I really want to be Buddhist,but I can't let go of God.what are buddhist critiques of theism?

Exploring Theravāda's connections to other paths - what can we learn from other traditions, religions and philosophies?
josaphatbarlaam
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Re: I really want to be Buddhist,but I can't let go of God.what are buddhist critiques of theism?

Post by josaphatbarlaam »

Tutareture wrote: Mon Nov 01, 2021 2:36 am title.I need good buddhist arguments against the abrahamic conception of God or God in general.I heard about Gunapala Dharmasiri's Buddhist Critique of the Christian Concept of God but I can't get my hands on it.Abrahamic theism is really suffocating my personal life,as I am LGBT and I can't live out my full identity and I can hardly enjoy life as it is with all the rules.
But Buddhism is more about letting go of identity view. You could start out with some Secular Buddhism that basically teaches being LGBT is some form of enlightenment, but eventually if you ever crack open any Buddhist scripture you will find out what Buddha really taught is you must let go of all sexuality to make it to nibbana. So belief in God or not is not really your biggest problem. The bigger problem is clinging to sexuality is contrary to the whole point of Buddhism. At least Christianity claims the same salvation can be achieved by the married heterosexual who doesn't cheat on their spouse as by the celibate layman or monk or priest, as they all go to heaven. But in Buddhism only the celibate monk makes it to the goal. To cling to an identity as LGBT one will have to falsify any religion they claim to practice as none of them legitimately support such lifestyle in their actual scriptures. Just the truth.
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Re: I really want to be Buddhist,but I can't let go of God.what are buddhist critiques of theism?

Post by Mr. Seek »

josaphatbarlaam wrote: Tue Nov 02, 2021 6:00 am
Tutareture wrote: Mon Nov 01, 2021 2:36 am title.I need good buddhist arguments against the abrahamic conception of God or God in general.I heard about Gunapala Dharmasiri's Buddhist Critique of the Christian Concept of God but I can't get my hands on it.Abrahamic theism is really suffocating my personal life,as I am LGBT and I can't live out my full identity and I can hardly enjoy life as it is with all the rules.
But Buddhism is more about letting go of identity view. You could start out with some Secular Buddhism that basically teaches being LGBT is some form of enlightenment, but eventually if you ever crack open any Buddhist scripture you will find out what Buddha really taught is you must let go of all sexuality to make it to nibbana. So belief in God or not is not really your biggest problem. The bigger problem is clinging to sexuality is contrary to the whole point of Buddhism. At least Christianity claims the same salvation can be achieved by the married heterosexual who doesn't cheat on their spouse as by the celibate layman or monk or priest, as they all go to heaven. But in Buddhism only the celibate monk makes it to the goal. To cling to an identity as LGBT one will have to falsify any religion they claim to practice as none of them legitimately support such lifestyle in their actual scriptures. Just the truth.
Nothing but the truth. +1
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Re: I really want to be Buddhist,but I can't let go of God.what are buddhist critiques of theism?

Post by SDC »

Those from the LGBTQ community still fall well-within what is described in AN 7.51 in that they take pleasure in whatever degree of masculinity and/or femininity is established with respect to sexual orientation and gender identity. The extent that anyone is able to remove that focus/attention on those qualities will determine if they can break free of them.

I think it is a mistake to assume that sexual orientation or gender identity aside from straight male/female is somehow special or more intensified and would require extra special attention. Again, AN 7.51 makes that abundantly clear: whatever one attends to and takes pleasure in is what will remain established. The straight community has just as much diversification in their establishments, so any distinction is secondary at best.

So I would encourage the OP not to feel as though you are in any more severe situation of identity just because of your LGBTQ acquisition. There are people on this forum enamored by their Buddhist affiliation, which coupled with unchecked sexuality may have them worse off than you.
“Life is swept along, short is the life span; no shelters exist for one who has reached old age. Seeing clearly this danger in death, a seeker of peace should drop the world’s bait.” SN 1.3
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Re: I really want to be Buddhist,but I can't let go of God.what are buddhist critiques of theism?

Post by cappuccino »

God has an important role in Saṃsāra


you should rely on God
Last edited by cappuccino on Tue Nov 02, 2021 6:48 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: I really want to be Buddhist,but I can't let go of God.what are buddhist critiques of theism?

Post by Spiny Norman »

cappuccino wrote: Tue Nov 02, 2021 6:45 pm God has an important role in Saṃsāra


you should rely on God
Nonsense.
Buddha save me from new-agers!
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Re: I really want to be Buddhist,but I can't let go of God.what are buddhist critiques of theism?

Post by cappuccino »

Spiny Norman wrote: Tue Nov 02, 2021 6:48 pm Nonsense.
some would say this teaching is nonsense


they are misguided, are they not
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Re: I really want to be Buddhist,but I can't let go of God.what are buddhist critiques of theism?

Post by Spiny Norman »

cappuccino wrote: Tue Nov 02, 2021 6:49 pm
Spiny Norman wrote: Tue Nov 02, 2021 6:48 pm Nonsense.
some would say this teaching is nonsense


they are misguided, are they not
What you're saying is consistently nonsensical. You're vaguely promoting Advaita, but you dont really understand that either. Meh.
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Re: I really want to be Buddhist,but I can't let go of God.what are buddhist critiques of theism?

Post by anka »

bardo thödol says: 'you will encounter a powerful white light when you die, don't be afraid, its home'


western religions call that light as 'god'.
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Re: I really want to be Buddhist,but I can't let go of God.what are buddhist critiques of theism?

Post by Coëmgenu »

4GreatHeavenlyKings wrote: Mon Nov 01, 2021 4:59 pmThe Buddhist Ouyi Zhixu (1599–1655), in his "Collected Refutations of Heterodoxy", refuted the claim that an uncreated creator god exists, specifically refuting Christianity.
This one is very good as a historical document.

https://www.academia.edu/6640157/P%C3%A ... 1599_1655_

With a Google account, the OP can download the translation, or just view it online without one.

The author of the translated collection doesn't have an extremely in-depth knowledge of Christianity. For instance, there is reason to believe from the arguments outlined in the translation that the author does not have a knowledge of the story of the garden of Eden, Adam and Eve, or of "the fall" that is so important in the Catholic theology he is engaging with. If he did, the objections would have been magnified tenfold, IMO.

Initially, the 22 theses against the Christians is in response to a brochure and/or leaflet-type document as well as two theological treatises that were being circulated by missionaries in the 1600s, not in response to the Bible or an in-person debate, not initially at least. As such, not every point that Master Zhong (which is apparently a pen-name for Ven Ouyi Zhixu used in the document) raises is a valid critique, but ignoring misunderstandings and miscommunications arisen from poor explanations in the treatises, Master Zhong nevertheless raises several tangible points of interest. The document is very interesting historically regardless of any other merits it might have.
Last edited by Coëmgenu on Tue Nov 02, 2021 7:41 pm, edited 7 times in total.
What is the Uncreated?
Sublime & free, what is that obscured Eternity?
It is the Undying, the Bright, the Isle.
It is an Ocean, a Secret: Reality.
Both life and oblivion, it is Nirvāṇa.
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Re: I really want to be Buddhist,but I can't let go of God.what are buddhist critiques of theism?

Post by cappuccino »

Spiny Norman wrote: Tue Nov 02, 2021 7:06 pm What you're saying is consistently nonsensical.
perhaps you don't understand some things

:shrug:
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Re: I really want to be Buddhist,but I can't let go of God.what are buddhist critiques of theism?

Post by Coëmgenu »

The 8th of the initial 22 theses against Christianity from "Collected Refutations of Heterodoxy:"
[Eighth objection:] Also, after taking birth as a man, did His original body (benshen, 本身) remain in heaven or was it absent? If absent, then heaven was without its Lord. If present, then [their doctrine] overlaps with the Buddhist doctrine of the two bodies of the Buddha, that is, the true and the response (zhen ying er shen, 真應二身), but without reaching the wondrous illusion of their myriads of transformation bodies. This is the eighth of their absurdities.
Master Zhong is referring to the same as what Sage Zhao refers to when he says, "Above, he held on to the root of mysteries; below, he reached out to lift the weak and the forlorn" ("仰攀玄根,俯提弱喪" T1858.158a4, translation by Rafal Felbur). Master Zhong criticizes Christianity, saying that the Lord of Heaven, if he truly has these powers, can also create myriads of transformational bodies like the Buddhas who have a similar attribute.

Readers will note, however, that this is an entirely Mahāyāna argument. Buddhas do not have myriad transformational bodies produced of their pure minds, according to Theravāda. Unless I'm very mistaken, there is mention in the Pāli Canon of the unique ability of a Samyaksaṃbuddha to create a particular kind of mind-made body, but this is as far as things go on terms of similarities with respect to this. So, when the Buddha is featured as saying, "This Prabhūtaratnabuddha had a profound oath he swore: 'When this, my ratnastūpa, to hear the dharma gate of the White Lotus, goes before the many Buddhas, if there is the desiring that my body might be revealed to the four communities, may those Buddhas' variegated bodies, (which are) the many Buddhas in the ten-directional lokadhātu expounding the Dharma, return, gathering in one place, and truly thereafter my body will appear visible.'[...]" (T262.32c22 Lotus Sūtra 「是多寶佛,有深重願:『若我寶塔,為聽法華經故,出於諸佛前時,其有欲以我身示四眾者,彼佛分身諸佛一一在於十方世界說法,盡還集一處,然後我身乃出現耳。』[...]」), this is utterly unprecedented in Theravāda Buddhism. Since "Master Zhong" presumes some sort of buddhology like this quotation, the document might not be the most relevant to a Theravāda Buddhist, as many of the arguments against Christianity it gives are not "Theravāda arguments against Christianity." They are arguments originating in a foreign buddhology.

Many of Master Zhong's critiques are heavily informed by Confucian theology, or "heavenology" if people will forgive me a cringy coinage. It is a matter of two very opposing metaphysics encountering each other and trying to navigate each other. Things utterly impossible in one system don't even have their possibility so much as questioned in the other system. It is much the same as the example with the many bodies of the Buddha from the Lotus Sūtra. Regardless of if we are meant to take this text literally or not, the material circumstances described in the sūtra are simply without precedent in sources like the Pāli Canon.
Last edited by Coëmgenu on Tue Nov 02, 2021 8:36 pm, edited 5 times in total.
What is the Uncreated?
Sublime & free, what is that obscured Eternity?
It is the Undying, the Bright, the Isle.
It is an Ocean, a Secret: Reality.
Both life and oblivion, it is Nirvāṇa.
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Re: I really want to be Buddhist,but I can't let go of God.what are buddhist critiques of theism?

Post by Spiny Norman »

cappuccino wrote: Tue Nov 02, 2021 7:16 pm
Spiny Norman wrote: Tue Nov 02, 2021 7:06 pm What you're saying is consistently nonsensical.
perhaps you don't understand some things

:shrug:
Perhaps you have no idea how to articulate your beliefs.
Buddha save me from new-agers!
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Re: I really want to be Buddhist,but I can't let go of God.what are buddhist critiques of theism?

Post by cappuccino »

Spiny Norman wrote: Tue Nov 02, 2021 7:41 pm Perhaps you have no idea how to articulate your beliefs.
I understand but I cannot understand for you
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Re: I really want to be Buddhist,but I can't let go of God.what are buddhist critiques of theism?

Post by Tutareture »

josaphatbarlaam wrote: Tue Nov 02, 2021 6:00 am
Tutareture wrote: Mon Nov 01, 2021 2:36 am title.I need good buddhist arguments against the abrahamic conception of God or God in general.I heard about Gunapala Dharmasiri's Buddhist Critique of the Christian Concept of God but I can't get my hands on it.Abrahamic theism is really suffocating my personal life,as I am LGBT and I can't live out my full identity and I can hardly enjoy life as it is with all the rules.
But Buddhism is more about letting go of identity view. You could start out with some Secular Buddhism that basically teaches being LGBT is some form of enlightenment, but eventually if you ever crack open any Buddhist scripture you will find out what Buddha really taught is you must let go of all sexuality to make it to nibbana. So belief in God or not is not really your biggest problem. The bigger problem is clinging to sexuality is contrary to the whole point of Buddhism. At least Christianity claims the same salvation can be achieved by the married heterosexual who doesn't cheat on their spouse as by the celibate layman or monk or priest, as they all go to heaven. But in Buddhism only the celibate monk makes it to the goal. To cling to an identity as LGBT one will have to falsify any religion they claim to practice as none of them legitimately support such lifestyle in their actual scriptures. Just the truth.
I'm attracted to women and men but there is a part of me that wishes I could be transgender.but I thought Buddhism allowed you to be transgender?I would think that since nibbana can be so hard to attain for me I'd just live right and give charity and hope for a deva rebirth.
Last edited by Tutareture on Thu Nov 18, 2021 5:33 am, edited 1 time in total.
אַל-תְּהִי צַדִּיק הַרְבֵּה, וְאַל-תִּתְחַכַּם יוֹתֵר: לָמָּה, תִּשּׁוֹמֵם. Be not righteous overmuch; neither make thyself overwise; why shouldest thou destroy thyself? -Ecclesiastes 7:16
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Tutareture
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Re: I really want to be Buddhist,but I can't let go of God.what are buddhist critiques of theism?

Post by Tutareture »

The divine simplistic God is debunkable as it's unchanging and is dumb as a bag of rocks due to its simplicity.its the theistic personalist God who can change,is in time and is complex that I can't refute .that's the God phd Dr Ryan Mullins believes in.
אַל-תְּהִי צַדִּיק הַרְבֵּה, וְאַל-תִּתְחַכַּם יוֹתֵר: לָמָּה, תִּשּׁוֹמֵם. Be not righteous overmuch; neither make thyself overwise; why shouldest thou destroy thyself? -Ecclesiastes 7:16
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