Blood Sacrifice

last SG · 2013-01-20T16:32:12+00:00

If God exists, then God would have told us how to get right with Him. Surely this would have implications for your 8 fold path. Buddha did not claim to hear...

BroInChrist SG

1. 2. as addressed above.

3. There is no 'mind that exists without beginning' but rather, the stream of mental arising and ceasing has happened without a beginning. There's a big difference there.

I.e. there is no one unchanging mind but Mind1, Mind2, Mind3, Mind4, each moment arising and ceasing as it arises and causing another moment to arises... this is how the psycho-physical aggregate arises and ceases moment to moment via causes and conditions.

So you are saying that there are infinite discrete and distinct Minds that form a stream of mental arising and ceasing? But how do you cross a discrete infinity? Compare this with the Biblical teaching of an unchanging God who chose to create things that are contingent and ultimately dependent upon Him for their existence. These created beings change in relation to other created things. But God does not change. He is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow.

An Eternal Now SG

Yes, and Buddhism rejects the notion of an unchanging soul, mind, or God.

And yes, there are countless discrete and distinct mind-streams. Each mindstream is a distinct mindstream of mental arising and ceasing.

I'm not sure what you mean by 'discrete infinity', anyway 'countless' is probably a better word than infinite. The Buddha always use the 'sands of Ganges river' to express uncountability. You cannot count the number of grains of sands in the Ganges river or the beaches around the world, but if you pick up a very small amount in your finger you can probably count the numbers of these distinct grains of sands.

An Eternal Now SG

1. Thank you for clarifying that in Buddhism there is no problem of evil because there is no such thing as evil, or good for that matter.

2. Yes, it is only in Christianity there there is a "problem" of evil. But it is not a problem at all because it FAILS to be an argument against the existence of God, since it can only be raised in a theistic context.

3. Your analogy of the person with burning clothes is a good one. In the Letter of Jude, the apostle encourages the Christian to save others by snatching them from the fire, referring to the need to preach the Gospel. All of us are in danger of hell fire, our lives are burning, so to speak. Only a fireman can save us, and this fireman is Christ who came through the fires to take us out. Perhaps I am wrong, but wouldn't Buddhism be saying that the one on fire try to save himself or die trying?

4. People see the problem of evil as a problem because they are entertaining wrong views of God or have failed to think clearly about what they are demanding. The question is not about God's ability, because God can surely stop evil right now. But have you thought deeply about what that would mean if God should decide to stop evil now? What outcome would most of us have when we face God in judgment? Consider the parable about the wheat and the tares. The enemy planted the tares which grew with the wheat. The solution is not to go in and destroy the tares, for you would also destroy the wheat. The solution would be to wait for harvest, and when that comes you can easily separate the wheat from the tares, and gather the tares for burning.

1. Yes there is no problem of evil in Buddhism, but we see suffering everywhere. Suffering, unwholesome action and unwholesome results driven by passion, aggression and delusion are abound.The Buddha teaches that there are only two basic things he taught: suffering and the end of suffering. We see suffering all over the world. They arise due to various causes and conditions.

2. The question isn't about whether there is a God, but that IF there is a God, then as the Buddha has said:

If the creator of the world entire
They call God, of every being be the Lord
Why does he order such misfortune
And not create concord?

If the creator of the world entire
They call God, of every being be the Lord
Why prevail deceit, lies and ignorance
And he such inequity and injustice create?

If the creator of the world entire
They call God, of every being be the Lord
Then an evil master is he, (O Aritta)
Knowing what's right did let wrong prevail!

Now even if you say that evil is due to the fall of Adam etc... still, the argument stands which I elucidated earlier.

3. If there is an all-powerful God, he would be able to do more than that isn't it?

Yes, Buddhism asks one to attain liberation through one's efforts, and it works. So many people have attained liberation. Nobody, including Buddha, can grant enlightenment but they can only show the way. Christians say there is an all-powerful God, in that case he could easily have chosen to 'stop evil', 'save everyone' etc.

4. If God is all-powerful he could have stopped 'the tares' from being planted.

BroInChrist SG

1. But did Buddha himself expressedly deny the existence of a Creator God?

2. Mental presupposes Mind. So this distinct mind streams has self-awareness and self-consciousness?

3. Humanly I cannot count the sands on the beach, or the hairs on my head. But God can. Anyway, what I meant to say is that you cannot cross an actual infinite. If infinity existed in the past you could not have reached today. But if you did reach today, then the past is finite, it had a beginning.

An Eternal Now SG

1. Ignorance can only be dispelled by knowledge. But then it begs the question, how do you know the person who claims to have knowledge is not merely expressing ignorance as well? Hitler can turn around and accuse you of ignorance too, can't he?

2. I think your point about the law saying prostitution is OK is flawed. What is legal does not always translate to morally right. In many instances the legal law is far from catching up with the moral law. It's basically that sinful man always fail to live up to God's moral standard. Every law in existence is directly or indirectly founded on God's moral law.

3. Smoking causes cancer is a effect because of a law of nature, chemistry at work that interferes with our biology. But by saying that this is the same law that applies when one tells a lie or commits adultery is to confuse things, to commit the naturalistic fallacy. That which DESCRIBES what happens should not be confuse with that which PRESCRIBES what ought to be.

1. How does a drunkard who thinks he's ok, know he is drunk? He can't, unless he sobers up.

In Buddhism, we can experience and realize the three dharma seals, dependent origination, four noble truths etc... then we wake up from our delusions.

2. Well this just proves my point that the law is not founded on notion of 'good and evil' or religious doctrines. Law is law, not a religion.

3. In Buddhism, karma is also a natural law so we see no discrepencies. Therefore it is different from Christian notion of sin and judgement.

BroInChrist SG

1. So why would suffering be a problem that requires an end to? In the Bible, suffering and death are seen as the curse of sin. Death is an enemy to be destroyed because it is an intrusion to God's perfect creation.

2. If there is no God, then everything cannot be accounted for, not even the laws of logic. For why would countless mental streams give rise to uniform laws of nature and the laws of logic? Why would impersonal laws give rise to personhood, consciousness and morality? You cannot give what you do not have. You cannot draw blood from rock.

3. Only the Bible supplies the answer to the problem of death and suffering, because it also supplies the cause of death and suffering. The answer is simple, and I have earlier alluded to it. While we do see order and design in the universe today, we also see suffering and death. Why? Because we live in a FALLEN world, but it was not so from the beginning. This is why Genesis 1-11 is very important but many people miss that, even Christians. God did not create evil, or deceit or ignorance. Buddha's allegation of an evil God is most regretful. Of course if he had read the Bible I am most certain that he would change his view.

4. Why would the free will of Adam still makes your argument stand? Please elaborate. God is all powerful and all knowing. He knows of no other way or plan that would preserve the free will of humans and yet being able to redeem them and restore all things. What better plan can you think of that does not violate human free will and does not act contrary to God's holy and just nature? I submit you would not be able to come up with any. God has done all that He could to redeem us. Nothing more He could do.

5. Again, the issue is not whether God could have done this or that. God's ability is not in question. God could have even zap the serpent into oblivion when the serpent even thought of talking to Eve in the Garden. God could have even suddenly cause the tree to literally and physically uproot itself and run from Adam and Eve! Short of being comical this is a world that is nonsensical. It completely obliviates the need for free will, discernment, thinking, and the laws of nature. Again I submit that you may not have carefully thought about what you are asking.

An Eternal Now SG

1. But did Buddha himself expressedly deny the existence of a Creator God?

2. Mental presupposes Mind. So this distinct mind streams has self-awareness and self-consciousness?

1. Well, yes, he rejected it in places expounding the right and wrong view.

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/dn/dn.01.0.bodh.html

The notion of a creator God is rejected under the section '2. Partial-Eternalism (Ekaccasassatavāda): Views 5–8'

2. No... You're thinking "Rain presuppose a rainer", "wind presupposes a wind-er". Actually, mental processes IS mind, mind IS mental processes... just like wind IS blowing, rain IS the raining... there is no 'wind' that exists as something behind the activity of blowing, and there is no 'rain' that exists behind the activity of raining/water droplets falling.

"Mind" is just a convention, a label, imputed upon the conglomerate of mental arisings and ceasings just like the word "car" is a convention, a label, imputed upon a conglomerate of parts - engines, window, door, etc etc coming together to perform a function.

Distinct mindstreams are distinct, but ultimately empty of (some independent, inherent, unchanging) self. Due to delusion we cling tightly to the sense that I exist.

3. I don't see why the past has to be finite to reach today, it is like looking in the space in the east, the space in the west, the space in north and south, wherever you look you can find no circumference to space, nor even a center - the so called center and circumference is also only space in fact prior to your false imputation of a self, so distance, circumference, center all don't apply. As David Loy puts it, "the cup itself is irremediably spatial. All its parts must have a certain thickness, and without the various spatial relations among the bottom, sides, and handle, the cup could not be a cup. Perhaps one way to express this is to say that the cup is not "in" space but itself is space: the cup is "what space is doing in that place," so to speak. The same is true for the temporality of the cup. The cup is not an atemporal, self-existing object that just happens to be "in" time, for its being is irremediably temporal."

By the way past, present, and future are empty and illusionary. Because there has never been a truly existing or unchanging thing or self separate from the stream of time, abiding and continuously going from moment A to moment B. Firewood does not turn into ashes, firewood abides in the phenomenal expression of firewood and ash abides in the phenomenal expression of ash even though each moment is manifested interdependently with all its causes and conditions. There is no-thing going from past to present to future. Each phenomenal expression and experience is irremediably temporal and thus transcends the notion of time-things-self-being dichotomy, an instant reveals itself to be timeless and yet dissolving instantly.

BroInChrist SG

1. So we know that being sober is the ideal state of things, compared to being drunk. Likewise, being enlightened would have been the ideal state of things, compared to being ignorant. So how would streams of mental states in an enlightened state become ignorant? I mean, what was there to know at that state such that discrete minds can become not-knowing?

2. Yet if one completely rejects the notion of good and evil, or even the idea of a moral standard, one removes himself from the moral condition of man. Or fails to acknowledge the universal issues that plague mankind, that of moral well-being. I am pointing out that there are natural laws and there are moral laws.To reduce all to natural laws is to fall under naturalism, which has its problems as a worldview.

3. No one should react negatively to a natural law. Are you angry with the law of gravity? Why should you? Of course if you jump off a ledge and suffer an injury you get pain. So you treat the pain. You may not wish to consider why we feel pain, how come we have so many nerves that can register pain. Again this points to a design in us, that pain tells us something is wrong. God made us this way. When we bleed our body gets to work to send "repairers" to heal the wound and the blood clotting process does its work. A marvel of design, but you would just attribute it to natural causes? But again what's wrong with suffering if this is part and parcel of natural law at work? Suffering would be just what is, not what ought to be not. Again I draw your attention to the naturalistic fallacy.

An Eternal Now SG

'Beginningless' is a better term than 'infinite' because infinite has certain connotations.

An Eternal Now SG

1. Ignorance is beginningless...

2. Human law is of course designed by man. But karmic law is a natural law.

3. Yes those are from biological and karmic causes. Nobody wants suffering even though it arises due to causes and conditions. For example: everyone is born ignorant as a baby that doesn't know how to speak, and can only cry, etc. But we don't say "because the baby is born that way, it is only natural to be stupid and ignorant, that's why we should all just remain like babies and don't learn to speak or act intelligently"

An Eternal Now SG

1. I understand that Buddhists don't (want to) talk about a first cause or consider it as irrelevant or unimportant compared to the present. But not wanting to talk about the past is not the same as denying anything about the past. And if you believe in causes and conditions that things manifest, why would that be a denial of God as cause of the universe? Can you clarify if the Buddha himself in his documented teachings explicitly DENIED there is a Creator God?

2. Indeed only if there is birth i.e. life can one talk about death. The precondition for death is life, or birth if you like. So what is the precondition for life? I submit that it is Life itself. Life begats life. Even in science we have the law of biogenesis, where life comes only from life.

3. The issue is not the conditions for life. As mentioned, having the conditions for life does not translate to having life. What is necessary conditions does not mean it is sufficient conditions. We have no evidence of life elsewhere, it is merely an article of faith, not a known fact. Which is why I consider this speculation. You may strongly believe there is life out there, but it is just strong faith, perhaps even wishful thinking.

4. The main reason that people believe there is life out there is simply because people believe in evolution. They reason that given billions of years life can evolve elsewhere just as it did on earth. But that's just a belief. There are good reasons to think that evolution is false.

5. To say that without H2O there would be no rain is a rather incoherent thing. Rain IS H2O. The issue is not about the conditions for rain, or the laws of nature. The question is what can account for the laws of nature themselves? Just to clarify, I am not disputing any known undisputed fact of the universe, I am saying that all these need to be accounted for in some ways. We can actually sum it all up at the level of the universe and ask, since the universe began to exist it must be contingent, so what is its cause? What is the best explanation?

6. But it seems you do teach an eternal but eternally changing stream of consciousness. You said you teach an endless streams of causes and effects. But this is incoherent if you think about it. You must have a first cause. Every effect requires a cause. You can even have causes that are also effects, but you can't have ALL causes being effects. It is illogical.

Evolution is a scientifically proven fact, not a theory or belief... but many people choose to ignore it or hold strongly to their unproven beliefs...

In Buddhism, yes, ALL causes are effects...

BroInChrist SG

1. Well, yes, he rejected it in places expounding the right and wrong view.

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/dn/dn.01.0.bodh.html

1. He talked about the 4 grounds for those who held to some things that are eternal and some things that are not. But I can't seem to pin down exactly where Buddha in this teaching denied the existence of God. Or was he rejecting the Hindu idea of Brahma?

2. You are incorrect. I am certainly not saying that rain presuppose a rainer. I am saying that just as rain has a cause (which ultimately points to God who established the laws of nature from which we get rain via the hydraulic cycle), therefore the universe also must have a cause. Wind is just moving air. Water falling from the clouds is rain. Let's not dwell on these things, we know what they are. The question is in explaining their existence. Why is water special, unlike any other substance? Why is it necessary for life? A car is a assembly of parts. But we all acknowledge that a car does not assemble itself. Intelligent design goes into it. How much more then when we look at living things that are much more complex than a car? So why would it not be the delusion that we do not exist? Perhaps the problem is not the clinging to self, but that the solution is that by clinging to God we truly find ourselves?

3. If you cannot count from today till infinity (impossible!) how can you ever get to today from the past? Consider a point marked X. You said you have been travelling for infinity to come to point X. Is this possible? Absolutely not. You would have to begin somewhere to come to this point. But if you did begin somewhere, then you never did travel an infinite distance. And ultimately when you realise that this cannot be done logically, it seems that the best option is to therefore to deny existence altogether, which is what I think you did. If you do not exist, then it is not about you anymore since there is no you to speak of. Everything becomes illusory and temporal, except the view itself, the view that "everything is temporal and illusory" becomes the only eternal and real truth which has real existence. But this is self-contradictory, and it goes against all sense experience.

BroInChrist SG

'Beginningless' is a better term than 'infinite' because infinite has certain connotations.

Infinite and beginningless find oneness in God who is infinite and eternal. There is no problem here. But when you wish to apply it to contingent beings like us, within time and space, that's where you have problems. A change of semantics does not really solve the problem I see in your worldview.

An Eternal Now SG

1. He specifically rejected the notion that the world is split into a partial eternalism, i.e. 1) an unchanging Creator God, and 2) a changing world of creation.

That Brahma example is an example given by him.

There is no unchanging thing(s) at all... that is the basis of dharma.

2. I understand your point of view but Buddhism sees everything as dependently originated, and being dependently originated we do not assign them to an external agent like God, nor does things occur without causes - as everything manifest via causes and conditions.

3. "You said you have been travelling for infinity to come to point X" - well, it's absolutely possible. And it's a bit like going nowhere - because you never began at anywhere significant and there never was a beginning (it's all just empty space from top to bottom, how can there be a beginning point in empty space?), you're just like a space traveller going from nowhere to nowhere without a beginning... everywhere you go it's still empty space including Point X and will keep going on until you wake up. Just an analogy.

An Eternal Now SG

"Everything becomes illusory and temporal, except the view itself, the view that "everything is temporal and illusory" becomes the only eternal and real truth which has real existence."

No no... truth is not the same as existence. Existence is the notion of something having solid, concrete, self-existence. There is no such thing to be found. Emptiness is empty.

An Eternal Now SG

There's a very nice quote by Jean Klein and very 'Buddhist':

The world exists only when we think about it; creation stories are for children. In reality the world is created every moment.

BroInChrist SG

1. If ignorance is beginingless, as does enlightenment, then what's the difference?

2. All human laws are actually predicated on a moral law, which is discovered and not invented. Natural laws are imposed on us, they are amoral. The inconsistency is when you attempt to draw moral connotations from natural laws. Even calling it "wholesome" or "unwholesome" is to employ a different lingo but still postulating it in a moral sense.

3. But where did this sense of not wanting suffering come from? Why do we react in such a way to suffering with dread and wish that it goes away or that it does not exist? You do not wish to suffer, but how does that create a moral obligation that you should not be made to suffer? Would it be even right to speak of natural laws and effects as wholesome or unwholesome? People act base on free choices, but if it is all a matter of natural laws determining the causes and conditions, why should anyone be held responsible for anything? Or is no one responsible at all for any actions?

4. The birth of a baby should be a sad thing for Buddhists, should it not? Because the baby is seen as still cursed in samsara. And why procreate and have babies at all? Perhaps monks did the right thing by not marrying after all? A baby is simply a person at a beginning stage of development. To call a baby "stupid" is IMO a stupid thing to do! Anyway, babies are intelligent beings, they are designed to grow. People who study humans can tell you how marvelous it is to see how humans can grow. Babies have the God-given potential to grow into matured functioning adults. Again this speaks of design and points to a Maker. Impersonal laws of nature are incapable of doing this.

BroInChrist SG

You seem to be confusing the existence of matter which that which is solid and concrete. Something can exists without being matter or material, or solid. Or perhaps you have a different definition of solid?

An Eternal Now SG

More specifically I meant: inherently existing, independent, unchanging, with a core and substance of its own.

An Eternal Now SG

1. If ignorance is beginingless, as does enlightenment, then what's the difference?

1. Ignorance is beginningless. I don't suscribe to beginningless enlightenment.

2. All human laws arise only when trouble, disorder, where suffering comes about. If nobody is stealing and nobody have stuff thats stolen, there would not be a law to prevent those from happening. Laws evolve due to circumstances and incidents.

The dawning of civilization arises partly due to the discovery of ways to harvest and own 'stuff' - i.e. crops, animals, etc. Because there is ownership and property, there later arose stealing and crimes, and where stealing and crimes arose, there arose the need for governance, and then there are kings and its rule of law. Kings are not kings without the support of its people even if it is not democratic, as we have seen many kings have been overthrown in ancient history. Humans 'enact' the kings due to a need... we depend on rule and law for order in society.

In a sense those rules are invented due to necessity.

3. Wait... I didn't say suffering or not suffering has anything to do with moral obligation. I merely said people wish to be free from suffering, and Buddhism provides the path to the end of suffering.

Conventionally, you are of course responsible for your actions, wholesome actions lead to a wholesome karmic result and unwholesome action leads to an unwholesome result.... just like you are responsible for your cancer if you continue smoking everyday.

4. You are missing the point. My point is that just like babies can grow, we too can end suffering and ignorance. And we do not say 'suffering is natural because we are born with suffering therefore we should continue to suffer'.

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