What Do You Guys Think Of This?

[inquiringmind]

http://www.closertotruth.com/video-profile/Is-God-Temporal-or-Timeless-John-Polkinghorne-/1078

[David T]

http://www.closertot...kinghorne-/1078

Any chance you could tell us what it is, and what you think about it?

[bluebell]

I don't get the idea that religion can exist without a higher power (ie. God) at it's core.

[thesometimesaint]

Bluebell::

Buddhist don't have a God.

[Zakuska]

I like that he brought up the fact that the God of the Hebrew Bible changes his mind.

Hey Hezekiah you are going to die. But wait now Im going to give you an additional 15 years.

[subgenius]

Bluebell::

Buddhist don't have a God.

but there is a "higher power"

[inquiringmind]

Any chance you could tell us what it is, and what you think about it?

Why don't you listen to it and give me your opinion?

[bluebell]

Bluebell::

Buddhist don't have a God.

Buddhism isn't generally seen as a religion though, it's a philosophy.

But there is a higher power in Buddhism, regardless.

Edit to add: See someone already beat me to that last point.

Edited August 3, 2011 by bluebell

[Libs]

If God doesn't know the future, does that mean he didn't know whether or not his Son's mission to earth was going to be successful?

I see big problems with that theory.

Edited August 3, 2011 by Libs

[David T]

Buddhism isn't generally seen as a religion though,

You think so? I always see it referred to as one of the Major World Religions.

[bluebell]

In my religious philosophy classes, it has always been classified as a philosophy rather than a religion in general, with the acknowledgement that there are branches of buddhism which are much more religion than philosophy because they believe the Buddha to be a god.

If a buddhist wanted to call it a religion, i wouldn't have a problem with that (nor, would any of my philosophy teachers i'm sure-one had ties to India and lived as buddhist for a while is very keen on letting people define their own beliefs and not defining them for them-still, she taught it as a philosophy).

My exposure to Buddhism has been limited to a few teachers and one 'adherent' who came and spoke to us for an hour so i'm far from very knowledgable on the subject and am really just repeating what i've been told.

And what i've been told is that the movement as it was espoused by Siddhartha was never meant to be a religious movement but more an answer to the ills of religion. Whether or not the majority of buddhists agree with what i've been taught, well, i really can't say.

[volgadon]

I find this to be a very useful explanation of the difference between religion and philosophy anciently.

Page 51 of Cohen's "From the Maccabees to the Mishnah."

In the eyes of the ancients, the essence of religion was neither faith nor dogma, but action.

Humanity was commanded by the gods to perform certain acts and to refrain from certain acts, and these commandments and prohibitions (especially the prohibitions) constituted the essence of religio.

When Greek con­querors wished to benefit their subjects, they guaranteed them the right to observe "the ancestral laws" or "the ancestral constitution"; they had no need to mention "the ancestral beliefs" or "the ancestral faith."

These facts do not mean that the ancients had no deeply felt beliefs about the gods, but the polytheism of antiquity produced few literary works that delineate either its dogmas or its the­ology.

If a contemplative person in antiquity sought systematic answers to ques­tions about the nature of the gods and their involvement in human affairs, he or she would have studied philosophy, not "religion."

Many philosophers main­tained radical notions about the gods. In the fifth century BCE, some sophists argued that the gods did not really exist but were invented by humans to promote fear in the masses and thereby maintain social order.

This position gained cur­rency among segments of the aristocracy in Hellenistic and Roman times, but the adherents of such views generally were not persecuted or harassed as long as they did not violate religious taboos and as long as they participated in the religious rituals of the state.

Radical belief (or disbelief) did not make them heretics.

These generalizations must be stated at the outset because the pervasive influence of Christianity on our thinking makes us equate "religion" with the­ology or faith.

This equation is true, perhaps, for Christianity, but is false not only for the polytheism but also for the Judaism of antiquity.