Comment on Anon studies Buddhism

• Peruvian_Skies@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

  Sort of but not really.

  All branches of Christianity believe that Jesus was the Messiah and the Son of God and that the Bible was written under divine inspiration and is the literal Word of God, among other dogmas. They only differ in how they interpret the sacred scriptures.

  Not only is there no centralized textual source for Buddhist teachings (there are several different sutras and each “kind” of Buddhism gets to pick and choose), and therefore no dogmas universal to Buddhism other than “what the Buddha said was true”, but as I said some believe in the Hindu gods, some in other local gods and some in none; and some believe that the Buddha himself was born special like Jesus (though not from a virgin) while others believe he was just a regular Joe for his caste but who was brilliant enough to figure out a way to cease suffering.

  So you could make a case for there existing Buddhist Hinduism, Buddhist Shintoism and even “atheist” (in the literal sense of not believing in the supernatural, not in the acquired sense of not being a religion) Buddhism. This last kind views the Buddha’s teachings as basically brilliant psychology lessons masked in mystical language to be more accessible to the audiences of the time.

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  • tetris11@lemmy.ml ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

    Ah I see, thanks for the extra context!

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    • Peruvian_Skies@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

      You’re welcome! It’s always a pleasure to geek out about something I find interesting.

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