Ever thought of the significance of Baptism? Priesthood? Anything?
Ever found it honestly strange, if I go into one Christian community, I will find one group kneel in front of Mary, and others decry her ever-virginity?
How I go to one place, and there is an altar, and the other, a stage?
And, yet, to some, this probably never sinks in, that how can Christianity be that way?
It's
like going to Biology class and in one pocket says, biology is only the
study of plants, the other says it is the study of animals, and the
last say it is the study of microorganisms ....
But the truth, it is the study of the plants, of the animals, and of the microorganisms....
Well .....
These questions have better answers than you may realize concerning Christianity
In protestantism, there is great and a singular theology centered on the Bible alone. Well, in one way, it makes the response easy: Ok, so the Bible alone, if you can show me how and why, I will believe you.
And depending where this leads, it will be quizzical. Should it start with history, i.e., the historical record of the Bible, they will be pointed to the Council of Rome where the apostolic Church convened to determine what scripture was and wasn't .... alas, the New Testament.
CHURCH FATHERS
Before circa 350, we have Christian writers, and we can use them to know much about the TRADITION of the early Church. In reading about this TRADITION we find many glorious things which point to the Catholic Church as well as an emphasis on TRADITION over a book.
Then there is this last question:
Who founded your Church? Protestants often protest that Catholicism is man-made, and all the rules are also just man-made, but what is funny is we know exactly what 'man' made all branches of protestantism, it takes very little scholarship to find these out.
How Old Is Your Church? (EWTN)
If you are a Lutheran, your religion was founded by Martin Luther, an ex- monk of the
Catholic Church, in the year 1517.
If you belong to the Church of England, your religion was founded by King Henry VIII in
the year 1534 because the Pope would not grant him a divorce with the right to remarry.
If you are a Presbyterian, your religion was founded by John Knox in Scotland in the
year 1560.
If you are a Protestant Episcopalian, your religion was an offshoot of the Church of
England founded by Samuel Seabury in the American colonies in the 17th century.
If you are a Congregationalist, your religion was originated by Robert Brown in Holland
in 1582.
If you are a Methodist, your religion was launched by John and Charles Wesley in
England in 1744.
If you are a Unitarian, Theophilus Lindley founded your church in London in 1774.
If you are a Mormon (Latter Day Saints), Joseph Smith started your religion in Palmyra,
N.Y., in 1829.
If you are a Baptist, you owe the tenets of your religion to John Smyth, who launched
it in Amsterdam in 1605.
If you are of the Dutch Reformed church, you recognize Michaelis Jones as founder,
because he originated your religion in New York in 1628.
If you worship with the Salvation Army, your sect began with William Booth in London in
1865.
If you are a Christian Scientist, you look to 1879 as the year in which your religion
was born and to Mrs. Mary Baker Eddy as its founder.
If you belong to one of the religious organizations known as 'Church of the
Nazarene," "Pentecostal Gospel." "Holiness Church," "Pilgrim
Holiness Church," "Jehovah's Witnesses," your religion is one of the
hundreds of new sects founded by men within the past century.
If you are Catholic............... look it up, the founder of the Catholic Church is..........
I dare say: When time and mind is put on the question, there is but one conclusion:
God's Church is all of Catholicism, All of Catholicism is Christianity, and only some of Christianity is God's Church.
Heaven is, well, heaven, right? Greater than 7th heaven, lovelier than the heaven above, and sweeter than sweet heaven.
But what if I told you, you aren't the only one invited, and not only you, but those who you struggle with here on earth?
Does this make you think twice? Does heaven sound like heaven, a place where that mean, annoying, inconsiderate person is there with YOU for ETERNITY !
Although, she does a very unchristian thing in her title, she invites someone to avoid heaven, very unchristian, in fact the opposite of everything a christian should do.
But aside from the words of choice, her message is clear, and just might be the golden ticket to Heaven.
If we treat everyone in the world as if we'll have to live with them for an eternity in Heaven, maybe we'd find it a little more practical and wise to ...... love your neighbor.
If we live this realization out, maybe we'll see that we should ...... forgive as He has forgives.
I mean, if God can accept them into Heaven, or at least give them an invitation, shouldn't we treat them at least worthy of that invitation which they also received?
To me, it seems this can be a very useful mental practice, to remember that there are great chances that our mother-in-law, our annoying neighbor, our helpless loved one, or our wayward boss just might all be right there sitting across from you at the Heavenly Banquet to which we are all invited.
If you're Catholic, think of the patience and unpleasant interaction we may experience with these people as a bit of purgatory on Earth. I would venture to say that most of the suffering in purgatory would feel and look a lot like those moments we have on Earth when people upset us, or we simply don't like them.
Purgatory is probably a good mechanism to get us prepared to have these people as eternal comrades.
This is all right in the heart of the Catholic faith, we are called to communion of heaven and earth, man and God.
Maybe to get to Heaven, we may want to act like everybody is already an eternal being, as they already are !
It's just not our choice what is their final residence, which is why Jesus tells us ...... "don't judge."
We are not to judge the cruelty or evilness of any of our neighbors, God judges their destination. To hold away form someone because you think they are cruel, may come back on you in purgatory.
Thou shall not judge, means don't condemn in a way which makes you not value their existence because you think they are so... /%&E%¤&%( .. that you think of them as a "bad person."
Good people act bad as well, only the bad love the bad more than the good, however. Are we to be the judge of this? No, of course not, we judge only what we can measure and see, as in their action and the consequences of the action, but never their eternal good.
All are called to be forgiven, and all are called to love our neighbors and our enemies!
If not, one or either of you may lose sight of the eternal promises offered to you. Don't let hate or rashness ruin you chance at a seat at the Great Banquet !
It is often concluded and earnestly asserted that science and religion are separate. One is of the soul, the unseen, and the other of the world, and the seen.
It is often claimed that one can not assert truths. Well, oddly it is science which is putting a pause to this attitude. After a stretch of time where faith and religion was considered anti-intellectual, there are trimmers in the underflow of society which are gradually revealing to us, that what we thought we knew, was not what we expected. Science and faith actually do work together.
This makes complete sense to classic Christianity where God is the creator of the World and all, yes all, is under his majesty, even science. To think science is against the very nature of God, is completely missing the point. Science teaches us about God !
“Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me,
if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements—surely you
know! Or who stretched the line upon it? On what were its bases sunk, or
who laid its cornerstone, when the morning stars sang together and all
the sons of God shouted for joy? “Or who shut in the sea with doors when
it burst out from the womb,
But let's take thus further, if God created the world and He created us? How should we respond to Him? Well, Jesus, our Lord, tells us in the greatest Commandments.
“‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’[a]38 This is the first and greatest commandment.39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’[b]40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
This unequivocally takes down Protestant theology if you get to the core of the matter.
To love is to love in all three : heart (body), soul (spirit), and mind (thought).
Protestantism, neglects God's creation by separating the physical world with the spiritual. Their's is a faith of faith alone.
But the Bible teaches a love of action.
John 15 : 13; Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one's life for one's friends. This is clearly a call to action! And the Bible also tells us, that love is the greatest between faith, hope, and love.
New International Version
And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
Yet, Protestants reject the physical dimensions of faith, displayed through our sense in revealing signs we call sacraments.
I have covered this topic before in other posts, and will have links to those at the bottom, but there is more to say.
John 14:15 “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.”
In John 14, we see that the greatest of faith, hope, and love mean "to keep my commandments"
We have the 10 commandments, but also the commandments of ritual and authority.
New International Version And
he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying,
"This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me."
"Do this," not "You might remember.."
DO! in the imperative tense!
Clear ! Clear ! Is it not?
Love is doing, so this equates naturally to mean, faith alone is not a biblical teaching, but a man-made tradition (ironically).
We also see this in Matthew 28, when Jesus says in the "Great Commission,"
“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
More examples of the imperative which can only be concluded to mean commands, not suggestions.
And let's not in the least look at the line, "teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."
This screams Catholicism!
First of all, let's notice that Jesus commands us to take part in ritual. That is he commands them to baptize. This is clear when taken in with the right context. Jesus taught ritual !
So this idea that Jesus came to tear down religion, is erred to the umpf degree !
Furthermore, it states to teach. Teaching, that is men are to teach, not only scripture.
Not only teach them, teach them to "obey!" Oh Oh, is this not DOGMA?
And surely, I am with you ALWAYS. What faith do we have in Jesus if we do not listen to His words?
BEAUTY OF RITUALS
God created us, He knows we are more than spirits, but we were made flesh and blood. God does not want us to only have faith in Him, he wants us to live out this Faith.
God is invincible to us, but this does not mean that we are incapable of living out out faith with our sense.
It is in fact God's design for us to experience our faith both inward and outward.
And if we are obedient, faithful, and most of all "LOVING." Then, will we be filled with the Holy Spirit and feel the true presence of God in our life, starting with the ritual of the Eucharist.
The Bible tells us, it was His breathe which created the world, and this breathe which the Word became Flesh, and it is this following of Christ in remembrance of His promises that the breathe of the priest will always remain in Jesus's trust, so when they do as Jesus said, Jesus will live up to His word.
This is faith! This is faith that saves! To believe in His word!
To be Christian, one has to believe that Jesus was who He and His Apostles said he was.
To be Catholic, before you get into issue after issue of its teachings, you have to ascertain if the Eucharist, is the Eucharist.
If it is truly His flesh and blood, then You Have to Be Catholic !
John 6 "For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink........The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, “How can this man give
us his flesh to eat?” So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to
you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you
have no life in you. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has
eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. "
If it is not His flesh and blood, then You Have to abandon the Church!
Here is a video (really starts at 2:50) to help you discern these questions.
This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat
of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If
anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I
will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” The Jews then disputed
among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”
So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the
flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.
Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I
will raise him up on the last day.
For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever
feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. As the
living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever
feeds on me, he also will live because of me. This is the bread that
came down from heaven, not like the bread the fathers ate and died.
Whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.” Jesus said these things
in the synagogue, as he taught at Capernaum.
Jesus then said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, it was not
Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but my Father gives you the
true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he who comes down from
heaven and gives life to the world.” They said to him, “Sir, give us
this bread always.” Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever
comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never
thirst.
Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. I am
the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and
they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one
may eat of it and not die.
After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked
with him. So Jesus said to the Twelve, “Do you want to go away as well?”
Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the
words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know, that
you are the Holy One of God.” Jesus answered them, “Did I not choose
you, the Twelve? And yet one of you is a devil.”
The children gather wood, the fathers kindle fire, and the women
knead dough, to make cakes for the queen of heaven. And they pour out
drink offerings to other gods, to provoke me to anger.
When I break your supply of bread, ten women shall bake your bread
in a single oven and shall dole out your bread again by weight, and you
shall eat and not be satisfied.
And she said, “As the Lord your God lives, I
have nothing baked, only a handful of flour in a jar and a little oil
in a jug. And now I am gathering a couple of sticks that I may go in and
prepare it for myself and my son, that we may eat it and die.”
“Son of man, when a land sins against me by acting faithlessly, and
I stretch out my hand against it and break its supply of bread and send
famine upon it, and cut off from it man and beast,
Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your
labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen diligently to me, and eat
what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food.
When Gideon came, behold, a man was telling a dream to his comrade.
And he said, “Behold, I dreamed a dream, and behold, a cake of barley
bread tumbled into the camp of Midian and came to the tent and struck it
so that it fell and turned it upside down, so that the tent lay flat.”
So Gideon went into his house and prepared a young goat and
unleavened cakes from an ephah of flour. The meat he put in a basket,
and the broth he put in a pot, and brought them to him under the
terebinth and presented them.
On the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to
break bread, Paul talked with them, intending to depart on the next day,
and he prolonged his speech until midnight.
But he answered them, “You give them something to eat.” And they
said to him, “Shall we go and buy two hundred denarii worth of bread and
give it to them to eat?”
And you shall know that I am the Lord. For
you have not walked in my statutes, nor obeyed my rules, but have acted
according to the rules of the nations that are around you.”
So King Zedekiah gave orders, and they committed Jeremiah to the
court of the guard. And a loaf of bread was given him daily from the
bakers' street, until all the bread of the city was gone. So Jeremiah
remained in the court of the guard.
And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which
you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you
know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word
that comes from the mouth of the Lord.
Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you,
which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being
saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you
believed in vain. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I
also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the
Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in
accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to
the twelve.
Jesus answered them, “Did I not choose you, the Twelve? And yet one
of you is a devil.” He spoke of Judas the son of Simon Iscariot, for
he, one of the Twelve, was going to betray him.
And Jesus went away from there and withdrew to the district of Tyre
and Sidon. And behold, a Canaanite woman from that region came out and
was crying, “Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David; my daughter is
severely oppressed by a demon.” But he did not answer her a word. And
his disciples came and begged him, saying, “Send her away, for she is
crying out after us.” He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of
the house of Israel.” But she came and knelt before him, saying, “Lord,
help me.”
And the women said, “When we made offerings to the queen of heaven
and poured out drink offerings to her, was it without our husbands'
approval that we made cakes for her bearing her image and poured out
drink offerings to her?”
And though the Lord give you the bread of adversity and the water
of affliction, yet your Teacher will not hide himself anymore, but your
eyes shall see your Teacher.
The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah
and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings
of Judah. Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth; for the Lord
has spoken: “Children have I reared and brought up, but they have
rebelled against me. The ox knows its owner, and the donkey its master's
crib, but Israel does not know, my people do not understand.” Ah,
sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, offspring of evildoers,
children who deal corruptly! They have forsaken the Lord,
they have despised the Holy One of Israel, they are utterly estranged.
Why will you still be struck down? Why will you continue to rebel? The
whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint.
So Amnon lay down and pretended to be ill. And when the king came
to see him, Amnon said to the king, “Please let my sister Tamar come and
make a couple of cakes in my sight, that I may eat from her hand.” Then
David sent home to Tamar, saying, “Go to your brother Amnon's house and
prepare food for him.” So Tamar went to her brother Amnon's house,
where he was lying down. And she took dough and kneaded it and made
cakes in his sight and baked the cakes. And she took the pan and emptied
it out before him, but he refused to eat. And Amnon said, “Send out
everyone from me.” So everyone went out from him.
Then you shall go on from there farther and come to the oak of
Tabor. Three men going up to God at Bethel will meet you there, one
carrying three young goats, another carrying three loaves of bread, and
another carrying a skin of wine.
And everyone who is left in your house shall come to implore him
for a piece of silver or a loaf of bread and shall say, “Please put me
in one of the priests' places, that I may eat a morsel of bread.”’”
The people went about and gathered it and ground it in handmills or
beat it in mortars and boiled it in pots and made cakes of it. And the
taste of it was like the taste of cakes baked with oil.
You shall bring from your dwelling places two loaves of bread to be
waved, made of two tenths of an ephah. They shall be of fine flour, and
they shall be baked with leaven, as firstfruits to the Lord.
Neither shall you offer as the bread of your God any such animals
gotten from a foreigner. Since there is a blemish in them, because of
their mutilation, they will not be accepted for you.”
No man of the offspring of Aaron the priest who has a blemish shall come near to offer the Lord's food offerings; since he has a blemish, he shall not come near to offer the bread of his God.
They shall be holy to their God and not profane the name of their God. For they offer the Lord's food offerings, the bread of their God; therefore they shall be holy.
And everything on which any part of their carcass falls shall be
unclean. Whether oven or stove, it shall be broken in pieces. They are
unclean and shall remain unclean for you.
“When you bring a grain offering baked in the oven as an offering,
it shall be unleavened loaves of fine flour mixed with oil or unleavened
wafers smeared with oil.
The Nile shall swarm with frogs that shall come up into your house
and into your bedroom and on your bed and into the houses of your
servants and your people, and into your ovens and your kneading bowls.
There were some present at that very time who told him about the
Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. And he
answered them, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners
than all the other Galileans, because they suffered in this way? No, I
tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. Or those
eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them: do you think
that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in
Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise
perish.”
At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath. His
disciples were hungry, and they began to pluck heads of grain and to
eat. But when the Pharisees saw it, they said to him, “Look, your
disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath.” He said to
them, “Have you not read what David did when he was hungry
When I send against you the deadly arrows of famine, arrows for
destruction, which I will send to destroy you, and when I bring more and
more famine upon you and break your supply of bread.
So Tamar went to her brother Amnon's house, where he was lying
down. And she took dough and kneaded it and made cakes in his sight and
baked the cakes.
Then Abigail made haste and took two hundred loaves and two skins
of wine and five sheep already prepared and five seahs of parched grain
and a hundred clusters of raisins and two hundred cakes of figs, and
laid them on donkeys.
Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common
salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend
for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints.
For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any
two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of
joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the
heart.
For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not
your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no
one may boast.
The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God,
for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them
because they are spiritually discerned.
As for the one who is weak in faith, welcome him, but not to
quarrel over opinions. One person believes he may eat anything, while
the weak person eats only vegetables. Let not the one who eats despise
the one who abstains, and let not the one who abstains pass judgment on
the one who eats, for God has welcomed him. Who are you to pass judgment
on the servant of another? It is before his own master that he stands
or falls. And he will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make him stand.
One person esteems one day as better than another, while another
esteems all days alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own
mind.
Jesus said to her, “Do not cling to me, for I have not yet ascended
to the Father; but go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending
to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’”
They shall not pour drink offerings of wine to the Lord,
and their sacrifices shall not please him. It shall be like mourners'
bread to them; all who eat of it shall be defiled; for their bread shall
be for their hunger only; it shall not come to the house of the Lord.
Moreover, he said to me, “Son of man, behold, I will break the
supply of bread in Jerusalem. They shall eat bread by weight and with
anxiety, and they shall drink water by measure and in dismay.
No one considers, nor is there knowledge or discernment to say,
“Half of it I burned in the fire; I also baked bread on its coals; I
roasted meat and have eaten. And shall I make the rest of it an
abomination? Shall I fall down before a block of wood?”
And distributed among all the people, the whole multitude of
Israel, both men and women, a cake of bread, a portion of meat, and a
cake of raisins to each one. Then all the people departed, each to his
house.
And Jesse said to David his son, “Take for your brothers an ephah
of this parched grain, and these ten loaves, and carry them quickly to
the camp to your brothers.
The two angels came to Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in
the gate of Sodom. When Lot saw them, he rose to meet them and bowed
himself with his face to the earth and said, “My lords, please turn
aside to your servant's house and spend the night and wash your feet.
Then you may rise up early and go on your way.” They said, “No; we will
spend the night in the town square.” But he pressed them strongly; so
they turned aside to him and entered his house. And he made them a feast
and baked unleavened bread, and they ate. But before they lay down, the
men of the city, the men of Sodom, both young and old, all the people
to the last man, surrounded the house. And they called to Lot, “Where
are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us, that we may
know them.”
1: A Suggestion: Put Jesus on trial. Be judge, jury, or whatever you want. Then go through the questions. Why Jesus? Why Christianity? What is the same? What is different? Do miracles exist? What is a miracle? What did Jesus say about Death? What did Jesus say about suffering? Put Jesus on trial. I put it to you, that Jesus stands up to the requirements of our courts. Evidence is there.
And stay away from the Zeitgeist claims, even non-Christians think it a farce. Academia.edu -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2: You know a Christian's struggling with faith when they state, "My God isn't like that"
Because this suggests a personal impression of the Divine, and exhibits the greatest type of identity crisis of Modern Man.
We are not to coerce God into our desires and whalms, We are to listen
to God and seek His Will. Prayer is for listening more than aiding our
qualms.
God is not a response to you, you
are to respond to God. The identity crisis can be stated as such : I
conceive God, instead it should state God granted me the chance to
conceive Him.
Or in other words : They put themselves ahead of creation, instead of creation ahead of themselves.
It is why, for the life of me, the modern woman can not see that
believing in eliminating the very creation in their womb ----- is
immoral.
They say, it is MY right.
Have they thought that the only reason it is THEIR RIGHT, is because they were given the RIGHT TO BE BORN?
The
Crux about AUTONOMY : The ethics of an autonomous lifestyle, is one of
the most selfless ways of life (it puts the burden on oneself and not
others) ... A philosophy of autonomy, however, is one where the means
and the ends are me, myself, and I, resulting towards a mush of
indifference for the other.
4: COULD
NEW AGE BELIEF BE UNIVERSALLY SIGNIFICANT IF THE IMPAIRED (MENTALLY RETARDED)
CAN NOT REACH A HUMAN POTENTIAL ..... HOW FAIR AND JUST COULD SUCH A
PHILOSOPHY BE?
TRY TO IMAGINE THE WORST CASE SCENARIO : PRISONER OF WAR, WAR, OR PARALYSIS.
DOES YOUR THREE BIG QUESTIONS STILL STAND: WHO AM I? WHAT IS GOOD FOR ME? AND IS THERE A GOD?
Buddhism is an inner reflection in attempts to remove oneself from the cause of one's suffering: caused by desire.
This is actually useful to the Christian as well whose seven deadly sins are all vast manifestations of selfish desires.
We can see Christian concepts in Buddhism's Four Noble Truths and in the Noble Eightfold Path :
This is a pictorial display of how Christianity and Buddhism have many compatible teachings about suffering (the way) and freedom (salvation.)
But where they differentiate, is about their truths.
Buddhism is inner-peace centered. It sees man in a world full of suffering, and the way man can come to peace is by absorbing an inner conscience which teaches a separation from desire and a unity with all things in the world.
Christianity also promises peace. Even though certain mystics like St. John of the Cross seem to emphasize the separation of oneself from the world, such Christians are also mindful of the world created. Christianity makes distinctions in the world, it is both / and.
Both inner peace and outer peace. The inner peace is a personal salvation but the outer peace is one of human rights, equality, and love of neighbor.
To a Christian, true love is only true when differences are identified. You can only love your wife, if you see your wife as a distinct being with her own dignity, a dignifying love.
If you see your wife as a part of the unifying nature as perhaps a Buddhist, then she is equal and not separate from you, a reflective love.
This separation also is relevant to the opposite of love, hate, or more the result of hate, evil.
With a separation, Christian ideals also identify a separation of good and evil. If someone's nature and dignity is good, then there must be some kind of nature that is bad, it is relational.
In Buddhism, as we see in the yin yang and Buddhism's understanding of suffering, there is no separation in terms of good and evil, but only a reflection of one to each. The only separation occurs when one conquers suffering through salvation by reaching nirvana.
I like to point this out: Communism
easily overpowered the Buddhist heavy culture of China. When evil
comes a knocking, Christians are aware, Buddhists just stare.
So who is right? The Christian or the Buddhist?
Well, it just so happens after spending my morning talking bout Buddhism with a Buddhist nihilist, the Catholic mass seemed to want to answer this question.
Responsorial Psalm Lord, your love is eternal, do not forsake the work of your hands.
GOSPEL MATTHEW 16: 13-20
Peter Declares That Jesus Is the Messiah 13 When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?” 14 They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” 15 “But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?” 16 Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” 17 Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my Father in heaven.18 And I tell you that you are Peter,[a] and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades[b] will not overcome it.19 I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be[c] bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be[d] loosed in heaven.”20 Then he ordered his disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah.
This is what it comes down to! The Christian identity, seeing the world as a handwork of God allowing for the Christians to still see Good in what is made. In the Gospel, if Jesus is who, in this case Peter says He is, and who He alludes to being, then the Buddhists are inflicted with falsehoods. If Jesus is not who He says He is, his teachings are scorned by His great deceits to man, and the Buddhist carries the day. SO WHO DO YOU SAY JESUS IS? A LIAR? A LUNATIC? A LEGEND? OR LORD? Buddha says, I am a man, but I know the Way. Jesus says, I am God, I AM the Way ! What is the answer? This is what this blog is about !
