| If I am not mistaken Buddha isn't even a person. |
All the literally hundreds of forms of Buddhism are traced back to the essential teachings of a man named Siddhartha Gautama----the Buddha as Karma also mentioned. Although "The Buddha" is a title meaning "enlightened" it can be applied to others but is particularly applied to Gautama the founder of Buddhism.
I think you will find that Buddhism is considered a World Religion as well as a philosophy.
| How do you know that we're all not right? |
How can we possibly be ALL right? We die once only. No we die and come back thru reincarnation. Jesus is God. Jesus is NOT God. Jesus was born of virgin birth. No Jesus was NOT born via the miracle of a virgin birth. There is only one way to heaven. No there are many ways to heaven. There is a hell. No there is no such thing as hell. Everyone goes to heaven. No only certain people go to heaven. We can work our way to heaven. There is no work we can do to gain entrance into heaven. Jesus said "I am the way, truth and life." There is not other way he said repeatedly. Like I said, was he lying? We can be ALL wrong but not ALL right.
There are way too many contradictions to make this ALL work. The foundational doctrine of Buddhism--reincarnation is clearly contradicted by scripture.
To the Buddha, gods were inhabiters of the cosmos who, like all other living things, were temporal. They also must escape the cycle of rebirths. According to the bible, however there is only one personal, infinite eternal unchanging God. How can we reconcile all this? We can't. Two different paths, two diff directions.
| You say that people pray to Buddha, but I have never met any Buddhist that thinks of Buddha (Siddhartha Gautama) as a deity. He was an example of an enlightened man, and he was only one of many Buddhas (which is one of the reasons that Buddha statues look different from each other). |
yes, agree but some do pray. There are three main schools of Buddhist doctrine which have developed over the centuries. Theravada (monastic and conversative) Mahayana (liberal and lay oriented) and Vajrayana or Tibetan (the most esoteric).
From what I understand the Theravada form (most traditional) holds to a strict interpretation of the Buddha's teachings. Usually called the "fundamentalist branch" of Buddhism because it has preserved what is probably the original form of Buddhism.
In the Theravada tradition Siddhartha is not worshiped. But in the Mahayana tradition he is often worshiped and prayed to.
But regardless both traditions look to the Buddha as their primary source of truth. Mahayanists unlike Theravadins recognize numerous other Buddhas.
| And Buddhism itself doesn't go off in any different directions than the teachings of Christ in any way |
are you saying the Buddhist teachings bring us closer to Christ because the teachings are the same? While there are some teachings as I stated above that are in harmony with the Christian scriptures there is much more that take us away from them and away from what we would say "the light of the world."
So Karma, you're telling me as a Buddhist, you cannot explain nirvana? Isn't that like going into an airport and asking for a ticket but not having a destination? No description or idea exactly what or where it is? When you get there you'll know where it is? I'm quite sure you don't do that now. You don't go into an airport and just ask for a ticket to somewhere. No one in his right mind would do such a thing when it comes to a destination in this life. Should our destination for eternity be even more sure because...well, because it's eternity we're talking about.
hey this was about Santa, how'd we get into Buddha?
