Sometimes I’m attracted to Buddhist calmness and tranquility in the face of life’s turmoils; I think that Christians could be more relaxed at times! But the core of Buddhist ideas is antithetical to Christianity. Here’s a slightly philosophical article that explains some of the problem of the Buddhist idea of the self. If you aren’t philosophically inclined, just read the first paragraphs.
|Difficulty: Philosophical |Subjects: Identity | Reading time: 10 min |
Here’s a great paragraph from G. K. Chesterton on Buddhism. Not sure if Maverick Philosopher would find it as crude as the article he links to.
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The more we really appreciate the noble revulsion and renunciation of Buddha,
the more we see that intellectually it was the converse and almost
the contrary of the salvation of the world by Christ. The Christian
would escape from the world into the universe: the Buddhist
wishes to escape from the universe even more than from the world.
One would uncreate himself; the other would return to his Creation:
to his Creator. Indeed it was so genuinely the converse of the idea
of the Cross as the Tree of Life, that there is some excuse for setting
up the two things side by side, as if they were of equal significance.
They are in one sense parallel and equal; as a mound and a hollow,
as a valley and a hill. There is a sense in which that sublime
despair is the only alternative to that divine audacity.
It is even true that the truly spiritual and intellectual man sees
it as a sort of dilemma; a very hard and terrible choice. There is
little else on earth that can compare with these for completeness.
And he who will not climb the mountain of Christ does indeed fall
into the abyss of Buddha.