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Chapter 4: God or Buddha - Who is the Highest?

Beyond Belief: a Buddhist Critique of Christianity
While Christians look to God as their lord and creator, Buddhists look to the Buddha as their model and ideal. Although Christians have never seen God, they claim to know him by communicating with him through prayer and through feeling his presence. They also claim that they can know God's will by reading his words which they maintain are contained in the Bible.

As Buddhists neither pray to nor acknowledge God, the only way they can get an idea of what he is like is by reading the Bible. However when Buddhists look at what the Bible says about God they are often shocked. They find that God as he is portrayed in the Bible to be profoundly different from how they hear Christians describe him.

While Buddhists reject the Christian concept of God because it seems to be illogical and unsubstantiated, they also reject it because it seems so much lower than their own ideal, the Buddha. We will now examine what the Bible says about God, compare it to what the Tipitaka (the Buddhist sacred scriptures) say about the Buddha, and thereby demonstrate the moral superiority of the latter.

Physical Appearance

What does God look like? The Bible says that God created man in his own image (Gen 1:26) so from this we can assume God looks something like a human being. The Bible tells us that God has hands (Ex 15:12), arms (Deut 11:2), fingers (Ps 8:3) and a face (Deut 13:17). He does not like people seeing his face but he doesn't mind if they see his back.

And I will take away my hands and you will see my back parts but my face You shall not see (Ex 33:23).

However, although God seems to have a human body he does at the same time look not unlike the demons and fierce guardians one often sees in Indian and Chinese temples. For example, he has flames coming out of his body.

A fire issues from his presence and burns his enemies on every side (Ps 97:3). Our God comes and shall not keep silent, before him a fire bums and around him fierce storms rage (Ps 50:3).

Now the people complained about their hardships in the hearing of the Lord, and when he heard them his anger was aroused. Then fire from the Lord burned among them and consumed some of the outskirts of the camp (Num11:1).

When God is angry, which seems to he quite often, smoke and fire come out of his body.

The earth trembled and quaked, and the foundations of the mountains shook, they trembled because he was angry. Smoke rose from his nostrils; consuming fire came from his mouth, burning coals blazed out of it (Ps 18:7-8).

When the prophet Ezekiel saw God and his attendant angels, he described them a. looking like this.

On the fifth of the month - it was the fifth year of the exile of King Jehoiachin the word of the Lord came to Ezekiel the priest, the son of Buzi , by the Kebar River in the land of the Babylonians. There the hand of the Lord was upon him. I looked, and I saw a windstorm coming out of the north - an immense cloud with flashing lightning and surrounded by brilliant light. The centre of the fire looked like glowing metal, and in the fire was what looked like four living creatures in appearance their form was that of a man, but each of them had four faces and four wings. Their legs were straight; their feet were like those of a calf and gleamed like burnished bronze. Under their wings on their four sides they had the hands of a man. All four of them had faces and wings, and their wings touched one another. Bach one went straight ahead; they did not turn as they moved. Their faces looked like this: Each of the four had the face of a man, and on the right side each had the face of a lion, and on the left the face of an ox; each also had the face of an eagle. Such were their faces. Their wings were spread out upward; each had two wings, one touching the wing of another creature on either side, and two wings covering its body. Each one went straight ahead. Wherever the spirit would go, they would go, without turning as they went. The appearance of the living creatures was like burning coals of fire or like torches. Fire moved back and forth among the creatures; it was bright, and lightning flashed out of it. The creatures sped back and forth like flashes of lightning. As I looked at the living creatures, I saw a wheel on the ground beside each creature with its four faces. This was the appearance and structure of the wheels: They sparkled like chrysolite, and all four looked alike. Each appeared to be made like a wheel intersecting a wheel (Ezek 1:4-21).

Christians often look at the many-armed and fierce-faced gods in Hindu and Taoist temples and claim that they are devils rather than gods - but as the Bible make clear the Christian God is very similar in appearance to these. Furthermore, just a Hindu and Taoist gods carry various weapons so too does the Christian God.

In that day the Lord will punish with his sword, his fierce, great and powerful sword (Is 27:1).

The sun and moon stood still in the heavens at the glint of your flying arrows, at the lightning of your flashing spear. In wrath you strode through the earth and in your anger you threshed the nations ( Haba 3:11-12).

The Lord thundered from heaven, the voice of the Most High resounded. He shot his arrows and scattered the enemies (Ps 18:13-14).

But God will shoot them with arrows, suddenly they will be struck down (Ps 64:7).

Then the Lord will appear over them, his arrows will flash like lightning. The sovereign Lord will sound the trumpet (Zech 9:14).

Another interesting way in which God's appearance resembles that of non-Christian idols is in how he travels. The Bible tells us that God gets from one place to another either by sitting on a cloud (Is 19:1) or riding on the back of an angel (Ps 18:10). It is obvious from these quotes that God has a savage and frightening appearance; a conclusion verified again by the Bible where people are described as being utterly terrified by God's appearance.

Serve the Lord with fear and trembling, kiss his feet or else he will get angry and you will perish in the way, for his wrath is quickly kindled (Ps 2:11).

Therefore I am terrified at his presence. When I think of him I am in dread of him, God has made my heart faint. The Almighty has terrified me (Job 23:15).

Jesus frequently says that we should fear God (eg Lk l2:4 -5). The Bible also very correctly says that where there is fear there cannot be love (I Jn 4:18) and so if God creates fear in people it is difficult to know how he can genuinely be loved at the same time.

What did the Buddha look like? Being human, the Buddha had a human body like any ordinary person. However the Tipitaka (the Buddhist sacred books) frequently speak of his great personal beauty.

He is handsome, good-looking, pleasant to see, of most beautiful complexion, his form and countenance is like Brahma's, his appearance is beautiful (Digha Nikaya, Sutta No.4).

He is handsome, inspiring faith, with calm senses and mind tranquil, composed and controlled, like a perfectly tamed elephant (Anguttara Nikaya, Sutta No.36).

Whenever people saw the Buddha, his calm appearance filled them with peace and his gentle smile reassured them. As we have seen, God's voice is loud and frightening like thunder (Ps 68:33). while the Buddha's voice was gentle and soothing.

When in a monastery he is teaching the Dhamma, he does not exalt or disparage the assembly. On the contrary, he delights, uplifts, inspires and gladdens them with talk on Dhamma. The sound of the good Gotama's voice has eight characteristics; it is distinct and intelligible, sweet and audible, fluent and clear, deep and resonant ( Majjihima Nikaya, Sutta No.19).

God carries weapons because he has to kill his enemies and because he controls people with violence and threats. The Buddha, on the other hand, showed enmity to no one and was able to control people by reasoning with them. Addressing the Buddha, King Pasenadi once said:

I am a king, able to execute those deserving execution, fine those deserving to be fined, or exile those deserving exile. But when I am sitting on a court case people sometimes interrupt even me. I can't even get a chance to say: "Don't interrupt me! Wait until I have finished speaking." But when the Lord is teaching Dhamma there is not even the sound of coughing coming from the assembly. Once, as I sat listening to the Lord teach Dhamma a certain disciple coughed and one of his fellows tapped him on die knee and said, "Silence, sir, make no noise. Our Lord is teaching Dhamma", and I thought to myself, indeed it is wonderful, marvellous how well trained these disciples are without stick or sword (Majjhima Nikaya, Sutta No.89).

We can just imagine how God would react if one were foolish enough to interrupt him while he was speaking. We can see from what has been said above that the Buddha's physical appearance reflected his deep inner calm and compassion. People were always inspired by the aura of peace that surrounded him.

Mental Make-up

We have seen that Buddhists do not believe in God because to them the idea is illogical and contrary to the facts. Buddhists also reject the Christian God because, if the Bible is correct, God appears to be so imperfect. All of the negative emotions which most cultured people find unacceptable are to be found in God. Let us examine how the Bible describes God's mind.

The emotion which is associated with God more than any other is jealousy. He even admits that he is jealous.

For the Lord is a devouring fire, a jealous God (Deut 4:24).

Nothing makes God more jealous than people worshipping other gods, and he tells us we must even kill our own children if they do this.

if your brother, the son of your mother, or your son, daughter, the wife of your bosom or the friend of your own soul, entices you secretly, saying, "let us go and serve other gods" which neither you nor your fathers have known, some of the gods of the people that are around you whether near or far, from one end of the earth to the other, you shall not yield to him or listen to him, nor shall your eye pity him, nor shall you spare him, nor shall you conceal him, but you shall kill him. Your hand shall be the first against him to kill him and after that the others can strike him (Deut 13:6).

The Bible tells us that God frequently loses his temper.

See, the day of the Lord is coming - a cruel day, with wrath and fierce anger, to make the land desolate and destroy the sinners within it (Is 13:9).

God is angry every day (Ps 7:11).

The Lord will cause men to hear his majestic voice and will make them see his arm coming down with raging anger and consuming fire (Is 30:30).

His anger will burn against you and he will destroy you from the face of the land (Deut 6:15).

God tells us to love but he is described as hating and being filled with abhorrence.

You hate all those who do wrong. You destroy those who tell lies; bloodthirsty and deceitful men the Lord abhors ( Ps 5:5-6).

He is further described as hating many other things as well as people (see Deut 16:22, Mala 2:16, Lev 26:30). God has a particularly deep hatred for other religions which probably explains why Christianity has always been such an intolerant religion. He is often described as feeling special hatred for those who will no worship him.

Your New Moon festivals and your appointed feasts my soul hates (Is 1:14).

The Buddha had compassion for those who were cruel, he forgave those who did wrong, and he had respect for those of other religions. We would expect God being capable of jealousy and hate, to be vengeful, and not surprisingly the Bible often mentions God's vengefulness.

Behold, your God will come with vengeance (Is 35:4).

The Lord is avenging and wrathful, the Lord takes vengeance on his adversaries and holds wrath for his enemies (Nahum 1:2).

For we know him who said, "It is mine to avenge; I will repay", and again, The Lord will judge his people". It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living god (Heb 10:30-31). (See also Rom 1:8, 2:5-6, 12:19).

What would be the use of worshipping a God who is full of the very mental defilements which we ourselves are striving to overcome?

During the forty years after his enlightenment, the Buddha urged people to give up anger, jealousy and intolerance and never once in all that time did he fail to act in perfect accordance with what he taught to others.

The Lord acts as he speaks and speaks as he acts. We find no teacher other than the Lord who is so consistent as this whether we survey the past or the present Digha Nikaya, Sutta No.19).

In the whole of the Tipitaka, there is not a single example of the Buddha expressing anger, hatred, jealousy, etc. because, being perfect, he was freed from such negative emotions.

Attitude to War

The Bible tells us that there is a time for hate and a time for war (Ex 3:8) and it is widely recognized today that those great evils depend upon each other. As we have seen, God is quite capable of hatred and, not surprisingly is therefore often involved in war.

The Lord is a man of war (Ex 15:3).

The Lord your God is in your midst, a warrior who gives victory (Zeph 3:17).

The Lord goes forth like a mighty man, like a man of war he stirs up his fury, he cries out, he shouts aloud, he shows himself mighty against the enemy (Is 42:13).

When I sharpen my flashing sword and my hand grasps it in judgment, I will take vengeance on my adversaries and repay those who hate me. I will make my arrows drunk with blood while my sword devours flesh: the blood of the slain and the captives, the heads of the enemy leaders (Deut 32:41-42).

For centuries Christians have been inspired by these Bible passages, which encourage and even glorify war, to use violence to spread their religion. Even today there is a distinctly militaristic flavour about Christianity. The Salvation Army with its motto "Blood and Fire"; the hymns that speak about "Onward Christian soldiers marching as to war"; the saying "Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition", etc. The Bible contains dozens of examples of God helping his devotees to capture cities, slaughter civilian populations and defeat armies (for example Num 21:1-3, Num 31:1-12, Deut 2:32-34, Deut 3:3-7, Josh 11:6-11, etc.). Concerning captives in war God says:

And you shall destroy all the peoples that the Lord your God gives over to you, your eye shall not pity them

When the Lord your God gives them over to you and you defeat them you must utterly destroy them and show no mercy to them (Deut 7:2).

Even Christians are often shocked when they read passages like these. Buddhists simply feel that such passages justify their rejection of God and their faith in the Buddha.

What was the Buddha's attitude to war? There is no example of the Buddha ever praising war, encouraging war, or going to war himself. On the contrary, he urged all to live in peace and harmony and is described in this way:

He is a reconciler of those who are in conflict and an encourager of those who are already united, rejoicing in peace, loving peace, delighting in peace, he is one who speaks in praise of peace (Digha Nikaya, Sutta No.1).

He set an example by being a man of peace.

Abandoning killing, the monk Gotarna lives refraining from killing, he is without stick or sword, he lives with care, compassion and sympathy for others (Digha Nikaya, Sutta No.1).

The Buddha was not content with merely speaking in favour of peace or with being peaceful himself. He actively promoted peace by trying to stop war. When hi relatives were about to go to war over the waters of the Rohini River, the Buddha did not take sides, urge them on, give them advice on tactics, or tell them to show no mercy to their adversaries, as God would have done. Instead he stood between the two factions and said, "What is more valuable, blood or water?" The soldier replied, "Blood is more valuable, sir." Then the Buddha said, "Then is it not unbecoming to spill blood for water?" Both sides dropped their weapons and peace was restored (Dhammapada Atthakata Book l5,l). The Buddha had put aside hatred and filled his mind with love and compassion, so approving of war was impossible for him.

Idea of Justice

Justice is the quality of being fair, and a person who is just acts fairly and in accordance with what is right. However ideas about what is fair and right differ from time to time and from person to person. Christians claim that God is just, so by examining his actions we will be able to know God's concept of justice.

God tells us that anybody who disobeys him will be punished "seven times over" (Lev 26:18), that is, one sin will be punished seven times. God obviously considers this to be fair and just. He also tells us that he will punish the innocent children, grandchildren, and even great-grandchildren of those who sin.

I the Lord am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sins of the fathers to the third or fourth generation of those who hate me (Deut 5:9).

This is known as collective punishment; punishing a whole family or group for the crime committed by one of its members. Collective punishment is condemned today as unfair and unjust but God apparently considers it quite just.

God tells us that even minor offences should be punished by death. For example, those who work on Sunday should be stoned to death. Once a man was found collecting firewood on Sunday and God said to Moses and the people who caught the man:

"The man must die. The whole assembly must stone him outside the camp." So the assembly took him outside the camp and stoned him to death as the Lord commanded Moses (Num 15:32-36).

God's idea of justice does not seem to embrace the idea that the punishment should fit the crime. We are told that all who do not love God will suffer eternal punishment in hell. There are many kind, honest and generous people who do not believe in God and they will all go to hell. Is this fair and just? God apparently thinks so.

Was the Buddha just? The Buddha had attained the freedom of enlightenment and he taught others how they too could attain this freedom. Unlike God, he was not primarily a lawgiver, a judge, or one who metes out punishment. He was a teacher. In all his dealings with people he was fair, mild and merciful and he urged his followers to act in like manner. If someone did wrong, he said that one should not rush to punish him.

When you are living together in harmony, a fellow monk might commit an offence, a transgression. But you should not rush to condemn him, the issue must be carefully examined first (Majjhima Nikaya, Sutta No.103).

In addition, when a person is being examined one should remain uninfluenced b bias or partiality and should look at both sides of the case.

Not by passing hasty judgments does one become just' a wise man is one who investigates both sides. He who does not judge others arbitrarily, but passes judgment impartially and in accordance with the facts, that person is a guardian of the law and is rightly called just (Dhammapada 256-257).

As for punishment, the Buddha would have considered stoning someone to death or any other form of capital punishment to be cruel. He himself was always ready to forgive. Once a man called Nigrodha abused the Buddha and later realised hi mistake and confessed to the Buddha. Full of compassion and forgiveness the Buddha said:

Indeed, Nigrodha, transgression overcame you when through ignorance, blindness and evil you spoke to me like that. But since you acknowledge your transgression and make amends as is right, I accept your confession (Digha Nikaya, Sutta No.25).

The Buddha forgave all whether they accepted his teachings or not, and even I Nigrodha had refused to apologise the Buddha would not have threatened to punish him. To the Buddha the proper response to faults was not the threat to punish but education and forgiveness. As he says:

By three things the wise man can be known. What three? He sees his faults as they are. When he sees them he corrects them and when another confesses a fault the wise man forgives it as he should (Anguttara Nikaya, Book of Threes, Sutta No.10).

Attitude to Disease

Disease, sickness and plagues have been the scourge of mankind for centuries causing untold suffering and misery. The Bible shows us that God has always' considered disease a useful way of expressing his anger and exercising his vengeance. When Pharaoh refused to release the Jews, God caused festering boil to break out on "all Egyptians" (Ex 9:8-12). God used this affliction to punish men, women, children and babies for the sin of one man. Later God made the firstborn of every male child die. He says:

Every first-born son in Egypt will die, from the first-born son of Pharaoh who sits on the throne, to the first-born son of the slave girl who sits at her handmill. There will be loud wailing throughout Egypt - worse than there has ever been or ever will be (Ex 11:5-6).

This is another good example of God's idea of justice and compassion. Countless thousands of men, boys and innocent babies were killed by God because Pharaoh would not obey. In many places in the Bible God promises that he will inflict terrible diseases on those who do not follow his commandments.

The lord will plague with diseases until he has destroyed you...the Lord will strike you with wasting disease, with fever and inflammation...(Deut. 28:21-22).

The Lord will inflict you with the boils of Egypt and with tumours, festering sores, and with itch, from which you cannot be cured (Deut 28:27).

The Lord will send fearful plagues on you and your descendants, harsh and prolonged disasters and severe and lingering illnesses. He will bring upon you all the disasters of Egypt that you dreaded and they will cling to you. The Lord will also bring on you every kind of sickness and disaster (Deut 28:59-61).

Sometimes God even inflicts hideous diseases on people just to test their faith. To test Job God allowed all his children to be killed (Job 1:18-19) and Job himself to be struck with a terrible disease (Job 2:6-8). So unbearable was Job's grief and suffering that he began to wish he had never been born (Job 3:3-26).

God even created some people blind and allowed them to spend their lives begging and groping in darkness just so that Jesus could miraculously heal them and thereby demonstrate God's power (Jn 9:1-4). Obviously, God sees illness, sickness and disease as useful means of punishing people and of demonstrating the extent of his power.

Now let us have a look at the Buddha's attitude to sickness. The Buddha saw sickness and disease as a part of the general suffering from which he came to free mankind. He was called "the compassionate physician". There are no examples of the Buddha ever having caused people to become diseased in order to punish them or because he was angry at them. The Buddha rightly understood that for as long as we have a body we will be susceptible to disease. He urged all to attain Nirvana and be forever free from suffering. While he tried to cut the problem at the root, he also did practical things to comfort the sick and restore them to health. Rather than inflict diseases on people, as God did, he gave practical advice on how to help and comfort the sick.

With five qualities one is worthy to nurse the sick. What five? One can prepare the correct medicine; one knows what is good for the patient and offers it, and what is not good one' does not offer; one nurses the sick out of love not out of desire for gain; one is unmoved by excrement, urine, vomit and spittle; and from time to time one can instruct, inspire, gladden and satisfy the sick with talk on Dhamma (Anguttara Nikaya, Book of Fives, Sutta No.124).

He not only taught this but acted in conformity to his own teaching. When once he found a sick monk, neglected and lying in his own excrement, he bathed him, comforted him and then calling the other monks together said to them, "If you would nurse me, nurse those who are sick" ( Vinaya , Mahavagga , 8). When God was angry he would inflict diseases on people and then watch them suffer. When the Buddha saw people with diseases, out of compassion he did all he could to restore them to health.

Creating Evil

God created all that is good, but because he created everything, he also created a' that is evil. God himself says:

I am the Lord and there is no other. I form the light and I create the darkness, I make the good and I make evil (Is 45:7-8). (See also Rom 11:32).

When we think of nature and we remember that God is supposed to have created everything we understand the meaning of these words. Leprosy germs cause untold misery and they were created by God. Tuberculosis germs kill and deform millions of humans each year and they were created by God. God created the plague bacteria, the fleas and the rats that together cause bubonic plague and which have throughout the centuries killed perhaps as many as a hundred million people. In 1665, 68,000 people died of the plague in London alone. No doubt all this is what God means when he says he created darkness and evil. But God also created other forms of evil. He says:

When disaster comes to a city, has not the Lord caused it? (Amos 3:4).

This undoubtedly refers to the earthquakes, fires, social strife, wars and other forms of evil which periodically afflict mankind's towns and cities. We also read in the Bible that even evil spirits come from God. In 1 Samuel 16:14-16 we are told that an evil spirit from God tormented Saul.

Did the Buddha create evil? As he was not a creator God, he could not be held responsible for 'darkness and evil'. The only thing he 'created' was the Dhamma which he discovered and then proclaimed to the world. And his Dhamma has brought only light, good and tenderness everywhere it has spread.

Sacrifices

In Old Testament times when people broke God's commandments he would get angry and the only way the sinner could make atonement and soothe God's anger was to sacrifice an animal. God himself gave exact instructions on how the animal was to be slaughtered.

If the offering to the Lord is a burnt offering of birds, he is to offer a dove or a young pigeon. The priest shall bring it to the altar, wring off its head and burn it on the altar; its blood shall be drained out on the side of the altar. He is to remove the crop with its contents and throw it to the east side of the altar, where the ashes are. He shall tear it open by the wings, not severing it completely, and then the priest shall burn it on the wood that is on the fire on the side of the altar (Lev 1:14-17).

God tells us that when the meat, fat, skin and bone of the sacrificial victims are thrown in the fire and burned, he likes the smell of it (Lev 1:9, 1:17). But not all the sacrifices God demanded were animals; sometimes he demanded even human sacrifices. God once said to Abraham:

Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about (Gen 22:2).

Abraham took his son to the place God indicated, built an altar, laid his son on it and then took up the knife. Just as he was about to slit his own son's throat, Abraham was stopped by an angel (Gen 22:12). Presumably, Abraham was a good devotee because he blindly, unquestioningly and willingly did anything God told him to do, even to the extent of preparing to butcher his own son as a sacrifice to God.

In later centuries, mankind's sins became so bad that the sacrifice of mere animals could no longer appease God's anger. God required a greater, a more valuable sacrificial victim - his own son Jesus. Once again it was the blood of a victim which most atoned for sin and which is able to reconcile the sinners with God. Thus modern Christians often say that their "sins have been washed away by the;' blood of Jesus".

What did the Buddha think of animal or human sacrifices? At the time of the Buddha, the Hindu deities were offered animal sacrifices just as the Christian God was, and so the Buddha was quite aware of this practice. However, he considered sacrifices to be vulgar, cruel and useless.

The sacrifice of horse or man, the Peg-Thrown Rite, the Sacrificial Drink, the Victory Rite, the Withdrawn Bolt, all these rites are not worth a sixteenth part of having a heart filled with love, any more than the radiance of the moon outshines the stars (Anguttara Nikaya, Book of Eights, Sutta No.1).

Christians believe that Jesus' sacrificial blood will wash away their sins just as Hindus at the time of the Buddha believed that their sins could be washed away by bathing in holy rivers. The Buddha criticised the Hindu idea just as he would have criticised the Christian idea if he had known about it. To believe that blood, water or any other external things can purify the heart, which is an internal thing, is foolish indeed.

In the Bahuka River, at Adhikakka , at Gaya , in the Sundrika , the Sarassati , the Payaga or the Bahumati the fool can wash constantly but cannot cleanse his evil deeds. What can the Sundrika , the Payaga or the Bahumati River do? They cannot cleanse the angry, guilty man intent on evil deeds. For the pure in heart every day is lucky, for the pure in heart every day is holy (Majjhima Nikaya, Sutta No.7).

This being the case, bathing in sacrificial blood or holy rivers is a poor substitute for purifying oneself by acting in a pure way. The only sacrifice that the' Buddha asked us to make was to give up our selfishness and replace it with love, wisdom and compassion.

Love

We are told that God is love and the Bible sometimes mentions love as one God's attributes. However, there are different types of love. A person can love I or her own children but hate the neighbour's children. Someone might have strong love for his own country but a burning hatred for another country. Though we may love someone deeply, we may, due to changed circumstances, grow indifferent or even hateful towards them. This is the lower, less developed, type of love which ordinary people feel - but there is a higher, more universal, type of love than this. This higher type of love is well described in the Buddhist texts and also in the Bible. In Corinthians we read:

Love is patient, love is kind, it does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud, it is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs (1 Cor 13:4-5).

Does God exhibit this higher type of love? Let us have a look. We are told that love is patient. Patience is defined as the ability to wait calmly for a long time, to control oneself when angered, especially at foolishness or slowness. We have already seen that God gets angry every day (Ps 7:11) and that he gets angry very quickly (Ps 2:11). Obviously God has very little patience.

We are told that love is kind. Is God kind? Read Deuteronomy (28:15-68) where God describes in his own words just how cruel he can be. This shocking passage proves beyond all doubt that God is capable of truly terrible cruelty. Obviously God is not always very kind.

We are told that love does not envy. Envy is, of course, very similar to jealousy and God often describes himself as fiercely jealous. He says:

For the Lord your God is a devouring fire, a jealous God (Deut 4:24).

We are told that love does not boast and is not proud. Is God like this? Certainly the Bible does not give us the impression that God is modest and retiring. God spends a lot of time telling Job how great he is (Job 40:41) and ends by boasting of himself that:

He looks down on all that are haughty, he is king over all that are proud (Job 41:34).

Next we are told that love is not easily angered. We have already seen that God is very easily angered.

Serve the Lord with fear and trembling, kiss his feet or else he will get angry and you will perish in the way, for his wrath is quickly kindled (Ps 2:11).

Finally we are told that love does not keep a record of wrongs that are done, that is, love soon forgives and forgets. Does God keep a record of wrongs that are done? God tells us that he will punish the children, grandchildren and even great-grandchildren of those who sin (Deut 5:9). In order to do this he must keep a record of the wrongs that have been committed and long remember them. Jesus tells us that God will never forgive those who insult the Holy Ghost (Lk 12:10).

We are told that God casts sinners and non-believers into eternal bell. In other: words, he refuses to ever forgive them. In short, he keeps a record for eternity of the wrongs which have been done. Quite clearly, God does not exhibit the highest type of love.

What about the Buddha? Did he exhibit the highest type of love? The first characteristic of this highest kind of love is patience, and there is not one incident recorded in the Tipitaka of the Buddha being impatient. Even when he was abused he remained calm. His every action displays a calm, strong patience. When Asurinda cursed and abused the Buddha, he calmly replied:

He who abuses his abuser is the worse of the two. To refrain from retaliation is to win a battle hard to win. If one knows that the other person is angry but refrains from anger oneself, one does what is best for oneself and the other person also. One is a healer of both (Samyutta Nikaya, Chapter Seven, Sutta No.3).

As he was always patient, he was also free from anger. Even when his cousin Devadatta tried to murder him, the Buddha displayed only pity and tolerance.

We are also told that love is kind. Was the Buddha kind? Again there is not a single hint of the Buddha being anything other than kind and compassionate - not only to those who accepted his teachings but also to the followers of all faiths, not only to the good but also to the evil, not only to humans but also to animals. He says:

One should do no unkind thing that wise men might condemn and one should think, "May all beings he secure and happy. Whatever beings there are, moving or still, tall, middle-sized or short, great or small, seen or unseen, whether living far or near, existing or not yet come into existence, may they all be happy." One should not harm another or despise anyone for any reason. Do not wish pain on another out of either anger or jealousy. Just as a mother would protect her only child even at the risk of her own life, even so, one should develop unbounded love towards all beings in the world (Sutta Nipata, Verses 145-149).

The Buddha did not only teach this but he also practised everything he taught. God tells us that he is jealous and by this he means that he is jealous of other gods and other religions. He wants everyone to worship and revere him alone. So jealous is he that he says his devotees should kill even their own children if they worship other gods (Deut 13:6) and that God hates followers of other religions.

I hate those who cling to worthless idols (Ps 31:6).

I gain understanding from your precepts, therefore I hate every wrong path (Ps 119:104).

Was the Buddha jealous of other faiths? Indeed, he was not. A man called Upali was a follower of the Jain religion. The Buddha explained the Dhamma to him after which he decided to become a Buddhist. The Buddha did not exult nor was he anxious to 'win' Upali. Rather, he advised him to think carefully before making such an important decision:

Make a careful investigation first, Upali. Careful investigation is good for well-known people like yourself (Majjhima Nikaya, Sutta No.56).

The Buddha then advised Upali to keep offering donations to the Jain religion. He said this because he could see the good in all religions and because he was free from envy and jealousy.

Vacchogatta said to the Lord, "I have heard it said that you say that charity should only be given to you, not to other teachers, to your disciples, not to the disciples of other religions." Then the Lord said, "Those who say this are not reporting my words, they misrepresent me and tell lies. Truly, whoever discourages anyone from giving charity hinders in three ways. He hinders the giver from doing good, he hinders the receiver from being helped and he hinders himself through his meanness." (Anguttara Nikaya, Book of Threes, Sutta No.57).

Even today many Christians, especially fundamentalists and evangelicals, will refuse to have anything to do with non-Christians and would certainly refuse to help non-Christian charities.

The Buddha was not boastful or proud, he was not rude or self-seeking, he was not easily angered and he did not keep a record of wrongs that were done to him. From the day of his enlightenment, his every thought, word and action was an expression of love and compassion. As one of his contemporaries said:

I have heard this said, "To abide in love is sublime indeed", and the Lord is proof of this because we can see that he abides in love (Majjhima Nikaya, Sutta No.55).

The Bible passages we have just looked are deeply shocking and Christians will try to repudiate them by saying that" the Old Testament does not show God as he really is but nearly reflects man's understanding of God at that time". How amusing is it discuss Theology with Christians I When it suits them they will quote the Old Testament as God's eternal word, when it does not suit them they will move away from this position and say that the Old Testament reflects man's attempts to understand God. The Christian claim that the Bible is divine infallible revelation means that the Old Testament is as true as the New and that the same God speaks in both.
Chapter 5: Fact and fiction in the life of Jesus
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Chapter 3: Why God Cannot Exist

Beyond Belief: a Buddhist Critique of Christianity
We have seen that the arguments used to prove God's existence are inadequate. We will now demonstrate that logically an all-loving, all-knowing and all-powerful God such as the one in which Christians have faith cannot exist.

The Problem of Free Will

For the religious life to be meaningful we must have free will, we must be able to choose between good and evil. If we do not have free will we cannot be held responsible for what we do.

According to Christians, God is all-knowing - he knows all the past, all the present and all the future. If this is so, then God must know everything we do long before we do it. This means that our whole life must be predetermined and that we act not according to the free exercise of our wills but according to our predetermined natures. If we are predetermined to be good we will be good and if we are predetermined to be evil we will be evil. We will act not according to our will or choice but according to the way God has already foreseen we will act. Although Christians will insist that we do have free will, God's omniscience simply makes this logically impossible. And that people will act only as God determines is verified in the Bible

If people are evil it is because God has chosen to make them evil (Rom 1:24-28) and caused them to disobey him (Rom 11:32). If they do not understand God's message it is because he has made their minds dull (Rom 11:8) and caused them to be stubborn (Rom 9:18). God prevents the Gospel from being preached in certain areas (Act 16:6-7) and he fixes long before it will happen when a person will be born and when he or she will die (Act 17:26). Those who were going to be saved were chosen by God before the beginning of time (ii Tim 1:9 Eph 1:11). If a person has faith and is thereby saved, their faith comes from God, not from any effort on their part (Eph 2:9-10). One may ask "If a person can only do what God predetermines them to do, how can God hold them responsible for their actions?" The Bible has an answer for this question.

But one of you will say to me: "If this is so, how can God find fault with anyone? For who can resist God's will?" But who are you, my friend, to answer God back? A clay pot does not ask the man who made it: "Why did you make me like this?" After all, the man who makes the pot has the right to use the clay as he wishes, and to make two pots from one lump of clay, one for special occasions and one for ordinary use. And the same is true of what God has done (Rom 9:19-22).

So apparently in Christianity a person's life and destiny are due purely to the whim of God and as mere humans we have no right to complain about what God has decided for us. The idea that we are all predetermined is quite consistent with the idea of an all-knowing God but it makes nonsense of the concept of making a' effort to do good or avoid evil.

The Problem of Evil

Perhaps the most potent argument against the existence of an all-powerful, all loving God is the undeniable fact that there is so much pain and suffering in the world. If there is really a God of love who has unlimited power, why doesn't h put an end to all evil? Christians try to answer this question in several ways.

Firstly, they will say that evil is caused by man not God and that if only ma would follow God's commandments there would be no pain, evil or suffering. However, while it is true that evils such as war, rape, murder and exploitation ca be blamed on humans, they can hardly be blamed for the millions who die each year in earthquakes, floods, epidemics and accidents, all of which are natural; events. In fact, according to the Bible, the germs that cause hideous diseases like TB, polio, cholera, leprosy etc. and all the misery, deformity and suffering to which they give rise, were created by God before he created man (Gen. 1:11-12).

Another way Christians will try to explain away evil is to say that it is God's punishment for those who do not follow his commandments. However this implies that terrible things happen only to bad people, which is certainly not true. We often hear of painful sicknesses or disasters befalling good people including good Christians, and likewise we often hear of really bad people who seem to have nothing but good fortune and success. So it cannot be said that suffering and evil are God's way of punishing sinners.

Next, Christians will say that God allows evil to exist in the world because he wants to give us the freedom to choose good over evil and thereby earn salvation. Evil, they will say, exists to test us. At first this seems to be a good explanation. If a man sees someone being beaten up by a bully he has a choice between turning away (doing wrong) or deciding to help the victim (doing right). If he decides to help then he has been tested and found good. However, as we have seen before, an all-knowing God must already know what choices a person will make so what is the point of testing us? Also, even if suffering and evil exist in the world to test us, couldn't an all-loving God think of a less cruel and less painful way to do this? It seems unloving and unfair to allow pain to be inflicted on one person so that another person can have the opportunity to choose between good and evil.

Some Christians will try to free God from responsibility for evil by saying that it is not created by God but by the Devil. This may be true but again if God is so loving why doesn't he simply prevent the Devil from doing this? In any case, who created the Devil in the first place? Surely it was God.

By this stage the Christian will start to get a bit desperate, shifting the argument from logic to pragmatism. He will say that even though there is suffering in the world we can use it as an opportunity to develop courage and patience. This is undoubtedly true but it still does not explain why an all-loving God allows babies to die of cancer, innocent bystanders to be killed in accidents, and leprosy victims to suffer deformity and pain. In fact the existence of so much unnecessary pain, misery and evil in the world is very strong evidence that there is no all-loving all powerful God.

Why Create?

Christians claim that God is perfect, that he is complete in every way, but if God really did create the universe this would prove that he was not perfect. Let us examine why. Before God created the universe there was nothing - no sun, no earth, no people, no good or evil, no pain - nothing but God who was, according to Christians, perfect. So if God was perfect and nothing but perfection existed, what motivated God to create the universe and thus bring imperfection into being? Was it because he was bored and wanted something to do? Was it because he was lonely and wanted someone to pray to him?

Christians will say that God created everything because of his love of man, but this is impossible. God could not love humans before he created them any more than a woman could love her children before she had conceived them. God's need to create indicates that he was dissatisfied in some way and therefore not perfect. Christians might then say that God created spontaneously and without need or desire. However this would mean that the whole universe came into being without purpose or forethought and therefore it would mean that God was not a loving creator.

The Problem of the Hidden God

Christians claim that God wants us to believe in him so that we can be saved - but if this is so why doesn't God simply appear and perform a miracle so that everyone will see and believe? Christians will say that God wants us to believe in him out of faith, not because we see him with our eyes. However, according to the Bible, God in the past performed the most awesome miracles and often intervened dramatically in human affairs so that people would know his presence. So if he did so in the past, why doesn't he do so now?

Christians will say that God does perform miracles today (healing, solving personal problems etc) but being stubborn and evil most people refuse to believe. However these so-called miracles are individual and rninor and leave much room for doubt. If God performed a really impressive miracle which could have no other possible explanation, then most people certainly would believe.

According to the Bible when the Israelites wandered in the desert for forty years, God fed them by making food fall regularly from the sky (Ex16:4). During the 1980's, several million Ethiopian Christians died slowly and painfully from starvation due to a prolonged drought. God had then the opportunity to make food fall from the sky, as the Bible claims he did in the past, in order to prove his existence, his power and his love. Buddhists would say that God did not manifest his presence because he does not exist.
Chapter 4: God or Buddha - Who is the Highest?
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Chapter 2: Christian Arguments for God's Existence

Beyond Belief: a Buddhist Critique of Christianity
Christians claim that there is an all-knowing, all-loving God who created and who controls the universe. Several arguments are used to prove this idea. We will examine each of these arguments and give the Buddhist objections to them.

The Authority of the Bible

When asked to prove God's existence, the Christian will often open the Bible and say "The Bible says God exists, so he must." The problem is that if we ask a Hindu, a Muslim, a Sikh or a Jew the same question they too will point to their respective holy books as proof of the existence of their Gods. Why should we believe the Bible but not the holy books of all the other religions? Using the Bible to prove God's existence is only valid if we already accept that it alone contains God's words. However, we have no evidence that this is so. In fact, as we will demonstrate later, there is strong evidence that the Bible is a highly unreliable document.

The Existence of the Universe

In their attempts to prove God's existence, Christians will sometimes say "The universe didn't just happen, someone must have made it and therefore there must be a creator God." There is a major flaw in this argument. When it starts to rain ~e do not ask "Who is making it rain?" because we know that rain is caused not by someone but by something - natural phenomena like heat, evaporation, precipitation, etc. When we see smooth stones in a river, we do not ask "Who polished those stones?" because we know that the smooth surface of the stones was caused not by someone but by something - natural causes like the abrasive action of water and sand.

All of these things have a cause (or causes) but this need not be a being. It is the same with the universe - it was not brought into being by a God but by natural phenomena like nuclear fission, gravity, inertia, etc. However, even if we believe that a divine being is needed to explain how the universe came into existence, what proof is there that it was the Christian God? Perhaps it was created by the Hindu God, the God of Islam or one of the gods worshipped by tribal religions. After all most religions, not only Christianity, claim that their God or gods created the universe.

The Argument from Design

In response to the above refutation, the Christian will maintain that the universe does not merely exist but its existence shows perfect design. There is, a Christian might say, an order and balance which point to its having been designed by a higher intelligence, and that this higher intelligence is God. But as before, there are some problems with this argument.

Firstly, how does the Christian know that it was his God who is behind creation? Perhaps it was the gods of non-Christian religions who designed and created the universe.

Secondly, how does the Christian know that only one God designed everything? In fact, as the universe is so intricate and complex we could expect it to need the intelligence of several, perhaps dozens, of gods to design it. So if anything the argument from design proves that there are many gods, not one as Christians claim.

Next, we would have to ask, is the universe perfectly designed? We must ask this because if a perfect God designed and created the universe, then that universe should be perfect. Let us first look at inanimate phenomena to see whether they show perfect design. Rain gives us pure water to drink but sometimes it rains too much and people lose their lives, their homes and their means of livelihood in floods. At other times it doesn't rain at all and millions die in drought and famine. Is this perfect design? The mountains give us joy as we see them reaching up into the sky. But landslides ~nd volcanic eruptions have for centuries caused havoc and death. Is this perfect design? The gentle breezes cool us but storms and tornadoes repeatedly cause death and destruction. Is this perfect design? These and other natural calamities prove that inanimate phenomena do not exhibit perfect design and therefore that they were not created by a perfect God.

Now let us look at animate phenomena to see whether they reveal perfect design. At a superficial glance, nature seems to be beautiful and harmonious; all creatures are provided for and each has its task to perform. However, as any biologist will confirm, nature is utterly ruthless. To live, each creature has to feed on other creatures and struggle to avoid being eaten by other creatures. In nature, there is no time for pity, love or mercy. If a loving God designed everything, why did such a cruel design result? The animal kingdom is not only imperfect in the ethical sense, it is also imperfect in that it often goes wrong. Every year ~lions of babies are born with physical or mental disabilities, or are stillborn or die soon after birth. Why would a perfect creator God design such terrible things?

So if there is design in the universe, much of it is faulty and cruel. This would seem to indicate that the universe was not created by a perfect all-loving God.

The First Cause Argument

Christians will sometimes say that everything has a cause, that there must be a first cause, and that God is the first cause. This old argument contains its own refutation, for if everything has a first cause then the first cause must also have a cause.

There is another problem with the first cause argument. Logically there is no good reason to assume that everything had a single first cause. Perhaps six, ten or three hundred causes occurring simultaneously caused everything.

Miracles

Christians claim that miracles are sometimes performed in God's name and that the fact that this happens proves that God exists. This is an appealing argument until it is looked at a little more closely.

While Christians are quick to claim that because of their prayers the blind could see, the deaf could hear and crooked limbs were straightened, they are very slow in producing evidence to back up their claims. In fact, some Christians are so anxious to prove that miracles have occurred at their prayer meetings that the truth often gets lost in a flood of wild claims, extravagant boasts, and sometimes even conscious lies.

It is true that things which are unusual and difficult to explain do sometimes happen during religious events - but not just for Christians. Hindus, Muslims, Taoists, etc. all claim that their God or gods sometimes perform miracles. Christianity certainly does not have a monopoly on miracles. So, if miracles performed in God's name prove the existence of the Christian God, then miracles performed in the name of numerous other gods must likewise prove that they too exist.

Christians may try to overcome this fact by claiming that, when miracles occur in other religions, they are done through the power of the Devil. Perhaps the best way to counter this claim is to quote the Bible. When Jesus healed the sick, his enemies accused him of doing this through the power of the Devil. He answered that healing the sick results in good and if the Devil went around doing good he would destroy himself (Mk 3:22-26). Therefore the same could be said for the miracles performed by Hindus, Jews or Sikhs. If these miracles result in good, how can they be the work of the Devil?

The Argument for God's Necessity

Christians will often claim that only by believing in God will people have the strength to deal with life's problems, and therefore that belief in God is necessary. This claim is apparently supported by numerous books written by Christians who have endured and overcome various crises through the power of God. Some of these books make highly inspiring reading, so the claim that one can cope with problems only with God's help sounds rather convincing - until we look a little more deeply.

If this claim is true, we would expect most of the non-Christian people of the world to lead lives of emotional distress, confusion and hopelessness while most Christians through their faith in God would be able to unfailingly deal with their problems and to never need to seek help from counsellors or psychiatrists. It is clear, however, that people from non-Christian religions and even those with no religion are just as capable of dealing with life's crises as Christians are sometimes even better. It is also sometimes the case that people who are devout Christians lose their faith in God after being confronted with serious personal problems. Consequently, the claim that belief in God is necessary to cope with and overcome problems is baseless.

The "Try and Disprove" Argument

When Christians find they cannot prove God's existence with doubtful facts or logic, they may switch tactics and say "Perhaps it can't be proved that God exists, but neither can you disprove it". This of course is quite true. You cannot prove that God doesn't exist - but neither can you prove that the gods of Taoism, Hinduism and a dozen other religions do not exist. In other words, despite all the hyperbole, the extravagant claims and the confident proclamations, there is no more evidence for the existence of the Christian God than there is for the gods worshipped in other religions.

The Testimony

After everything else has failed, the Christian may finally try to convince us that God exists by appealing to the emotions. Such a person will say, perhaps quite truthfully, "I used to be unhappy and discontented but after giving myself to God I am happy and at peace with myself." Such testimonies can be deeply moving, but what do they prove? There are millions of people whose lives became equally happy and meaningful after they embraced Buddhism, Hinduism or Islam. Likewise, there are no doubt many people whose lives have not changed for the better after they became Christians - the same weaknesses and problems sometimes remain. So this argument, like all the others, does not prove the existence of the Christian God.
Chapter 3: Why God Cannot Exist
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Chapter 1: Introduction

Beyond Belief: a Buddhist Critique of Christianity
The purpose of this book is threefold. Firstly it aims to critically examine Christianity and thereby highlight the logical, philosophical and ethical problems in Christian dogma. In doing this I hope to be able to provide Buddhists with facts which they can use when Christians attempt to evangelize them. This book should make such encounters more fair, and hopefully also make it more likely that Buddhists will remain Buddhists. As it is, many Buddhists know little of their own religion and nothing about Christianity - which makes it difficult for them to answer the questions Christians ask or to rebut the claims they make.

The second aim of this book is to help any Christians who might read it to understand why some people are not, and never will be, Christians. Hopefully, this understanding will help them to develop an acceptance of and thereby genuine friendship with Buddhists, rather than relating to them only as potential converts. In order to do this, I have raised as many difficult questions as possible and not a few home truths. If it appears sometimes that I have been hard on Christianity, I hope this will not be interpreted as being motivated by malice. I was a Christian for many years and I still retain a fond regard, and even admiration, for some aspects of Christianity. For me, Jesus' teachings were an important step in my becoming a Buddhist and I think I am a better Buddhist as a result. However when Christians claim, as many do with such insistence, that their religion alone is true, then they must be prepared to answer doubts which others might express about their religion.

The third aim of this book is to awaken in Buddhists a deeper appreciation for their own religion. In some Asian countries Buddhism is thought of an out-of-date superstition while Christianity is seen as a religion which has all the answers. As these countries become more Westernized, Christianity with its "modern" image begins to look increasingly attractive. I think this book will amply demonstrate that Buddhism is able to ask questions of Christianity which it has great difficulties in answering, and at the same time to offer explanations to life's puzzles which make Christian explanations look rather puerile.

Some Buddhists may object to a book like this, believing that such a gentle and tolerant religion as Buddhism should refrain from criticizing other religions. This is certainly not what the Buddha himself taught. In the Mahaparinibbana Sutta he said that his disciples should be able to "Teach the Dhamma, declare it, establish it, expound it, analyse it, make it clear, and be able by means of the Dhamma to refute false teachings that have arisen. "Subjecting a point of view to careful scrutiny and criticism has an important part to play in helping to winnow truth from falsehood, so that we can be in a better position to choose between "the two and sixty contending sects. "Criticism of another religion only becomes inappropriate when it is based on a deliberate misrepresentation of that religion, or when it descends into an exercise in ridicule and name-calling. I hope I have avoided doing this.
Chapter 2: Christian Arguments for God's Existence
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A Buddhist Critique of Christianity...by A. L. de Silva

Contents

This is the electronic version of a Book printed in Sri Lanka. It is reproduced here to make its contents known more widely. The original book contains no mention of publisher or of a copyright notice. Little is known about the author.
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BEYOND BELIEF: A Buddhist Critique of Christianity...by A. L. de Silva

No-Mind

Hindu Meditation

"Meditation is silence, energising and fulfilling
The nice thing about being up early in the morning is the stillness, the silence. The hustle of the day hasn't really started, and it's a good time to just sit, quiet and meditate."
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Christian Meditation

Buddhist Meditation

"Buddhism as a whole is quite different from the theological religions with which Westerners are most familiar. It is a direct entrance to a spiritual or divine realm without addressing deities or other 'agents'. Its flavor is intensely clinical, much more akin to what we would call psychology than to what we would usually call religion. It is an ever-ongoing investigation of reality, a microscopic examination of the very process of perception. Its intention is to pick apart the screen of lies and delusions through which we normally view the world, and thus to reveal the face of ultimate reality. Vipassana meditation is an ancient and elegant technique for doing just that."...Mindfulness in Plain English
  • Buddhist Contemplative Practice
  • Buddhist Meditation
  • Buddhist Meditation
  • Buddhist Breath Meditation
  • A View on Buddhism: Meditation Practice
  • Mindfulness in Plain English
    "This book is a 'How to.' It is written for" those who actually want to meditate and especially for those who want to start now. ...this volume deals exclusively with the Vipassana style of meditation as taught and practiced in South and Southeast Asian Buddhism. It is often translated as Insight meditation, since the purpose of this system is to give the meditator insight into the nature of reality and accurate understanding of how everything works."
  • Vimuttimagga...Upatissa
    "In the first century after Christ, an eminent Buddhist scholar named Upatissa wrote the Vimuttimagga, (The Path of Freedom) in which he summarized the Buddha's teachings on meditation."
  • Visuddhimagga
    ""In the fifth century A.C. (after Christ,) another great Buddhist scholar named Buddhaghosa covered the same ground in a second scholastic thesis--the Visuddhimagga, (The Path of Purification) which is the standard text on meditation even today."
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Meditation

Spiritual Entities

Kathleen Norris battles 'the demon of acedia'

"We have a vast palette of words that attempt to express our downcast moods -- "a funk," "the blues," "the doldrums." All of them abstractions, euphemisms we employ in an effort to pinpoint something elusive -- a sensation that might be a shade less than depression but still has weight, the power to hem us in, to alter our picture of the world.

Kathleen Norris -- a poet, memoirist and oblate -- was all too familiar with this vague sense of lethargy that would sometimes descend like a net. Since her teens she'd struggled with episodes of inertia that spread into a bleak stretch of anxiousness and eventually spun out into indifference.

The first one started with a single thought that "slithered into my Eden, pulling a string of other thoughts, each one worse than the one before," she writes.

That moment would mark the beginning of a recurrence of "bleak moods," but it wouldn't be until Norris reached her 30s that she ran across a word -- acedia -- in the writings of , a 4th century monk, that precisely described not just the mood but the course it would run and the damage it could do:

"The demon of acedia -- also called the noonday demon -- is the one that causes the most serious trouble of all. . . . He makes it seem that the sun barely moves, if at all, and . . . he instills in the heart of the monk a hatred for the place, a hatred for his very life itself."

The words had shocking resonance for Norris. "I wanted to figure out why this 4th century writer seemed to know me and seemed to know exactly what I was feeling," she says. In her new book, "Acedia & Me: A Marriage, Monks, and a Writer's Life"..., Norris attempts to both identify this demon and trace the trajectory of this relic of a word: a term that has gone in and out of usage over centuries for an affliction that is not done with us."

Kathleen Norris battles 'the demon of acedia'
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Spiritual Science

Welcome and Introduction: Exploring Inner Space

"To be shaken out of the ruts of ordinary perception, to be shown for a few timeless hours the outer and inner world, not as they appear to an animal obsessed with survival or to a human being obsessed with words and notions, but as they are apprehended, directly and unconditionally, by Mind at Large — this is an experience of inestimable value to everyone and especially to the intellectual"...Aldous Huxley, The Doors of Perception (1954)
"I'm trying to free your mind, Neo. But I can only show you the door. You're the one that has to walk through it."... Morpheus in the 1999 movie, The Matrix
Simply, this blog is about inner space and the exploration of that space as it pertains to transcendence. America has spent vast sums on the exploration of "outer" space over the past 60 or so years and a small number of us have even had the opportunity to view our small planet from the moon. Perhaps from that experience their perspective on life and living has changed for the better. As for the rest of us, we may enjoy their perspective vicariously and learn from the pictures we have seen. Obviously our economy cannot afford to send all of us to the moon for the transcendent experience a view of the earth from the moon can afford. Besides a more intense and profound transcend experience can be accomplished right here on earth!

The exploration of outer space has shown us how vast, but empty, our solar system and even our part of the universe may be. Outer space seems more like a stage prop set up to fuel our speculation about who we are and why we are here. In seeking answers to those two questions through exploration of outer space, it seems that all we have accomplished is the generation of more questions. Other than serving up entertainment for scientists who make their living from the study of outer space, and technology spin-offs from that work, has it made us better people or happier in our daily lives?

On the other hand, many have been able to take a journey inward. And that has generally been much more fulfilling for the individual. The inward landscape is vast and populated with beings of all sorts. Some good, some bad. Unlike outer space travel, inner space travel allows us to leave our physical bodies parked. And physical survival is much easier, although traveling with a wise guide is generally the best way to go.

Long before the Greeks, the ancients envisioned a minimum of two worlds, the material world and the spirit world, and developed procedures for travel between the these two worlds that are open to anyone with a sense of adventure. For thousands of years these indigenous inward travelers, known as shamans, have explored the spirit world and returned to tell or even write about it. One example of such writing is, of course, the Tibetan Book of the Dead.

Some of these journeys have been chronicled in writings such as the Tibetan Book of the Dead, which is really about living. Others are found in anthropological studies documenting firsthand accounts of inward travelers. Those who make the inward journey are now often called psychonauts.

My own interest in these inward travelers, or psychonauts, came from working on my blog, The Desert Fathers. In a roundabout way, I came across the story of the desert fathers while I was researching historical causes of the destruction of the ancient library in Alexandria, Egypt. As an academic librarian, i.e., a professional librarian who has spent his career working in institutions of higher learning, I was trying to understand how and why such a marvel as the Alexandria library met its implausible end after surviving for several hundred years.

After considerable research, I documented one possibility of how that great library ended in my fictional serial blog Alexandrine Librarian. There is ample evidence from reading that blog that it was my first attempt at writing historical fiction, which is something I plan to spend my retirement years doing, for better or for worse.

My research for writing the Alexandrine Librarian blog revealed that there were quite a number of ancient libraries in the Roman Empire. The Romans loved knowledge and reading and attempted to promote both throughout the Empire by building and maintaining large libraries. Some of these are documented in my not-yet-completed blog, Ancient libraries of the Mediterranean.

By this circuitous route I have come to a point where my interest lies in exploring what lies beyond the material world of the ancients and also beyond our contemporary world. Reading about the difficult inward journeys of the desert fathers made me wonder about other ways of inner exploration. I have found a substantial body of literature on this subject and am now sorting through all that I can find. In India, there is a tradition for many, that after a lifetime of work one may go on a spiritual search for what lies beyond. That effort, I believe, is a preparation for the transition of the individual to another level. Just as we all spent our early life preparing for adulthood, it seems worthwhile to spend some time and effort preparing for our later years, death and what lies beyond.

Perhaps as scary and morbid as that might sound, I am reassured by a belief that death is simply a transition or transformation of some part of our individual self, whether it is the soul or some other "essence" of our self. That constitutes a belief that we do continue on in some form somewhere in the spirit world. Some people in both primitive and civilized cultures believe we will return to the material world sometime in the future. If they are right, then although this life appears to be terminal, it might be best to keep an open mind, and not take terminality too seriously as it may prevent the very development needed for future return to the material world.

The aforementioned Tibetan Book of the Dead, the real title is "Bardo Thodral" or "Great Liberation by Hearing in the Intermediate States", is an intriguing document so alien to Western thought that considerable effort was required to translate it into English. In the final analysis it is a book about how to live as well as how to die. It is also a detailed map of the landscape of the world beyond this life, a special kind of knowledge that should of interest to every living human being. So why is it not a bestseller in the United States? One reason is that it may seem a daunting task just reading the text even in English. Annie Shapiro, a professor at Naropa and Dongguk Universities, has written an excellent summary of the Bardo Thodral that I would recommend reading for anyone interested in the landscape of the afterlife. It is available in PDF form here.

For many centuries in Tibet individuals have placed a high priority on preparing for life after death, mastering the ways of exploring inner space and traveling to the world beyond. Many are also able to return, bringing back profound insights. Have our expenditures for the exploration of outer space and the results of that exploration brought any kind of truly enlightening knowledge to people today?

Thomas Merton, speaking about the inward journey of the desert fathers, who themselves, much like the Tibetans, mapped the landscape of inner space, nicely sums up my feelings:

...they represent a discovery of man, at the term of an inner and spiritual journey that is far more crucial and infinitely more important than any journey to the moon.

What can we gain by sailing to the moon if we are not able to cross the abyss that separates us from ourselves? This is the most important of all voyages of discovery, and without it all the rest are not only useless but disastrous. Proof: the great travellers and colonizers of the Renaissance were, for the most part, men who perhaps were capable of the things they did precisely because they were alienated from themselves. In subjugating the primitive worlds they only imposed on them, with the force of cannons, their own confusion and their own alienation.

I realize that there is nothing new in these blogs. I am only discovering things that are already known by a few or by many. In that respect, I follow the tradition of many scholars, many bloggers. While I use this blog format mainly so that I can more easily keep track of my thoughts and ideas, I realize that by sharing it with others I might be revealing my own ignorance. That is an inherent hazard in sharing personal thoughts in writing.

This blog, like The Desert Fathers blog is all about transcendent experiences because at this point in my life that is what I am interested in.

So, I think, ..."if there is ever to be a universal religion, it must be one which will have no location in place or time; which will be infinite like the God it will preach, and whose sun will shine upon the followers of Krishna and of Christ, on saints and sinners alike; which will not be Brahminic or Buddhist, Christian or Muslim, but the sum total of all these, and still have infinite space for development..."

While this blog will also explore the practice of using entheongenic drugs for transcendent experiences, I am not now a drug user nor have I ever ingested drugs, nor do I intend to do so. Nor do I suggest or endorse the casual use of entheogenic drugs. Any attempt in achieving transcendency through entheogenic drugs should be considered a serious matter involving much research and preparation.

It is only in relation to this blog and the landscape of alternative realities that I am interested in studies documenting historical use of entheogenic drugs by various cultures over many centuries in religious, shamanic or spiritual contexts.


The Librarian
From the high mountains of southern Colorado
August 2011
send email to: alexandrinelibrarian@gmail.com
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The Universal Laws of Karma

"There are many universal laws, which are above the laws of any country. To quote a few, there are laws of gravity, electricity, interstellar planetary forces, weather, and the earth revolving on its own axis. There are also laws of ‘like begets like’ and ‘as above so below’ There are innumerable more laws, which act upon and control the entire universe and us. These are the laws that no country or international laws or dictator can annul or eradicate. The laws that concern us most here are Karma and Reincarnation. For every universal law there is a reason for it. For instance, the law of gravity is there to prevent us from falling off the earth."

The Universal Laws of Karma

On the Religion of the White Man and the Red

Red Jacket (c.1758–1830) (1805)

Born about 1752, died in 1830; his Nation, the Senecas, his home, near Geneva; his real name, Sogoyewapha, the name “Red Jacket” coming from an embroidered scarlet jacket presented to him by a British officer during the Revolution; saw service on the American side in the War of 1812.

On the Religion of the White Man and the Red...Red Jacket

BEYOND BELIEF: A Buddhist Critique of Christianity...by A. L. de Silva

Introduction

Definitions

Hacking:

(1)re-configuring or re-programming of a system to function in ways not facilitated by the owner, administrator, or designer.

(2)modification of a program or device to give the user access to features that were otherwise unavailable.

(3)often used to refer to more nefarious criminal uses such as identity theft.

(4)a continuous effort at identifying the nature of and components of a system.

Divine:

(1)The extreme great good.

(2)God.

(3)Holy or sacred.

Hacking The Divine is a phrase that describes this blog's content. I will be considering the fourth definition of hacking, describing here historical efforts to understand the nature of the Divine. However, the first three previous definitions of hacking could also be relevant material for this blog, as they describe various attempts made to define God throughout history.

My chronicles of the search for the Divine throughout history will take into account both good behavior and bad behavior found as individuals or groups tried to impose belief systems (religions) on large populations.

So why do I bother to do this? Very simply, I hope to review and understand some of the best ideas in human history about what happens after we "die". Is it a transition to a better reality or do we just fade away? So far, I am having difficulty buying into the Christian idea of "Heaven" and "Satan". I have seen and read enough about the nasty side of fundamentalism to conclude that it is not healthy, whether in the Christian faith or in any religion, cult or political system.

I am searching for information about the nature of the next reality, if indeed there is one. And I do think there is. I came across an interesting spiritual movement in the first three hundred after Jesus lived. I am documenting the history of this group, collectively called "The Desert Fathers", in my blog The Desert Fathers. So far that is probably the best example I have found of pure individual spiritualism without contamination from or controlled by organized religions and dogma.

I welcome contributors and commentary to this blog. If you are interested in contributing let me know.

The Librarian
From the high mountains of southern Colorado
January 2011
alexandrinelibrarian@gmail.com

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