Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The two Christian saints who are the Buddha

signoregalilei.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 191 posts

Re: The two Christian saints who are the Buddha

#21

Post by phyzix5761 »

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.

Re: The two Christian saints who are the Buddha

#22

Post by ck2 »

gwbas1c wrote: post #19
ck2 wrote: post #16

the fun-fact about any religion is since they are all completely made up, if you don't like the rules you can just make your own rules or religion however in certain countries this gets you executed or imprisoned

Religion is very closely tied to social support structures: You can only "make one up" if the people who you are close with go along with you.

you have a point but it doesn't take many

I live in an area surrounded by cults

but also there are plenty of solitary practitioners of Wicca and Buddhism

and then you have the dozen of forms of christianity where every church just put their own spin on things

people are weird, religion just makes it even more so

I don't have a problem as long as they keep it to themselves but that rarely is the case

Re: The two Christian saints who are the Buddha

#23

Post by Onavo »

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…

> the Roman Catholic Church has a long, pragmatic history of absorbing local traditions

One of the most studied issues in Catholic evangelism is the Chinese rites controversy which is also one of the historical reasons why religions are suppressed in China (aside from ideological policies ascribed to communism).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Rites_controversy

(That and the Taiping rebellion which was estimated to have killed as many people as World War 2 on the higher end. It was led by a failed scholar claiming to be alleged brother of Jesus. Most of the deaths were due to starvation. Not quite Netflix material but interesting plot nonetheless)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiping_Rebellion

Re: The two Christian saints who are the Buddha

#24

Post by bitsage »

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 people to challenge when religious teaching goes awry without fear of persecution.

Re: The two Christian saints who are the Buddha

#25

Post by nephihaha »

mohamedkoubaa wrote: post #18

I came across an interesting article once that claimed that Buddha was reconstituted into a mythical St. George

St. George is likely based on Michael, but I imagine the logic would be that the dragon was some kind of convoluted version of the King of the Nagas.

Re: The two Christian saints who are the Buddha

#26

Post by samus »

Onavo wrote: post #23
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…

> the Roman Catholic Church has a long, pragmatic history of absorbing local traditions One of the most studied issues in Catholic evangelism is the Chinese rites controversy which is also one of the historical reasons why religions are suppressed in China (aside from ideological policies ascribed to communism). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Rites_controversy (That and the Taiping rebellion which was estimate…

The issue is moot since nowadays local practices are accepted to a degree. Even if Rome decided to go back on that it would have little practical relevance nowadays since there are lots of branches of Christianity that are not in communion with Rome and who are perfectly fine with that.

Re: The two Christian saints who are the Buddha

#28

Post by twic »

xutopia wrote: post #10

This reminds me so much of the Raglan hero archetype rank: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rank–Raglan_hero_archetype So many stories, many people believe are true and build whole religions around, are really just repeated stories with many details changed to fit the local culture and traditions. It's crazy so many of the world's politics and problems stem from what might actually just be the same story said in a diffe…

Can I interest you in Jesus also being Emperor Andronikos I? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_chronology_(Fomenko)

Re: The two Christian saints who are the Buddha

#29

Post by broken-kebab »

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.

Syncretism is mixing religions (as doctrines, beliefs). Assimilating local traditions into one's religious rituals is not that.

Re: The two Christian saints who are the Buddha

#30

Post by dyauspitr »

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.
Post reply on HN