Posted on 02/19/2010 8:47:42 AM PST by Arcy
Buddhism embraces reincarnation, which has so many problems theologically and very few if any answers to those problems. Consider the following:
1) If Reincarnation is true, mankind should be progressing. Human nature should be improving. However, the truth is, moral depravity is worsening as the Bible anticipates.
2) The vast majority of the population has no memory of their prior lives. If we’re all a product of previous life-cycles, why don’t we remember our previous lives? How can we work off bad karma if we don’t recognize our prior mistakes?
3) Though there are some who claim to recall past lives, the Bible reveals that demons have existed for millennia. These demons are able to place thoughts in a person’s mind in order to deceive.
4) If we’re all being recycled, where are all the new babies coming from? There were an estimated 100 million souls a few millennia ago, but today we’re approaching 7 billion. Reincarnation denies a Creator God, so where are all these souls coming from?
5) India is the cradle of Reincarnation, yet India is one of the world’s most woeful nations. Though the people are intelligent and natural resources abound, cows and rats eat their fill while humans starve. City streets are awash with filth, lined with starving beggars, and suffering is everywhere. With thousands of years to perfect Reincarnation, and countless gurus and holy men, why isn’t India the shining star of human progress and spiritual evolution?
6) Gandhi stated that Reincarnation is a burden to great to bear. He saw the fruits of this practice around his country. All abroad was hopelessness and despair.
7) To break free from Reincarnation, one must live a harmless life. You can’t even kill a microbe. Yet our immune system kills millions each day. This means there is no hope of ever escaping the wheel of Karma.
8) If you see a beggar wallowing in the gutter don’t you dare help him! He is working off bad Karma. If you help him now, he will just have to come back in another lifetime to work off the bad karma all over again. This is why India had no hospitals or charitable institutions until the coming of Christian missionaries. The truth is Reincarnation offers no hope, provides no answers, and contradicts our God-given conscience. It is a demonically inspired philosophy intended to keep its adherents slaves to sin and death.
But you know little about it and are positing fairly ignorant questions.
Instead of criticizing Tiger for his reliance on Buddhism we, as Christians, should be praying for him. Praying that in his spiritual journey he comes to meet someone who will redirect his quest toward Christ. Only through Him will he ever attain permanent peace and forgiveness.
Good one...
I'm not a Buddhist but ... if we all spent months in our mothers' wombs, how come were don't remember even a second of it?
ML/NJ
Awesome....that made me LOL.
ROTFLOL!
“He that hath meditated Me alone,
In putting off his flesh, comes forth to Me,
Enters into My Being—doubt thou not!
But, if he meditated otherwise
At hour of death, in putting off the flesh,
He goes to what he looked for, Kunti’s Son!
Because the Soul is fashioned to its like.
...
Have Me, then, in thy heart always! and fight!
Thou too, when heart and mind are fixed on Me,
Shalt surely come to Me! All come who cleave
With never-wavering will of firmest faith,
Owning none other gods: all come to Me,
The Uttermost, Purusha, Holiest!
...
For who, none other Gods regarding, looks
Ever to Me, easily am I gained
...
I am alike for all! I know not hate,
I know not favor! What is made is Mine!
But them that worship Me with love, I love;
They are in Me, and I in them!
Nay, Prince!
If one of evil life turn in his thought
Straightly to Me, count him amidst the good;
He hath the highway chosen; he shall grow
Righteous ere long; he shall attain that peace
Which changes not. Thou Prince of India!
Be certain none can perish, trusting Me!
O Prithâ’s Son! whoso will turn to Me,
Though they be born from the very womb of Sin,
Woman or man; sprung of the Vaisya caste
Or lowly disregarded Sudra,—all
Plant foot upon the highest path; how then
The holy Brahmans and My Royal Saints?
Ah! ye who into this ill world are come—
Fleeting and false—set your faith fast on Me!
Fix heart and thought on Me! Adore Me! Bring
Offerings to Me! Make Me prostrations! Make
Me your supremest joy! and, undivided,
Unto My rest your spirits shall be guided.
...
Give Me thy heart! adore Me! serve Me! cling
In faith and love and reverence to Me!
So shalt thou come to Me! I promise true,
For thou art sweet to Me!
And let go those—
Rites and writ duties! Fly to Me alone!
Make Me thy single refuge! I will free
Thy soul from all its sins! Be of good cheer!
...
He only knoweth—only he is free of sin, and wise,
Who seeth Me, Lord of the Worlds, with faith-enlightened eyes,
Unborn, undying, unbegun.
...
Yet not by Vedas, nor from sacrifice,
Nor penance, nor gift-giving, nor with prayer
Shall any so behold, as thou hast seen!
Only by fullest service, perfect faith,
And uttermost surrender am I known
And seen, and entered into, Indian Prince!
Who doeth all for Me; who findeth Me
In all; adoreth always; loveth all
Which I have made, and Me, for Love’s sole end,
That man, Arjuna! unto Me doth wend.”
- Bhagavad-Gita.
I believe in Karma so when I do bad things to people its because they had it coming.
He chose the middle path.
A lot, apparently.
Reincarnation is not the central tenet of Buddhism. Buddhism teaches:
I. The Way to the End of Suffering
II. Right View
III. Right Intentions
IV. Right Speech, Right Action, and Right Livelihood
V. Right Effort
VI. Right Mindfulness
VII. Right Concentration
VIII. The Development of Wisdom
Tiger was not strong enough to overcome his temptations, just as many Christians aren’t. There are many other errors in your analysis, but they are typical for most Christians, who panic at the mention of anything even remotely reperesenting eastern theology.
Maybe it’s Tiger Woods that is failing Buddhism. :-)
Using the Bible to pooh-pooh the teachings of Buddha and the Gita is similar to someone using a Buick owners manual to denigrate the advantages of owning a Ford.
How would someone know they woke up?
My Dogma ate my Karma.
correct!
Bump - and I agree!
The Bhagavad-Gita.
The Harvard Classics. 1909–14.
Chapter XII
ARJUNA:
LORD! of the men who serve Thee—true in heart—
As God revealed; and of the men who serve,
Worshipping Thee Unrevealed, Unbodied, far,
Which take the better way of faith and life?
KRISHNA:
Whoever serve Me—as I show Myself—
5
Constantly true, in full devotion fixed,
These hold I very holy. But who serve—
Worshipping Me The One, The Invisible,
The Unrevealed, Unnamed, Unthinkable,
Uttermost, All-pervading, Highest, Sure—
10
Who thus adore Me, mastering their sense,
Of one set mind to all, glad in all good,
These blessed souls come unto Me.
Yet, hard
The travail is for whoso bend their minds
15
To reach th’ Unmanifest. That viewless path
Shall scarce be trod by man bearing his flesh!
But whereso any doeth all his deeds,
Renouncing self in Me, full of Me, fixed
To serve only the Highest, night and day
20
Musing on Me—him will I swiftly lift
Forth from life’s ocean of distress and death
Whose soul clings fast to Me. Cling thou to Me!
Clasp Me with heart and mind! so shalt thou dwell
Surely with Me on high. But if thy thought
25
Droops from such height; if thou be’st weak to set
Body and soul upon Me constantly,
Despair not! give Me lower service! seek
To read Me, worshipping with steadfast will;
And, if thou canst not worship steadfastly,
30
Work for Me, toil in works pleasing to Me!
For he that laboreth right for love of Me
Shall finally attain! But, if in this
Thy faint heart fails, bring Me thy failure! find
Refuge in Me! let fruits of labor go,
35
Renouncing all for Me, with lowliest heart,
So shalt thou come; for, though to know is more
Than diligence, yet worship better is
Than knowing, and renouncing better still
Near to renunciation—very near—
40
Dwelleth Eternal Peace!
Who hateth nought
Of all which lives, living himself benign,
Compassionate, from arrogance exempt,
Exempt from love of self, unchangeable
45
By good or ill; patient, contented, firm
In faith, mastering himself, true to his word,
Seeking Me, heart and soul; vowed unto Me,—
That man I love! Who troubleth not his kind,
And is not troubled by them; clear of wrath,
50
Living too high for gladness, grief, or fear,
That man I love! Who, dwelling quiet-eyed,
Stainless, serene, well-balanced, unperplexed,
Working with Me, yet from all works detached,
That man I love! Who, fixed in faith on Me,
55
Dotes upon none, scorns none; rejoices not,
And grieves not, letting good and evil hap
Light when it will, and when it will depart,
That man I love! Who, unto friend and foe
Keeping an equal heart, with equal mind
60
Bears shame and glory, with an equal peace
Takes heat and cold, pleasure and pain; abides
Quit of desires, hears praise or calumny
In passionless restraint, unmoved by each,
Linked by no ties to earth, steadfast in Me,
65
That man I love! But most of all I love
Those happy ones to whom ’tis life to live
In single fervid faith and love unseeing,
Eating the blessèd Amrit of my Being!
Here endeth Chapter XII. of the Bhagavad-Gîtâ,
entitled “Bhakityôgô,” or “The Book of
the Religion of Faith”.
Actually those were all from the Gita.
Beautiful (and piercing)
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