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The two Christian saints who are the Buddha

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Re: The two Christian saints who are the Buddha

#51

Post by ASalazarMX »

phyzix5761 wrote: post #21
wiradikusuma wrote: post #13

"Christianity in particular has a history of absorbing other religions’ traditions" -- Tangentially related: I'm a Catholic, so I don't know much about other "distros", but the Roman Catholic Church has a long, pragmatic history of absorbing local traditions in Indonesia. It's interesting dynamic. Catholic Church is notoriously top-down and hierarchical, yet local parishes can feel entirely distinct. It's not uncommo…

Its called syncretism. The Greeks and Romans have been doing it since the time of Alexander the Great.

It's more cultural colonization than syncretism. For example, America was culturally colonized by forcibly converting its inhabitants to Catholicism. Their temples were destroyed, the stones used to build churches, and while celebrations were still observed, the deities were replaced with Catholic ones. Even the folklore was rewritten with Catholic characters.

It wasn't syncretism, it was systematic eradication. Syncretism is more akin to reconciliation of different views.

Re: The two Christian saints who are the Buddha

#52

Post by vinceguidry »

wiradikusuma wrote: post #13

"Christianity in particular has a history of absorbing other religions’ traditions" -- Tangentially related: I'm a Catholic, so I don't know much about other "distros", but the Roman Catholic Church has a long, pragmatic history of absorbing local traditions in Indonesia. It's interesting dynamic. Catholic Church is notoriously top-down and hierarchical, yet local parishes can feel entirely distinct. It's not uncommo…

One of the stranger aspects of Roman history is that for centuries, there was a fight over who gets the public space. You'd have the local mystery cults defacing whatever the Christians put up and vice versa. Assimilating local traditions rather than demanding people just adopt theirs fits in with a faith that aims to be higher than all others. Jesus has no need to fight Vishnu, and never did.

We're just looking at this through the lens of the Protestant Reformation so this pragmatism is often lost.

Re: The two Christian saints who are the Buddha

#53

Post by kshri24 »

pessimizer wrote: post #46
dyauspitr wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think anything assimilates religions better than Hinduism. New belief system? Just throw in a new avatar of Vishnu to legitimize it and carry on.

That's because there's not really a there there when it comes to Hinduism. It's a nationalism disguised as a religion (by eating every local religion.)

What do you mean by "there there"?

What do you mean by "local religion"?

Re: The two Christian saints who are the Buddha

#54

Post by thataccount »

Ya know, the Divine sometimes works in mysterious ways. While it is possible these two fellas were a ripped-off Buddha story, it is also possible that they were actual people who lead these lives so that people who were Buddhists had some examples of how to adapt their previous Buddhist tendencies to Christian ones if they had an experience that caused conversion. Is there evidence to suggest they were not real people, or at the least, a large absence of evidence?

Re: The two Christian saints who are the Buddha

#55

Post by kshri24 »

dyauspitr wrote: post #30
wiradikusuma wrote: post #13

"Christianity in particular has a history of absorbing other religions’ traditions" -- Tangentially related: I'm a Catholic, so I don't know much about other "distros", but the Roman Catholic Church has a long, pragmatic history of absorbing local traditions in Indonesia. It's interesting dynamic. Catholic Church is notoriously top-down and hierarchical, yet local parishes can feel entirely distinct. It's not uncommo…

I don’t think anything assimilates religions better than Hinduism. New belief system? Just throw in a new avatar of Vishnu to legitimize it and carry on.

> Just throw in a new avatar of Vishnu to legitimize it and carry on.

Except for it's never done. No Hindu believes Allah or Jesus is an Avatar of Vishnu.

It can't be. Vishnu literally means the "All-Pervading One". Allah is explicitly not Omnipresent. Jesus is Omnipresent but does not have infinite forms. So neither fit the bill. Even Buddha, who we Hindus associate as one of the Avatars of Vishnu is not the same Buddha as Gautama Buddha who founded Buddhism.

Re: The two Christian saints who are the Buddha

#56

Post by riffraff »

The article doesn't touch on why this is an actual saint rather than a minor local cult like Saint Guinefort[0], the saint dog[1].

The reason, AFAIK, is that the early church didn't have a process for canonization, it was just all local cults. By the time they decided to establish a proper process (proof of miracles, witnesses, devil's advocate etc) many local churches had their own saints, and they decided to basically accept all the ones already in use and only start enforcing rules for the new ones. So the idea that "there's a holy man in the east who did this and that" resulted in "eh, sure, let's write down Saint Jehoshaphat too".

Christianity-as-trivia is a lot of fun.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Guinefort

[1] not to be confused with Saint Christopher, the dog-headed saint https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Christopher#/media/File:...

Re: The two Christian saints who are the Buddha

#57

Post by Guestmodinfo »

azernik wrote: post #34
Guestmodinfo wrote: post #27

Get your facts correct. Buddha was more than 600 BC focus on the word "Before" while Christians and the Christian saints came after Christ. Don't be an intellectual hodgepodge

Did you read the article, or just the headline?

I just read the headline. Why should I read the article when the headline is so misleading.

Re: The two Christian saints who are the Buddha

#58

Post by Guestmodinfo »

wiradikusuma wrote: post #13

"Christianity in particular has a history of absorbing other religions’ traditions" -- Tangentially related: I'm a Catholic, so I don't know much about other "distros", but the Roman Catholic Church has a long, pragmatic history of absorbing local traditions in Indonesia. It's interesting dynamic. Catholic Church is notoriously top-down and hierarchical, yet local parishes can feel entirely distinct. It's not uncommo…

Catholic church tries to be practical but inadvertently poisons Christianity. Christianity is way different from the Catholic church.

Because catholic church is whatever the newest model is in the distro but other distros try to be very very clean and try to follow the original texts and their meaning but catholic church is like the new iphone trying to be like whatever is the trendy trend nowadays.

Re: The two Christian saints who are the Buddha

#59

Post by yorwba »

rimeice wrote: post #39

I find it incredible how many people have died in the name of minor variations in their monotheistic beliefs that are all based on the same foundational stories and yet here is a one of those foundational stories that has totally non-theistic source. I struggle with the hypocrisy of religion sometimes.

Buddhism didn't start from a blank slate either and incorporates various supernatural beings like deva (linguistically linked to Latin deus) or asura (similarly linked to Norse æsir), but they're relegated to minor roles, trapped in the cycle of reincarnation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Paths Then as it spread throughout Asia, various other local traditions got assimilated as well. Not unlike turning the Buddha into a minor Christian saint in the article.

I think it's less hypocrisy and more the desire to integrate all available information into a consistent framework. When you encounter something that doesn't fit, you can of course reject it and fight bitterly over who is right, but you can also file off the sharp edges and puzzle it together with the rest of your worldview somehow.

Re: The two Christian saints who are the Buddha

#60

Post by Guestmodinfo »

amelius wrote: post #32
Guestmodinfo wrote: post #27

Get your facts correct. Buddha was more than 600 BC focus on the word "Before" while Christians and the Christian saints came after Christ. Don't be an intellectual hodgepodge

> Get your facts correct. Would you call them "facts"?

Christ and Christianity is well documented in all the kingdoms where it was persecuted and then the subsequent kingdoms had record of those records because one thing about kingdoms is that they don't throw away previous king's records because land records and administrative decrees are stored. Also Christians and Buddhist religions have the tradition of holding conferences that are well documented and happen after every few centuries. As an Indian I have read about records of the Buddist conferences held by various kings since after Buddha. Do I think Buddha is God. No. But he was pretty influential and impactful. The Christian conferences are also there where major theology points are discussed and confusions clarified. The records of thoe conferences exist
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