Progressive Christian theology

Yeah, right. Maye not in your Buddhism.And there is no hell in my Christianity.

I understand that for Buddhists "in the know" there is no reincarnation because of anatta. But just as in this life we can continue without a permanent unchanging substance like self, the forces we identify with continue after our bodies cease to function. Walpola Rahula (1959). What the Buddha Taught.

Buddha taught that life doesn't end at death, but merely continues on in other forms. As Tibetan scholr Chogyam Trunpa Rinpoche put it, "what gets reborn are our neuroses". Six states of existence are possible:

• Heaven
• Human Life
• Asura (Demi-Gods)
• Hungry Ghost (Realm of evil deeds)
• Animals
• Hell

"Where a person is reborn and what form they assume hinges on karma. Everything in life is tied to karma. Actions create a new karma that imprints on the soul. Past actions in past lives, both positive and negative, shape where a soul ends up when reborn into a new body. Good karma means happiness in future lives. Bad karma means suffering down the road."
The Concept of Rebirth in Buddhism | Buddhists.org.
What the Buddha Didn't Teach About Reincarnation
Many Misunderstand What the Buddha Taught About Karma and Rebirth

Not really. There are the writings of Paul who supposedly encountered Jesus in his visions. Also the four different takes in the canonical gospels, and the non-canonical gospels dug up at Nag Hammadi. Quite a lot of material, actually.

I think I've already explained that, although it apparently didn't sink in. He was a religious leader who thought he was on a mission from god. He probably wouldn't have fit in at the faculty lounge.

 

If the Book of Job were adapted for a Buddhist audience, surely his friends would have told him that his maladies were due to something he did in a previous life!

 

I believe Jesus was the Son of God in the same way I believe we are all children of God. Now who is God?

I have heard of three different explanations of God in the Spiritual way
of thinking as contrasted to the religious way of thinking,
1. God is the sum total of all existence. Everything seen and unseen. All-That-Is
2. God is one or more fully advanced spirits that are capable of creating life
and overseeing the progression of the Universe.
3. God is Love. Love, compassion, that is unconditional. God is unconditional Love.

I believe in number three.

 

How absurd! No, I'm not saying that at all. I'm saying that, of the people I know about, He's the one who impressed me with that message. You haven't been able to come up with anybody close. Who before Him did he imitate? Moses? Elijah? Epicurus clearly won't cut it. Although I think highly of the Buddha, I don't find the quite the same message there. Gandhi and King are derivative. The point though is the message. Who said it is secondary. I'm told the Buddha died a natural death at a ripe old age. Jesus died in his early thirties, on a cross, for His ideas--victim of the domination system. Another part of His life example. My beliefs are similar to those of liberal Methodists, Quakers, and First Christians. Should they call themselves something else than Chrisitnas? What should they call themselves to distinguish them from Calvinists or Catholics? Buddhist? Epicureans? Your point seems a bit--pointless.

 

Scholars debate endlessly who Jesus was and what He was all about. Borg has written extensively on the subject, and I find his take compelling. He sees Jesus as a revolutionary Jewish mystic wisdom teacher with a mission. He uses the basic methodolgy of the Jesus Seminar, but with some significant variations. He differs from other Seminarians in accepting Mark as a broadly reliable source, along with the earliest redaction of Thomas, and like Crossan draws heavily on anthropological, archaeological and cross-cultural studies; but adding a phenomenological approach. In contrast to the heaven-sent Savior of conservative theology, Borg's Jesus did not think of Himself as the Messiah, let alone the son of God or a part of the Trinity, did not see his mission as dying for the sins of the world, nor was His message "about himself or the importanceeof believing in him." ( Borg, "Portrais of Jesus", H. Shanks, ed.(1994), The Search for Jesus, p. 87.. His Jesus is an ecstatic, healer, wisdom teacher, social prophet, and movement initiator. In Conflict, Holiness, and Politics in the Teachings o Jesus, Borg presents Jesus as challenging the holiness teachings of the Sadducees, Pharisees and Essenes with an emphasis on compassion which brought him in contact with the "untouchables" of Jewish society. In this he agrees with our Oklahoma progressive preacher, Robin Meyers. Paula Frederiksen, herself Jewish, takes strong exception to this view, echoing Matthew's admonition that He didn't come to change "a single "jot nor stroke of the pen" of Torah law. Paula Fredriksen. “Did Jesus Oppose the Purity Laws?” Bible Review 11, 3 (1995). (But he did reject the oral Torah of the Pharisees). See also, Borg (1989), Jesus .

 

There is no serious question that He was a devout Jew. Of course He listened to the words of the Tanakh and took them to heart. Crossan and others speculate that he might have been exposed to Greek cynic (hippie) philosophers on the streets of Sepphoris or Tiberias.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/1203757
https://letterepaoline.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/rhodes-eddy-jesus-as-diogenes.pdf
Jesus as a radical and controversial Cynic
The Jesus Blog: Who's afraid of the Cynic Jesus?
Very unlikely.

 

The above should probably read: no serious question that He was not a devout Jew. He seems to be aware of the Hillel-Shammai diputations.

 

He certainly also might have been influenced by the ferment and messianic fever going on around him. Judas of Galilee (the supposed Messiah) led a revolt against the Roman tax census about the time He was born (the census which supposedly drew Joseph and Mary to Bethlehem.)Then there was Simon of Peraea who led a revolt shortly afterwards, and the rebel shepherd Anthrogenes.

 

The Cynic connection can't be ruled out. Cynics Menippus, Meleager and Oenomaus were from Gadara, a partially Hellenized community near the south-eastern end of the Sea of Galilee, just 8 miles north of Nazareth, and the Hellenized city of Sepphoris was only five miles away. The historian Josephus' description of the philosophy of Judas the Galilean sounds a lot like Cynicism.

 

Oh, now you did it. You got me going on possible influences. Let's start with the obvious: John the Baptist. Jesus supposedly began His ministry under John the Baptist, who was supposedly His cousin. John, the wild man from the wilderness, designated by Jesus as "Elijah who is to come", who subsisted on honey and locusts (honey and pancakes in the vegetarian Ebionite scriptures) and attracted a following by baptizing people in the Jordan in a scene reminiscent of the entry of the Jews from Exodus into Israel. Baptism was big among the Essenes in their private pools, but John took it public as a mass purification ritual. Jesus recruited some of his early followers from John's movement and when Herod beheaded John, more came over to Jesus. The gospels of Matthew and Luke are at pains to argue that Jesus influenced John rather than vice versa--an issue that wouldn't be a problem if Jesus didn't exist.John seems to have some exposure to the Essenes at Qumran, who resembled the early Christians in calling their movement "the Way", forsaking family for their religion, foregoing material possessions, concerned themselves with the poor, etc.Jesus' brother James, who became head of the Jerusalem Church upon Jesus' death may have come from this community, another brother Simon the Zealot coming from the more radical followers of the "Fourth Philosophy". The Essenes seem to have formed by a break

 

(Continued; Ten minute rule strikes again!)

The Essenes seem to have formed by a breakaway sect from the Jerusalem Temple who claimed their leader as their Teacher of Righteousness and rightful heir to the Zadokite priesthood usurped by the Sadducees in Jerusalem. Because they were the most purist of Jewish sects, Jesus' reputed lifestyle hangin out with "unclean" people doesn't seem to fit their values, although James', Jesus' brother,sure does. Josephus notes similarities between the Essenes and the Greek Pythagorians, who may be forerunners of the early Gnostics.

The War Scroll found at the reputed Essene haven at Qumran depicts the "War of the Sons of Light Against the Sons of Darkness. This and others of the Dead Sea scrolls show a pronounced Zoroastrian influence left over from the period when Judea was the Persian province of Yehud Medinata. After the Jews returned to Palestine under their Persian benefactors, they expected their fortunes to improve under the covenant. But they didn't. The Greeks defeated the Persians under Alexander. Then came the Hellenizers under Antiochus IV, followed by the Romans. To explain all this, the Jews turned to apocalyptic eschatology, reflected in the Books of Daniel and Enoch, in which the Lord for His own reasons turns the earth over temporarily to cosmic forces of evil, eventually to be overthrown and defeated when the Son of Man comes to take dominion. Until we come to the last gospel, John, Jesus does not refer to himself as he Son of God, but he frequently uses the term "Son of Man".

 

Hidden Beliefs Covered by the Church? Resurrection and Reincarnation in Early Christianity

Christianity as taught by the church in modern times is markedly different from the original Christianity taught by Christ 2000 years back.

It is quite possible that teachings of reincarnation were there in the original christianity taught by christ as there were christian sects then that believed in reincarnation. Many christian gnostic sects had the belief in reincarnation.

Origen is said to have taught reincarnation in his lifetime and it is alleged that when his works were translated into Latin these references were deliberately concealed.

Modern christianity as defined by the church came into existence when christianity was accepted by the romans after centuries of brutal persecution of christians.Many of the roman pagan festivals were transplanted into christianity.

The romans, while being proficient in war, administration and political science, were not adept in spirituality and a religious culture.

The councils of Constantinople and Nicea compiled the biblical scriptures and editted them as per roman sensibilities. All other versions that varied with the roman version was considered heretical and ruthlessly wiped out.

I had read the bible when I was sixteen, but could not make any heads and tails out of it as it was incoherent. It was the study of the teachings of Advaita of Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Jainism, Sufism and nondual philosophy that enabled me to make better sense and understanding of it.

Imo, this incoherence is the reason for the aberrations that we find in the form of those who are committed to psychiatric care due to paranoia of the devil or hellfire, and the Skoptsy, a christian sect that erroneously believed in self-mutilation.

This is however due to the unscrupulous editions of the Bible by the romans and not due to any fault of Christ. I would say it is not just Christ, but the bible itself was crucified by the Romans. It became more of a control mechanism to condition the rebellious christians to be more passive and deferential to roman authority. The roman empire collapsed centuries back but its legacy in the form of the edited bible remains today as well.

Imo, the original teachings of Christ was more of a comprehensive and complete system, and just a shadow of it remains today. The original christianity was similar to Advaita, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism, Taoism and Sufism.

Original christianity , as I see it, is very similar to Sufism, where there exists the theme of enlightenment.

Like Jesus Christ, the enlightened sufi sage Mansur Al Hallaj was similarly tortured and killed by the orthodox section and rulers for alleged blasphemy.

He is best known for his saying: "I am the Truth" (Ana'l-aqq), eerily similar to Jesus's own statement "I and the Father are one." ~ Jesus Christ (John 10:30).


I would say Christians should investigate the real import of Christ's teachings instead of merely memorizing them. There is a real science behind it, and not mere vague abstractions.

If they don't investigate they will merely keep beating their heads around edited verses they are not able to comprehend properly. But if they are open-minded and investigate without fear, they will be able to clearly comprehend the true meaning of the teachings.

Western science and technology flourished and lifted off from the Dark Ages after they investigated and accepted without prejudice eastern mathematics and technologies like compass, astrolabe, glassmaking , papermaking and printing.

As Alexis Carrell stated, "A few observation and much reasoning lead to error; many observations and a little reasoning to truth."

Just as Buddhism's original purpose is to create Buddha's not Buddhists, similarly Christianity's original purpose as well is to create Christs who can bring auspiciousness and great good, not fearful and docile Christians.

 

I love your post, it is very true. Yes, if everyone would read and follow the teachings of Jesus no religion would be needed. He formed no church and started no religion. He taught life and life more abundant.