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The two Christian saints who are the Buddha

signoregalilei.com

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Re: The two Christian saints who are the Buddha

#61

Post by sealthedeal »

Guestmodinfo wrote: post #58
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.

That couldn't be further from the truth. The Catholic Church has withstood the test of time, and is still the original church. It has had its dark times for sure when people said exactly what you are saying now, BUT it is still here and the closest thing we have to the way early church fathers practiced Christianity than any of the 30,000 protestant churches lol.

Re: The two Christian saints who are the Buddha

#62

Post by sealthedeal »

riffraff wrote: post #56

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 basica…

I didn't realize that, super cool.

Re: The two Christian saints who are the Buddha

#63

Post by graemep »

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 is notoriously top-down and hierarchical

It has a hierarchy, but it has multiple hierarchies. It is not all that top down. Bishop's ave a lot of autonomy, and most decisions are made at the diocesan level. Dioceses have their own property and funds held by their own trustees. On top of that religious orders have their own hierarchy (and property and funds etc.). Then there are the rites such as the Ukrainian or Syro-Malabar churches that have their own hierarchies.

Historically this was the result of the fact the church predates modern communications. It was not possible for a Pope to direct things the way a CEO of a modern corporation does, but in recent times it has been recognised as guiding principle: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsidiarity_%28Catholicism%29 that has been adopted by other org anisations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsidiarity

> It's not uncommon to see traditional Javanese processions integrated right into the mass.

That is encouraged, as long as there is not conflict with Catholic belief https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inculturation#

Re: The two Christian saints who are the Buddha

#64

Post by dagss »

Guestmodinfo wrote: post #58
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.

HN is probably not the best forum for theological debate...

But e.g. modern American evangelical churches are to me quite clearly quite far from the original meaning of the texts with some theology outright invented in 18th and 19th centuries.

It really is the case that what you bring to a text colors what you get out of it, and the more people insist that they are reading a text "as it is clearly written" the blinder they seem to be to this.

Re: The two Christian saints who are the Buddha

#65

Post by graemep »

bitsage wrote: post #24

It’s quite ironic how the assimilationist nature of high church Christianity has ended up becoming what early Christianity was in opposition to. Early Christians were non-conformist, to the point of execution, and were sometimes even seen as anti-social. A thousand years later, Christians are incorporating obscure tales from the East. I think this is another argument for a separation of Church and state. It allows pe…

I disagree. What changed was that the Roman Empire stopped persecuting Christians. There are still places where Christians are non-conformist to the point of execution. Christianity is often in conflict with governments. One example is the criticism of Thatcher by Church of England bishops.

Re: The two Christian saints who are the Buddha

#66

Post by graemep »

tgv wrote: post #41
bitsage wrote: post #24

It’s quite ironic how the assimilationist nature of high church Christianity has ended up becoming what early Christianity was in opposition to. Early Christians were non-conformist, to the point of execution, and were sometimes even seen as anti-social. A thousand years later, Christians are incorporating obscure tales from the East. I think this is another argument for a separation of Church and state. It allows pe…

Idk. The establishing act of Christianity supposedly consists of Paul (?) saying that newcomers don't have to follow the strict rules from the Old Testament.

Argument between Paul and others that Paul won.

Re: The two Christian saints who are the Buddha

#67

Post by rimeice »

bartread wrote: post #45
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.

> I struggle with the hypocrisy of religion sometimes That doesn’t really make sense to me. Do you mean the hypocrisy of people who follow those religions? I tend to think that blaming outside forces for bad behaviour by people lets them off the hook a bit too easily - in particular it lets leaders off the hook far too easily - and disincentivises change because “I do X because Y makes me” rather than “I do X because…

Yeh it’s the hypocrisy of the people that follow religion but also religion in general requiring you to deeply believe a version of a story, whilst rejecting other religions version of that story. I know “rejecting” is in the realm of fundamentalists, but even moderate believers will trust their version over others when in reality all these stories can be traced back to the exact same source story. I knew this was true for mono-theistic religions, but I’m amazed it can apply even outside of those bounds.

Re: The two Christian saints who are the Buddha

#68

Post by graemep »

dagss wrote: post #64
Guestmodinfo wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

HN is probably not the best forum for theological debate... But e.g. modern American evangelical churches are to me quite clearly quite far from the original meaning of the texts with some theology outright invented in 18th and 19th centuries. It really is the case that what you bring to a text colors what you get out of it, and the more people insist that they are reading a text "as it is clearly written" the blinde…

The question being what text to whom? The original text in the context of the culture of the original audience or an English translation interpreted as though addressed to a contemporary audience?

Re: The two Christian saints who are the Buddha

#69

Post by pstuart »

ASalazarMX wrote: post #51
phyzix5761 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. Sync…

Another appropriate word for the colonization of America is genocide.

I'm old enough to remember being taught how America was settled by expanding into the vast wilderness of the continent, and that sometimes they had skirmishes with natives but they found them new places to live.

It turns out it wasn't quite as neat and tidy as suggested.

Re: The two Christian saints who are the Buddha

#70

Post by Guestmodinfo »

sealthedeal wrote: post #61
Guestmodinfo wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That couldn't be further from the truth. The Catholic Church has withstood the test of time, and is still the original church. It has had its dark times for sure when people said exactly what you are saying now, BUT it is still here and the closest thing we have to the way early church fathers practiced Christianity than any of the 30,000 protestant churches lol.

....."still the original church"

The Orthodox churches may want to have a word with you. Especially the orthodox church in India founded by Thomas (one of the Jesus' 12 disciples)

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