Ven. Dhammika's review of Buddha to Jesus

[David N. Snyder]

Ven. Shravasti Dhammika has written a book review of From Buddha to Jesus an Insiders view of Christianity and Buddhism.

Reviews, From Buddha to Jesus

Apparently the author of that book takes a very critical and ignorant view of Buddhism to writing. Fortunately, Ven. Dhammika wrote that great review to counter it.

[mikenz66]

Thanks TheDhamma for pointing that out. The attitude that missionary Christians have in Asia is scary...

Mike

[Peter]

If you think his review is good then it would behoove you to mark it as helpful so others will be inclined to read it.

[Bhikkhu Pesala]

I disagree. Ven Dhammika's review is very poor — it is far too long for a start. To be frank, it is hardly any better than a rant. Not that the book doesn't deserve to be criticised, but if it is so bad I wonder why Ven Dhammika even bothered?

[mikenz66]

Greetings Venerable,

I agree that it is much too long, and will probably have little impact on Christian readers. Perhaps an "exective summary" would have been helpful...

Metta
Mike

[Tex]

Agreed on the length, I skimmed the second half of it. I thought he demonstrated how the author didn't know what he was talking about quite well. I'm sure it won't make much difference to the Christians, but at least non-biased readers won't be led astray if they read that review.

[Individual]

Ven. Shravasti Dhammika has written a book review of From Buddha to Jesus an Insiders view of Christianity and Buddhism.

Reviews, From Buddha to Jesus

Apparently the author of that book takes a very critical and ignorant view of Buddhism to writing. Fortunately, Ven. Dhammika wrote that great review to counter it.

For a similarly amusing evangelical Christian distortion of Buddhism, see Crosswalk.com's article, Share Your Faith With Buddhists.

[Individual]

I disagree. Ven Dhammika's review is very poor — it is far too long for a start. To be frank, it is hardly any better than a rant. Not that the book doesn't deserve to be criticised, but if it is so bad I wonder why Ven Dhammika even bothered?

I was thinking that myself. That is, I was thinking: Ven. Dhammika may have actually brought this book more attention than it deserves by providing his critique, giving it some semblance of value. Buddhist monks don't bother critiquing Scientologists' remarks about Buddhism, for example.

[Cittasanto]

Thanks TheDhamma for pointing that out. The attitude that missionary Christians have in Asia is scary...

Mike

I saw a book on scibed? which initially I though was interesting but then realised it was a handbook of how to convert Buddhists I'll look about for it post here as it seem relevant to this thread

[jcsuperstar]

that is the longest review ever....

[David N. Snyder]

Yes, it is pretty long. Four out of four people have marked it as a good review or at least 'helpful.' Excellent.

[arises]

Check this out:

http://buddhabook.org/bookblog/?p=64

[Wu-Wei]

[thornbush]

[Individual]

Cioccolanti has created a series of pages attacking Dhammika:
http://buddhabook.org/bookblog/?page_id=2

[Tex]

The simple fact is: no matter how much Pali and Sanskrit Dammika learns, no matter how many hours he chants and meditates, he will never know Buddhism the way it’s lived by the average Asian who grew up with it. That is why I wrote my book From Buddha to Jesus: An Insider’s View of Buddhism & Christianity (not an academic’s, professional’s or Western view).

So "Steve" claims to "know Buddhism" better than an ordained Buddhist monk (whose Dhamma name he can't seem to spell correctly), yet he believes the following:

There is effectively little difference, in normal parlance, between the Buddhist word “karma” and the Christian word “sin”. Karma is always followed by revenge, curses, and suffering. Sin is always followed by suffering and death.

True Buddhism is following Buddha, an Indian prince who was willing to give up his wealth, his tradition, and even his original religion (Hinduism), to search for the way to be free from karma.

Today Buddhism is a mix of Hindu idol worship, animism and local superstition.

[David N. Snyder]

Cioccolanti goes on a real rant against Ven. Dhammika! I have not read all of Cioccolanti's rant yet, but see some serious flaws already in his arguments:

1. Evolution does not say that there is spontaneous generation! That was a theory around the time of Darwin that was quickly dismissed. Pasteur showed that you need life to make life. Evolution focuses on natural selection and changes in the gene pool. Evolution rejects spontaneous generation.

2. I don't know much about this Law of information Cioccolanti refers to, but the major driving force is natural selection, not the additions to genomes.

3. What are these "other equally compelling factors" Cioccolanti refers to? The example he uses supports that changes are random and not directed, therefore, no "divine" influence.

And then he has the audacity to claim that he knows more about science than Ven. Dhammika. Cioccolanti is a creationist for Christ-Buddha's sake!?

[Individual]

Cioccolanti goes on a real rant against Ven. Dhammika! I have not read all of Cioccolanti's rant yet, but see some serious flaws already in his arguments:

1. Evolution does not say that there is spontaneous generation! That was a theory around the time of Darwin that was quickly dismissed. Pasteur showed that you need life to make life. Evolution focuses on natural selection and changes in the gene pool. Evolution rejects spontaneous generation.

2. I don't know much about this Law of information Cioccolanti refers to, but the major driving force is natural selection, not the additions to genomes.

3. What are these "other equally compelling factors" Cioccolanti refers to? The example he uses supports that changes are random and not directed, therefore, no "divine" influence.

And then he has the audacity to claim that he knows more about science than Ven. Dhammika. Cioccolanti is a creationist for Christ-Buddha's sake!?

The man is a fool, most likely a fraud.

Here he says:

Let’s proceed to Dhammika’s interpretation of Christianity.

On page 4 of his book Good Question Good Answer, he writes: “In Christianity, the fish is used to symbolise Christ’s presence…” (P. 4). Used by whom? This is found nowhere in the Bible, except in one reference to Jesus calling Simon and Andrew to become “fishers of men” (Mark 1:17), which means fish is a symbol of men, not Christ.

See Wikipedia's article on Icthys. It's a fairly common Christian symbol.

See this page on his church's website:
http://www.discover.org.au/supportus.html

[Wu-Wei]

Hmmmm ... something smells "fishy" ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashtamangala

[puthujjana]

I'm really shocked

Why do christians have such a big desire to convert others? I can't understand it...