--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb <no_reply@...> wrote: <snip> > Someday, John, you should really consider doing a > little reading about spiritual history, so that you > don't come off as such an ignoramus sometimes. <snip> > Buddha was as much a Hindu or a part of the Vedic > tradition as Jesus was a Jew and part of that trad- > ition. Both *broke away* from their traditions and > rejected them, offering something vastly different.
No, Jesus *did not* break away from or reject Judaism, to the contrary. Sorry, Barry, but you're the ignoramus, as usual. Entirely unlike Buddha, who rejected the authority of the Vedas, Jesus *insisted* on the authority of the Torah: "Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets [i.e., the Torah]. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled" (Matthew 5.17-18). Jesus was a reformer. He rejected some then-current practices and approaches to Judaism because he thought they departed from the original intentions of the Torah, which he believed came directly from God and which he wanted to restore. > During his > lifetime the Buddha stated often that he was *not* > an avatar, of anything or any deity. Part of what > made his teaching so popular is that he presented > himself as *not* special, and in fact just like the > people he was teaching. No matter what Buddha may have said about himself, a great many of his own followers have perceived him as a god to be glorified and worshipped. Which makes it more than a little unfair for you to dump on Hindus because they think of him as an avatar of Vishnu. The notion that Jesus was offering "something entirely different" from Judaism is, in fact, directly parallel to the notion of Buddha as a god: Both assume that what these teachers' followers subsequently made of them was in accord with the teachers' intentions. You should really consider doing a little reading about spiritual history.
