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From: rej@cornell.UUCP (Ralph Johnson)
Newsgroups: net.religion
Subject: Re: Buddhist texts
Message-ID: <7403@cornell.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 10-Apr-84 21:04:21 EST
Article-I.D.: cornell.7403
Posted: Tue Apr 10 21:04:21 1984
Date-Received: Wed, 11-Apr-84 07:36:18 EST
References: <6992@decwrl.UUCP>, <846@ihuxi.UUCP>
Organization: Cornell Univ. CS Dept.
Lines: 27

(paraphrase)  In eastern religions, wisdom or intellectual knowledge is
foremost, while Judeo-Christian religions hold faith and emotion to be
highest.


The preceeding is a very poor characterization of Judeo-Christian religions,
and probably of Hinduism and Budhism, as well.  Judaism has an extremely
high regard for intellectual understanding of Jewish scriptures, with an
emphasis on obeying God.  While Christianity places a great deal of emphasis
on faith, emotion is rarely considered important.  Perhaps you are mistaking
the reliance some groups place on religious experiences with emotion.  Also,
many Christian groups place great emphasis on "love", and you may consider
love an emotion (they do not).  Wisdom is generally characterised in western
religions as obedience to God.

Many eastern religions, on the other hand, seem a-rational.  Certainly Zen
is.  The purpose of koans is to free one's mind from the bounds of
rationality.  Yoga is another discipline for the purpose of training body
and mind to transcend normal limitations.  What is the rationality
inherent in Hare Krishna?  It is true, westerners have a hard time
understanding eastern religions.  This is because the central premise of
many of them is that life is bad, and must be escaped.  Only by freeing one's
mind from the illusion of reality can one escape the bonds of the eternal
cycle of reincarnation. We tend to think that life is wonderful, and worth
living, so it is hard to really understand the eastern religions.

Ralph Johnson {decvax,ihnp4,harpo, ...}!cornell!rej