When I was hospitalized in 2018 one of the forms I filled out on admission asked for religion. I put down "Buddhist" and didn't think anything more about it. To back up a bit, it wasn't just a whim, I have done some reading and studying as part of my martial arts training. Anyway, once I got out of ICU, I was very surprised to get visited by a representative from the local Sangha (Buddhist community). She was very nice and left me a nice book about Buddhism. Of course, it doesn't take long if you're paying attention to realize that Buddhism isn't a religion in the sense of the Abrahamic traditions. Instead of telling you what to do and demanding that you follow along, Buddhism makes suggestions as to how to answer some of life's most vexing questions and invites you to try them yourself and decide if they work for you. For that reason, it would not be accepted by any of the more tight-assed Christian and Islamic denominations...which doesn't bother me a damn bit.
Religion, originally, was exactly that. That is what religion is supposed to do - it’s supposed to make you work on being the best person you can be. That is what Christianity preached back in the 60s and 70s. When politics and religion combined is when it went from “be a better person” to “you better behave like ‘this’.”
I said, "Hotshot tell me this which religion is the truest" He said, "There all about the same Buddha was not a Christian, but Jesus woulda made a good Buddhist"
There is some folklore that Jesus visited India during “the missing years” and studied with Buddhist monks. And yes I got the joke, buddist.
Apparently, there were Buddhist missionaries in the area when Jesus was said to have lived, and some scholars have made the claim that those missionaries influenced Jesus' teachings.
Conspiracy theories always make sense. It's interesting to think about, but it's the result of playing fill in the blanks and connect the dots.
I wouldn’t call it a conspiracy theory. For one thing, there isn’t any actual evidence that Jesus Christ is anything more than a fictional character. However, there are records, and papers from that era that discuss Buddhists in the areas mentioned in the Bible in which Jesus supposedly lived. The whole sermon about the meek shall inherit the earth, I believe, is not original, it has Buddhist origins.
I like the term agnostic myself. It pulls me out of the christian bubble which I totally do not believe, while also allowing for an unknown.
There is extensive historical evidence that Jesus existed, including accounts from contemporary non-Christian sources like Josephus and Tacitus. It is also certainly plausible that he interacted with Buddhists, since Buddhism was known in the Roman world during his lifetime.
The documents that exist describe a man who existed at the time. I have no doubt that the person mentioned in the Bible is based on multiple people who existed at the time. But, there is no evidence that a man who was born of a virgin and died and rose from the grave 3 days later ever existed.
I mean at what point do you draw the distinction between a figure fictional or not, is the mere fact that someone existed with that name at that time enough to call a depiction of them as not being fictional? Is Christopher Robin from the Winnie-The-Pooh books fictional?
I suppose that depends on where one is coming from in the whole Christianity spectrum. 20+ years ago I would have agreed with you. But, now I think if anything in the Bible were true, modern US Right Wing Christianity would not exist and my siblings would still behave like decent human beings. It’s not Christianity I hate, I hate what Christianity has done to my siblings.
Ehhh. Oh, the current consensus is that someone named Jesus existed. But Tacitus' annals was written in 116AD, over 80 years after his death. Josephus Annals was written in 94 AD, so 60 years after his death. So 'contemporary' is problematic. As it the authenticity. We know that the Josephus Annals in particular have been copied over numerous times - the earliest work is dated to 1000 AD or so. And we know that the passages in that work don't match the passages written in the Arabic or Syriac copies. In the Christian version, Jews are responsible for the death of Jesus. In the other two, Pontius Pilot himself gave the judgment. The Christian version says he is the Christ. The other two say he may be the Christ. Anyway, a bit of a quibble, but I think it's too strong to say there are contemporary non-Christian sources.
If I recall correctly, Josephus's account is basically a passing reference, not a historical treatise. Certainly he was writing at the very beginning of the Christian movement, so there's no reason to believe he invented anything, but it's not enough to confirm any of the particulars around Him. As far as Buddhism being known to Romans, you can certainly draw that inference from the overlapping time lines, but you still end up connecting a lot of dots to try to make the connection between Jesus and Buddhism. Not ruling it out and it does make a certain amount of sense, but...further research is required
Yes, and in the translation I read, it was so jarringly stylistically different as to raise a lot of red flags about its authenticity. Not to mention that Josephus is a bit of an unreliable narrator. ("I know the elders say they caught me trying to flee Masada before the Romans conquered it, but I was really trying to get to this other city and get reinforcements. Totally forgetting the fact that the Romans had conquered it months ago, and just because I and this other guy were the only soldiers to survive the siege doesn't mean anything. All of us planned to kill ourselves, and then after all the other soldiers were dead, he talked me out of doing it.") There were, apparently, Buddhist missionaries in every major port and trade city in the Roman Empire. Depending upon which sequence of events that you believe happened during Jesus' life, he passed through at least one of those cities.
To them its a better world from their actions. As to my point it has been proven true by the actions of corporations taking away retirement benefits from those it was promised to.