Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1exp 11/4/83; site iwpba.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxl!ihnp4!iwpba!amigo From: amigo@iwpba.UUCP (amigo) Newsgroups: net.religion Subject: Re: Buddhist relationship to other religions Message-ID: <155@iwpba.UUCP> Date: Tue, 15-May-84 11:54:51 EDT Article-I.D.: iwpba.155 Posted: Tue May 15 11:54:51 1984 Date-Received: Wed, 16-May-84 03:45:19 EDT References: <7757@decwrl.UUCP> <1089@qubix.UUCP> Organization: AT&T Bell Labs, Naperville, Il Lines: 87 From Larry Bickford's article: >> Quoth Chris Isbell quoting other: >> ----------------------------------------------------------------- >> One should not honour only one's own religion and condemn the >> religions of others, but one should honour others' religions for >> this or that reason. So doing, one helps one's own religion to >> to grow and renders service to the religions of others too. In >> acting otherwise one digs the grave of one's own religion and >> also does harm to other religions. Whosoever honours his own >> religion and condemns other religions, does so indeed through >> devotion to his own religion, thinking "I will glorify my own >> religion". But on the contrary, in so doing he injures his own >> religion more gravely. So concord is good: Let all listen, and be >> willing to listen to the doctrines professed by others. >> ------------------------------------------------------------------ >> >> Basic problem: I do not strive to honor my *religion*. I strive >> to honor *God*. My "religion" (if the term applies) is not >> something I have concocted to glorify something - it is doing >> what God said to do. (And His command to Israel upon going into >> the Promised Land was the opposite of the above quote: >> "Exterminate the worship of other gods.") Isbell's quote >> implicitly assumes some human control over religion; my "religion" >> is neither subject to nor authorized by man. One of the problems that many people have is that they seem to feel that their perception of God is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Persons who disagree with them are either deluded (at best) or agents of the powers of darkness (at worst). Remember what the Talmud teaches: That the righteous Gentile has as much standing before the throne of God as the High Priest of Israel. The attitude that the Buddhist king Asoka espouses is one of mutual respect between followers of different faiths. What he seems to be saying is that one should not act as if one's religion (in the sense of how one perceives God and man's relationship to God) had an absolute monopoly on the truth. We are all believers in God, he is saying, and we can learn from one another. If we attempt to do so, then we will enhance our own understanding of and appreciation for God. Larry, you should remember that we are called upon to love our neighbours--how can you do that without respecting them? Ghandi once asked: "How can he who thinks he possesses absolute truth be fraternal?" Speaking as a Christian myself, I believe that God has revealed himself to all men in Christ; but first he has revealed himself as love. Truth is then grasped as love; but not in such a way as to exclude love in certain circumstances. Only he who loves and respects others can be sure that he is still in contact with the truth, which in fact is too absolute to be wholly grasped by his mind. Hence, he who holds to the truth should be afraid that he may lose the truth by a failure of love, not a failure of knowledge. In this case he is humble, and therefore he is wise. But knowledge can inflate one. Knowledge tends to expand one like a balloon, and can give a precarious wholeness in which one may be deluded into thinking that he holds the entire dimensions of a truth the totality of which is denied to others. It then becomes one's duty, by virtue of superior knowledge, to oppose--even to punish--those who do not share the truth. How can one "love" others except by imposing on them the truth which they would otherwise insult and neglect? This is the temptation. The more that I am able to affirm others, to say "yes" to them inmyself, by discovering them in myself and myself in them, the more real I am. I will be a better Catholic, not if I can refute every shade of Protestantism, but if I can affirm the truth in it and go on from there. So, too, with the Buddhists, Jews, Muslims, etc. This does not mean syncretism, indifferentism, the vapid and careless friendliness that accepts everything by thinking of nothing. There is much that one cannot "affirm" and "accept," but first one must say "yes" where one really can. If I affirm myself as a Catholic merely by denying all that is Muslim, Jewish, Protestant, Buddhist, etc., in the end I will find that there is not much left for me to affirm as a Catholic: And certainly no breath of the Spirit with which to affirm it. John Hobson AT&T Bell Labs--Naperville, IL ihnp4!iwpba!amigo (NOTE TEMPORARY MACHINE)