2012-09-22                   John W             John W's previous articles

Reflections on Buddhism

* What Vatican II said about Buddhism

* The emphasis on compassion is really beautiful and important

* Buddhahood has similarities to Christian sainthood

* The Buddhist idea of re-incarnation is really an attempt to solve the problem of reward\punishment for being good/bad in this life: if you're good you'll be a higher being in the next life..... This idea results from disbelief in another world

* The idea that  re-incarnation has been going on from eternity and will continue eternally is a further result of the above disbelief in another world

*  Buddhism teaches that existence is not real  

* Buddhism is atheistic: 
there is no God....the world just exists, never had a Creator

* Buddhism encourages flight/disengagement  from the world....no wonder Buddhist countries have a history of lack of progress. See Buddhism and Revolution

* For Matteo Ricci  (who lived in China for 27 years) Confucianism (in its early form) was most admirable and promoted family and social values; but Buddhism, although it was practised by many sincere and good people, was basically a restricting and negative force

* Wikipedia: Buddhism

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