other than to be tossed to and fro, blown hither and yon or to resist being used for the building of sand castles by little children who are the spiritual image-bearers of the supernatural living Triune God.
Either the Buddha and the professor are aspects of nature, which has no source for life, consciousness, soul, spirit and free will or they are not.
But if the professor is an aspect of nature then there is no ‘him’ capable of freely choosing Buddha over the Son of God let alone choosing to angrily contend against Linda Kimball.
Do grains of sand argue? No. Do grains of sand seek Godless ‘moral systems’ as the professor claims? No.
The professor disproves his own claims by his use of personal pronouns and the fact of his free will, thereby demonstrating Vedanta monism’s utter lack of logical consistency.
Because Buddha built his house on shifting sands, so did the unthinking professor. And so have you.