Everything is based on perspective and that little thing perspective can change things drastically I believe Buddha was the more conscious one while Jesus was more of the follower guy. Jesus had a source to "back up"his teaching while Buddha just gave wisdom out without all the extra Jesus was said to be doing personally I don't think he did all the things the bible is saying like telling people how to live there life instead of just giving information and letting you come up with without you obtain from his message cause i so doubt if he was actually doing what the bible said he was that a country he wasn't even apart of would just crucify him without trial cause Rome had trials and such and Caesar wasn't even close to the ass the bible is portraying him as and though it says he didn't want him killed yet still sentenced him to death that's just madness
Ideally... good intentions don't always give us good results though... if we study these religions for what they are it's obvious that there is a lot of negativity in the consequences. It's is a lot more complicated than simply the cessation of suffering. I mean yeah, that is the positive glass half full way of seeing it, but what about all of the suffering created by competing claims trying to corner the market on Truth... there is the goods like charity and community, and then there is the bad such as indoctrination, singlemindedness, genocide, crusades, inquisitions, political affairs and what not... How can we just ignore that even if we suppose that religion is always enacted with good intentions? There are still the bad results... and the suffering still goes on...
That's the point, they're not. They only seem that way. Jesus came long before the idea of Christianity.
It's not important to get caught up in what someone believes about the idea of who this man may have been. It's the idea of what he represents that matters. In order to consider this properly you HAVE to divorce yourself from the Christian ideology entirely. Throw religion away and see the spirit that started it. Then you might get some insight into why the ideas have relevance.
Yes. Sometimes we are blinded by religion that we totally miss the whole idea and what he thought us.
We have to go back to basics, and within, if we're going to move away from old ideas. It's not about resurrecting some long dead bloke who was nailed to a cross allegedly, but understanding what the teachings of him and any other enlightened realisations mean to us NOW. It's not about following 'the one', or finding a different one to follow if he's not your thing. Everything is inspiration. The journey of evolution, the journey towards enlightenment, see it, call it, as you will, needs us to be inspired to see the best path. Dismiss nothing out of hand, but realise that our own beliefs and definitions play as much a part in this as anything. Anything you feel defensive about usually indicates a closed position. A closed position cannot see the wood for the trees. It's not this or that, it's more like this and that, but really, it is this IS that.
All the negative actions you speak of are not the message, the goal of religion. They are bi-products, if you will, and they are done always by followers. I am not speaking of these, I am speaking right now about the final goal of religion, to attain a final resting place free from suffering. If anyone commits ANY evil action they are not following the truth path to happiness. The followers may make mistakes, and kill and do evil, but the message remains unchanged. Yes there are bad followers and there are good followers. The suffering continues for those that cause it.
im not following anyone.... i am making my own way so so so silly to think this god could be all and not also encompass this evil you speak of.... like so many ....trying to take the parts you like and call them truth....while attempting to ignore/attack/abandon any of the parts you dont like..... how can we have all without both darkness and light how can we even know one without the contrast of the other to show us silly humans feasting on those part of your gods you find tasty and appealing ....tossing to the dogs those bits you do not wish to consume yourself......as if this makes them less of part of all.... there are no beings without evil free from this sin they do not exist...this includes your god ....otherwise your god is not all it is only the parts you have decided to like..... where did this evil come from if not the same source as everything else..... if it did not come from this god..... this god is not all if it did not have purpose it would not exist even the plant we all like to consume .....requires a balance of light and dark to flower properly..... your jesus never claimed to be god .......men did this to him when they changed his name to sound more like zeus.....so it would be easier for the romans to accept the changeover from pagan to "christian"
I am not a follower of Jesus Christ... uhh... and I never said any of this.. I think you may have misunderstood me, or maybe I just misunderstood the question I was given?
Ok.. let me restate my answer to Wind Man Jones' question. Here I am speaking of enlightenment. The goal of most religions is this enlightenment... in Buddhism it is called nirvana, the cessation of suffering. So too it is the same in Hinduism, called moksha. In Islam, it is called Jannah. In Christianity, it is mostly interpreted differently.. Kingdom of God, or heaven, is understood to be an actual place somewhere that you retire to once your life is over. I feel that this is not correct, but heaven is rather a reality one lives in, just like hell. So, then, with this clarified hopefully, the individuals who are followers of religions (most major religions), who in the name of their faith and with good intentions commit evil acts, will suffer. They cause their own suffering, as well as others. It should be obvious here that these individuals will not attain any kind of purified mind, and will not attain enlightenment or reach the Kingdom of God. All (most) religions speak of love, compassion, forgiveness, and virtue. The fundamental Muslims and Christians live a life of hatred and disillusion. How can one attain a state of infinite love and peace if your actions demonstrate otherwise? If you are Christian, be like Jesus. Cultivate compassion in your heart and love thy neighbor as thyself. If you are Buddhist, become like a Buddha in the same way. And so on and so forth. The bad results come from bad practitioners that do bad actions. The message of ethics is there, the path is given to you to follow, but if one choose to alter it and interpret it wrongly the outcome will be negative, just like the actions done. I hope this answered your question.
Oh... I dunno, I just thought it was a matter of realization. The smallest of light shines much brighter when surrounded by darkness.
Enlightenment is the realization of the true nature of mind. It is a realization.. you don't gain anything, but rather, you realize what has been there all along.
Exactly. So you are saying we are not enlightened until we realize this? I am just positing that we are enlighten, we just haven't realized it.
I dunno I mean, I get that enlightenment is a realization, but if there is only now, then when else would we realize this?
No. Enlightenment is realization of one's true nature. The true nature is there, but you must realize it, you must become enlightened. There is a difference between intellectually understanding this, and truly realizing it. To realize it, at least from a Buddhist point of view, one must tame the mind first. This is the spiritual path. Don't think, just because you have what you need already, and you don't need anything external you are already enlightened and there is no need to follow a path. This is a common misunderstanding, as realization takes many years of discipline. Think of it this way: the true nature of mind is radiant, and naturally compassionate, wise, and all-knowing. The mind has been clouded, polluted, and distracted. The spiritual path, then, is to do away with these hindrances and arrive back at the true nature of mind. It's like the sun; clouds may obscure it, rain, hail, and all sorts of things. But the sun is still there. This is enlightenment, to realize what the sun is really like, because it has always been obscured, though it has always been there.
Mindfulness is the practice of constantly dwelling in the now. This is to minimize distractions, thoughts of past and future. Thoughts of past and future have no real substance, therefore, to be in the now means to let go of the past and future. They come and go, only because of the mind's habitual thoughts, it cannot let them go. It dwells in either past or future. This is a hindrance, a cloud obscuring the sun, and it must be tamed to attain any level of realization. But it is but one cloud of many.. actions, thoughts, speech, emotions.. all these must be tamed, because usually they run rampant and out of control. Thus, the doctrine of ethical behavior (ten commandments, eightfold path, etc) is born. One cannot become realized without a disciplined mind, which is the natural state of the mind. But as I said before, it has been obscured. The goal of a practitioner is to purify the mind of it's pollutants.