Real World Event Discussions

Dutch rethink Christianity for a doubtful world

POSTED BY: Niki2
UPDATED: Wednesday, March 11, 2026 00:29
VIEWED: 9348
PAGE 6 of 12

NIKI2

Thursday, August 11, 2011 9:50 PM

Happy, I grant you and Riona your point about "new" individuals...technically that's why we have reincrnation, but I'm still on the fence about that.

Yes, there is an onus on Christians, BUT...my point is that even if you don't choose to "follow" that onus, if you call yourself Christian and go to church, etc., you're still "saved" even if you do nothing. That was my point.

Hippie Operative Nikovich Nikita Nicovna Talibani,
Contracted Agent of Veritas Oilspillus, code name “Nike”,
signing off

RIONAEIRE

Thursday, August 11, 2011 10:29 PM

I feel that being a Christian is about making a choice, praying and agnowledging Christ as your Savior, making a commitment to Him and to do your best to follow Him, to agknowledge to Him that you know you're not perfect and that you want Him in your life,, then you're saved. I believe that we need to step up and play an active role in that decision for ourselves or else it doesn't really count.

I totally know what you mean about angels Its pretty obvious biblically that they aren't cute or pretty like we think of pretty. I like Faerie figurines and drawings better, I don't believe in faeries and by that very fact it makes faerie pictures more interesting to me, I can imagine faeries however I like because I don't believe they exist, but I like/enjoy them.

"A completely coherant River means writers don't deliver" KatTaya

OPPYH

Thursday, August 11, 2011 11:22 PM

Niki,
I'm very curious of your thoughts on the afterlife.
At the expense of not reading every one of your posts in this thread(sorry I'm in a bit of a rush) you seem to me very aware of the possibility that life can continue after death....if only in a spirit form. You are very vocal about the human condition
(you tend to post mainly in the RWED) so I'm inclined to believe you feel strongly one way or another about this.

----------------------------------------------------------------

70's TV FOREVER

NIKI2

Thursday, August 11, 2011 11:33 PM

To try to answer your questions, Riona: Buddhism isn't static. It has changed through the ages in each country it has come to. "A distinctive feature of buddhism has been the continuous evolution of the practice as it was transmitted from one country to another. This dynamic aspect is particularly evident today in the West." People's interpretations of buddhism have changed over time and depending on the country and the ethnic background.

I started out and found myself giving you a quick history of buddhism in America, which isn't what you asked. So I deleted all of that, then realized I can't speak to how it has evolved over the millenia unless I research it myself, which would take ages, and which I really shouldn't do anyway (the old "curiosity" thing). One of the ways buddhism has evolved in the States is that since 1974, there are a few buddhist elementary schools, high schools and universities here, as well as the original monasteries. The most obvious "evolution" here in the States is that taught by the Juniper Foundation (founded in 2003, just down on the Peninsula from us in Redwood City), which is an organization that works to adapt and promote Buddhist practice in the modern world. They call their approach "Buddhist training for modern life" and it emphasizes meditation, balancing emotions, cultivating compassion and developing insight as four building blocks of Buddhist training.

Quote:
To benefit from the methods of a Buddhist lineage, Juniper holds that they must become integrated into modern culture just as they were in the cultures of India, China, Japan, Tibet and others. The 14th Dalai Lama acknowledged this principle when, in his book The Meaning of Life from a Buddhist Perspective, he wrote

“It is important to adopt the essence of Buddha’s teaching, recognizing that Buddhism as it is practiced by Tibetans is influenced by Tibetan culture and thus it would be a mistake to try to practice a Tibetanized form of Buddhism."

Because Buddhist ideas value inquiry and critical thinking, Juniper holds that we can apply these to build a bridge from ancient culture to modern life, one that is grounded in tradition but evolved to embrace discovery and modern social norms

There are many different ways to study buddhism, and admittedly, some of the buddhists who come here from Asia, and for whom it was traditional, do treat it more as a religion.

Quote:
American buddhists include many Asian Americans, as well as a large number of converts of other ethnicity, and now their children and even grandchildren. In America, there is "ethnic buddhism" (or "immigrant buddhism"), those buddhist traditions that arrived in America along with immigrants who were already believers and that largely remained with those immigrants and their descendants. The next oldest and arguably the most visible group are "import buddhists", because they came to America largely in response to interested American converts who sought them out, either by going abroad or by supporting foreign teachers.

So I only know Zen buddhism through Green Gulch, our temple/farm here in Marin, and through what I've read, so even if I wanted to, I'm not conversant in how buddhism has evolved over time.

Quote:
It is often argued that the differences between Buddhist groups arise benignly from the differing needs and interests of those involved. Convert Buddhists tend to be interested in meditation and philosophy. On the other hand, for immigrants and their descendants, preserving tradition and maintaining a social framework assume a much greater relative importance, making their approach naturally more conservative.

The latter are the ones who view it as a religion, while we view it as a philosophy, but in neither case is there a god, worship or scriptures.

Quote:
Buddhism had become the fastest-growing religion in Australia and many other Wester

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME

NIKI2

Thursday, August 11, 2011 11:36 PM

Quote:
In some defense of Christianity, while I myself have met many uncharitable, domineering, and self-righteous types who some to think God exists to grant only their selfish prayers, there is a popular belief that even Christians go to hell. And not just Christians from other sects, but ones who have actually been bad.

The sacrifice thing doesn't exonerate ALL sins, just original sin, which is carried through the paternal lineage. So Christians are supposed to try to still tow the line and not commit too many other sins. And that does take some self-reflection... If you're doing it right. It at least attempts to make someone recognize what their flaws are and when they've wronged someone.

Sometimes. Just as many people use it to try to treat other people like garbage.

There's also the virtues, which people can practice to gain plus signs by their name in the pearly gate's guest list.

Byte, thank you. That post was edifying. I better understand about the "original" sin, and that makes more sense. I gotta ask, tho'; are you serious about the "plus signs"? I never heard of that!

I also agree with the following post. It always makes me smile sadly when I hear "God on our side" (there's a great song about that) and when sports teams pray before a game. If both teams are praying, what exactly do they expect? That always flumergated me!

Hippie Operative Nikovich Nikita Nicovna Talibani,
Contracted Agent of Veritas Oilspillus, code name “Nike”,
signing off

NIKI2

Thursday, August 11, 2011 11:44 PM

Riona,

Quote:
Sorry, I just feel bad for these folk.

I think you're right to feel bad for them; that is the worst form of "striving" or "craving" we've been discussing, isn't it?

That second part is some of what's caused me to be prejudiced against some Christians, too. The stuff we hear from some people, like how this or that event was because of something they did, etc. (like the earthquakes) makes me fume. Judgmentalism at its very WORST, and from my viewpoint, not at all Christian.

Hippie Operative Nikovich Nikita Nicovna Talibani,
Contracted Agent of Veritas Oilspillus, code name “Nike”,
signing off

BYTEMITE

Thursday, August 11, 2011 11:45 PM

I was mostly being clever, but, here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Virtues

So Christianity does suggest more than just the ten commandments in regards to how people should act.

Several sects believed that the people who would enter heaven were predetermined, and that all indication of WHO they were would be according to whether they acted in accordance to the virtues (looking at you, Calvinism). But they're highly recommended by all the other sects as well.

1KIKI

Friday, August 12, 2011 12:18 AM

Just a general comment about religion: if something requires faith, it's my conclusion that it's b/c it doesn't work overall at any level - practically, psychologically, or socially. Faith is the patch that covers the bleeding wound of lack of benefit.

It's possible to posit a set of social rules which are pacific, survivable, and sustainable and which create that exact kind of society as a logical result of following those rules. Such a set of rules would require no faith, since the benefits would be immediately and practically apparent to everyone.

NIKI2

Friday, August 12, 2011 1:03 AM

Well, Oppy, you're probably long gone by now, given how long it took me to work out my reply to Riona and now to you, but maybe you'll come back. And yes, I post almost exclusively in RWED; I run a forum on mental illness so post most of my personal stuff there, and I've gotten to know the "regulars" on RWED so feel comfortable with them (believe it or not!).

The afterlife. That's a real toughie. I'll give it a try. (I gave it a try and at the end came up with MY answer to your question, so skip all this and go to the end if you want.)

Reincarnation isn't what most people think it is. It's awfully complex and I shouldn't even try to go into it, because I'm going to give you an erroneous picture unless I go into it ALL, which would go on forever! And of course, it's slightly different depending on which buddhist teachings one follows.

Quote:
The basic doctrine is that the evolving consciousness or stream of consciousness upon death (or "the dissolution of the aggregates"), becomes one of the contributing causes for the arising of a new aggregation. The consciousness in the new person is neither identical to nor entirely different from that in the deceased but the two form a causal continuum or stream. Rebirth is conditioned by the karmas (actions of body, speech and mind) of previous lives; good karmas will yield a happier rebirth, bad karmas will produce one which is more unhappy. The basic cause for this is the abiding of consciousness in ignorance: when ignorance is uprooted, rebirth ceases.

In other words, reaching nirvanna is the end of rebirth, and nirvanna is reached by being able to see the real world (not the one we live in, which is made up of our subjective view). I'm not convinced on this one, as I think karma is more a matter of what we need to learn; even good karma may give us a new life that's hard, so we can learn something we haven't yet.

That "aggregate" thing, let's see if I can dig out something on that:

Quote:
Observation reveals consciousness as a sequence of conscious moments rather than a continuum of awareness. Each moment is an experience of an individual mind-state such as a thought, a memory, a feeling or a perception. A mind-state arises, exists and, being impermanent, ceases, following which the next mind-state arises. Thus the consciousness of a sentient being can be seen as a continuous series of birth and death of these mind-states.

In other words, we are all "aggregates", which dissolve to become part of another aggregation. So "death" isn't the way we usually think of death...it's kind of like taking something apart and putting it back together with parts from outside the original and leaving out some of the original parts...do you see why it's impossible to explain?

Plugging on. I'll try to pick out the pertinent parts, because I'm nowhere near able to explain it in my own words:

Quote:
Within one life and across multiple lives, the empirical, changing self not only objectively affects its surrounding external world, but also generates (consciously and unconsciously) its own subjective image of this world, which it then lives in as 'reality'. It lives in a world of its own making in various ways. It furthermore selectively notices from among such objects, and then processes what has been sensed to form a distorted interpretive model of reality: a model in which the 'I am' conceit is a crucial reference point. When nirvana (vanishing of the self-idea) is experienced, though, all such models are transcended: the world stops 'in this fathom-long carcase'.

That doesn't make sense unless you understand that in buddhism, we aren't "IN" the real world; our "realities" are subjective, and only through much effort can we see the REAL world. In Zen buddhism, we meditate trying to use "bare attention" to ob

BYTEMITE

Friday, August 12, 2011 1:37 AM

Have a good meal. When you come back, here's some further clarification about original sin.

It wasn't so much eating the forbidden fruit or anything that created original sin, but rather what it represented. Knowledge of good and evil, in way way, CREATES that evil, and unleashed it on humanity. Presumably that's the whole reason why God was trying to discourage the whole defying thing.

So there's two possibilities for Satan's role in all that, angels aren't supposed to have free will, so either God controlled him by manipulating him into corrupting humanity, or that was the plan all along.

Humans, however, were supposed to get free will all along, so whether God was trying to spare them from making that mistake or he was actually encouraging it, he knew it was going to happen.

Now, original sin only is passed down from the father, because it goes back to Adam. Not Eve. Eve was tricked, and so she didn't defy God of her own will. But Adam defied God to stay with Eve.

And either God was angry and threw a hissy fit that Adam didn't have his whole devotion, or, that's the way he wanted it to happen all along.

One last note: the Immaculate Conception doesn't refer to God visiting Mary and whatever, that's the Annunciation. Rather, the immaculate conception was manuevering circumstances so MARY did not have original sin, and so was a suitable host/mother for his son.