The Christ Conundrum.

religion
noun
1 (1) :the service and worship of God or the supernatural
(2) :commitment or devotion to religious faith or observance
2 :a personal set or institutionalized system of religious attitudes, beliefs, and practices
3 :a cause, principle, or system of beliefs held to with ardor and faith

For 520 million people, Buddhism is a "commitment or devotion to religious faith or observance", "a personal set or institutionalized system of religious attitudes, beliefs, and practices", and/or "a cause, principle, or system of beliefs held to with ardor and faith." Therefore, according to Merriam-Webster's Dictionary, Buddhism is a religion.
The only people who seem to find this a debatable point are Westerners who have deep-seated hang-ups regarding organized religion.

 

I can see this will be a war of attrition. After defining "scholar" and giving examples of scholars who view Buddhism as a religion, I must now quote from them. What will be the next hoop I need to jump through?

I'll quote from two:

• Berkson, whom you may recall is a professor of comparative religion at Hamline Univeristy specializing in the religions of East Asia. Cultural Literacy for Religion. After discussing definitions of religion, including substantive (yours) and functional approaches (the Boston Red Sox fans) and their limitations, he moves on to the one I've been using "which is known as the family resemblance approach. This looks at elements or clusters of chacteristics that are common among what we would normally call a religion." (p.5) That is the approach he takes, focusing on "those traditions that have most of the features that we normally associate with religion." (p.9) These he identifies as 5 key elements: divinity, scripture, ritual, morality, and soteriology.(salvation or liberation).(p.12) He proceeds to apply these to religions including "Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Daoism, Shinto, Shamanism, Judaism, Christianity and Islam." He covers Buddhism in Lectures 6 and 7, He begins with the observation: "When most of us think of religion, we think of a God or Gods,a divinely revealed text ,and the concept of an eternal soul. Buddhism explicitly rejects these elements... Learning about Buddhism , therefore, expands our understanding of religion and the forms it can take."
• Prothero. God is Not One. Today it is widely accepted that there is no one essence that all religions share. What they share is family resemblances--tendencies toward this belief or that behavior. ..Philosopher of religion Ninian Smart has referred to these as the even "dimensions" of religion: ritual, narrative, experiential, instiutional, ethical, doctrinal, and material dimensions....Something is a religion when it shares enough of its DNA to belong to the family of religions. What makes the members of this family different is how they mix and match these dimensions. Experience is central to Daoism and Buddhsm. Judaism emphasizes the narrative dimension. The ethical dimension is central to Confucianism. The Yoruba tradition is to a great extent about ritual. And doctrine is particularly important to Christianity." In Chp. 5, he discusses "Buddhism: The Way of Awakening" . He remarks that "One of the distinguishing marks of the Buddhist tradition is its emphasis on experience over belief."

If you want more, you'll need to go to the library and check out the rest.

 

Thank you. You put it so clearly and concisely.

 

This thread, as I recall, was about the alleged conundrum that God would send Jesus at a particular point in history. Lately, it seems to be about Buddhism and the definition of religion, so Piobaire's response seems apt. Your "therefore" is a non-sequitor. "
There you go again with the football games, using "religiously" metaphorically.There’s a big difference between pep rallies, tearing down the goal post, and Boy Scout ceremonies, on the one hand, and the kinds of rituals many Buddhists engage in, on the other. I don't think the Boy Scouts or the cheer leaders are seeking enlightenment or escape from samsara."

 

@#$% heretics! What do they know? Seriously, you've presented a list descriptive of traditional Christian beliefs, as formulated by the various councils over the centuries. For a description of how some of those councils operated, see Prof. Philip Jenkins Jesus Wars which relates how four patriarchs, three queens, and two emperors decided what Christians would believe for the next 1,500 years. They put the "P" in politics! Now that they can no longer settle disputes in torture chamber, they'll just have to put up with people like me. As for myself, I call myself a Christian because I think my concept of religion best fits the teachings and example of Jesus presented in the Gospels, especially the message of unconditional love of God and neighbor, including society's rejects and least fortunate. Incidentally, this view seems to be shared by others who call themselves Progressive Christians.

 

lol. "Definitively define" the ineffable? Impossible, by definition, but I can take a stab at a working definition" "God is the felt presence of a Higher Power "in whom we live, and move and have our being". The key components are :experience (felt presence). immanence ( in whom we live and move and have our being) and transcendance (Higher Power). My interest in God and conversion to Christianity developed from an experience--a cascading set of thoughts triggered from a reading of Gen. 1:26. It was quite a trip! As Rudloph Otto put it, arousing spiritual emotion--an experience of the numinous, awe-inspiring, mysterium tremendum et fascinans. So in that sense, I'm something of a mystic--"born again", as a person utterly different than I was before..

However, I'm also basically an existentialist who believes that religion is a "joyful bet" (as Luther put it) on the nature of reality. Unlike Kierkegaard's leap of faith, I'm more pragmatic. I like to make educated bets informed by evidence, experience , science, and logic. So I view God as a tentative working hypothesis tested by whether or not it "works" , in William James' sense of the world. So far, so good. But I've long since given up figuring out God and am content with contemplating the mystery. I tend to follow Borg theology, which also starts with religious experience and ends in action based on Jesus' example of Love and compassion. On the matter of Love, I'm talking of course of agape What is agape love? | GotQuestions.org
which Paul describes in 1 Corinthians 13:1–13. In Matthew 22:37-39, Jesus tells us that love of God and neighbor are the summation of the Law and the Prophets. These are the words I take to be the essence of Christianity, the hermeneutic I use to read the rest of Scripture, and my answer to the meaning of life. So I don't consider love to be "an empty platitude".

Tillich is talking about the "God beyond God" or ultimate meaning, close to what Hindus understand by Brahman. I agree with him in making the object of my affections ultimate, and thinking of God inter alia as Ultimate Meaning. To me, ultimate meaning is God,who is inter alia, the summation of human idealism (Dewey), including Love--not an empty platitude but what I live and would die for!

I was thinking here more of litmus tests about what "real" Christians must believe.

 

I don't think "prove" is an appropriate term. We can't "prove" definitions, only judge how useful they are.

There is no contradiction in providing working definitions of hard to define concepts. The author is discussing mysticism. Justice", "Truth" and "Beauty' are also difficult to define precisely. Yet we have some idea what they mean, and it's meaningful to talk about them.
2. Next, transcendence.Let's stop right there.
In Buddhism there is no self.....so what does transcendence have to do with Buddhism? [/QUOTE]Transcendence means beyond or above the usual physical experience. The Nichiren Buddhist Society of America recently changed its name to Transcedent Life Condition, focused on becoming Buddhas by "transcending our lower life conditions to the point that our central life tendency becomes that of the life conditions of Bodhisattva and Buddhahood." Transcendent Life Condition Buddhism More generally, Buddhism emphasizes the impermanent nature of the world and the need to transcend it. Yes, the self is an illusion, but one in which many humans are trapped. Some forms of Buddhism, especially Pure Land, view the path to nirvanna as one of transcendence of the illusion of self, although others take the position that it is a cessation of samsara and, therefore, not a state of transcedence. .As I understand it, "transcendence" may also refer to one of the jhānas or states of concentration which are transitory.

According to the Drepung Loseling Institute, a center for Tibetan Buddhist studies, practice and culture accepts Buddhism is a religion, because: “Like all major religions, Buddhism contains an explanation of the origin of existence, a morality, and a specific set of rituals and behaviors. … Buddhism presents a transformational goal, a desire to improve one’s situation, and a distinct moral code.” Is Buddhism a religion? Venerable Master Chin Kung of the Buddhist Educational College in Singapore, complains:
" Originally, Buddhism was not a religion, but now it has become one. We can no longer deny that there is a 'Buddhist religion' because everywhere we look, Buddhism is displayed as a religion.... Today we mainly see people offering to the Buddha statues and praying for blessings and fortune." He thinks this is an unfortunate development." "Buddhism as an Education: The path to Enlightenment,"Buddhism as an Education by Master Chin Kung Sri Lanka acknowledges Theravada Buddhism as "foremost" among its religions .And Buddhism in popular folklorehas its share of supernatural beliefs and legends, although serious Buddhists may dismiss them as peripheral: Siddhartha Buddha's conception when his mother dreamed of being penetrated though her ribcage by a white elephant and the Buddha's subsequent birth through said opening, his precocious declaration upon being born that he was born "for enlightenment".“Conze (1959), 36.etc. The the Maitreyavyākaraṇa foretells the bodhisattva Maitreya who will come to earth, achieve enlightenment, and in the Buddhist tradition is to appear on Earth, achieve complete enlightenment, and teach the pure dharma at some time in the future. This is probably not the Buddhism you and Sam Harris practice, just as the Christianity practiced at the Pentecostal and Catholic churches isn't the kind my Progressive Christian co-religionists practice, but "if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, quacks like a duck..."

Preconceived notion? Dharma and sangha are standard terms in Buddhist practice., known as known as the Three Refuges or Three Treasures. In every form of Buddhism, for over a couple of millennia, people formally become Buddhists by reciting stating: I take refuge in the Buddha, in the Dharma, in the Sangha. 2 - The Three Treasures of Buddhism: Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha - The Zen Studies Podcast. Where have you been? As for the sutras, is there some doubt about what the term means, or its importance in Buddhism?

I don't consider them to be the same thing either. Who said they were? I consider spirituality to be about a personal experience of the numinous or sense of meaning beyond self. Religion is about the institutions (codes, creeds, rituals and community ties) the shape and guide religious life. There' s a bumper sticker that says "religion is for folks who want to stay out of hell, spirituality is for folks who have been there." Or "religion puts burdens on people, spirituality takes them off."

I doubt that Pure Land would be your cup of tea. Pure Land (AKA Amida or Shin) Buddhism, one of the most popular forms in the Mahayana tradition of east Asia takes the position that it is impossible for the ordinary person to attain enlightenment or follow Dharma on our present corrupt plane of existence, So the compassionate Boddisattva Anitaba created in another plane of existence called Sukavati (Pure Land in Chinese0 or Land of Ultimate Bliss. Ordinary beings can go there after death and enjoy material comforts while seeking enlightenment, which is easier to attain there. For the lower classes, Pure Land is something like heaven or Paradise, tho temporary. The Pure and is accessible by chanting the name of Amida as a mantra. Some traditions interpret the Pure Land metaphorically, as a state of mind attainable on our present plane, and visualized while chanting the bodhisttvas name as an aide to mindfulness. Others, typically the lower classes, take it literally as a place they will go to when they die..

What I'd be more amneable to is a comparative religion thread.

 

Now I have something to put in the appropriate box on my hospital admission form.

 

MeAgain. I see no point to continuing. It's getting us nowhere, and it's a tad off topic (The Christ Conundrum). To summarize my position:

1. Many experts on comparative religion find the cluster or family approach to religion useful, because it enables them to look at patterns of belief that seem to have something in common even though one or another of the elements of western religion is missing.
2. This position is widespread, not only among these scholars but among components of the Buddhist population.
3. It certainly goes way beyond just a philosophy or atheism in code, core beliefs, rituals and community.
4. It is not necessary to accept this approach, but it is legitimate to do so.
5. Millions of practicing Buddhists, particularly in the Mahayana and Vajrayana traditions, practice forms of Buddhism that seem strikingly similar to other religions, especially at the popular level.
6. Your concept of Buddhism is true that of Siddhartha Buddha, but like other belief-value systems, time has led to major variants that have larger numbers of adherents.

I rest my case! It's been fun and educational, but exhausting.

 

Progressive Christians argue that "the basic tenets of Christianity" are love of God and neighbor, including society's rejects, and social justice. The other stuff is superfluous, and even detrimental, but developed as a result of politics and human nature. We have a different concept of what it means to be "divine". We don't see it as necessarily a synonym for "supernatural", if that term means outside and divorced from the laws of nature, although we do accept and revere the transcendent ("beyond or above the range of normal or merely physical human experience". Oxford Dictionaries.)
I'd argue that "progressive Christian" is a very necessary term, to distinguish it from the unprogressive kind that's in greater abundance. Jesus gave us the fructose test for telling the authentic from the inauthentic. The inauthentic yields "bitter fruit". Unfortunately, the bitter fruit of toxic religion is all too evident today and in history.

 

Close, but overly broad. We're more "peace, love and understanding" than "sex, drugs, rock n'roll", or long hair. love beads and sandals.