Buddhism and The West
07-30-2011
, 04:41 PM
07-30-2011
, 04:56 PM
07-30-2011
, 07:45 PM
Quote:
Splendour, Christianity is hands down, without question, the most sexist religion on the planet. I'm not saying that Christianity created male chauvinism or anything like that, but until you can find another religion that blames the entire downfall of mankind on a woman, your religion wins this one. And women are portrayed as either horrible or worthless in other parts of the Bible too, like Lot's daughters getting him drunk to have incestuous sex with him, and don't forget the part where a father offered up his own daughter to an angry mob to be raped, and there's plenty more. You should seriously drop the chauvinism angle. You won't win.
Also, just to be clear, tantric practices, including tantric sex (which does not always involve a "slave", incidentally; most women involved in tantric sex are involved voluntarily) are part of Tibetan Buddhism only (and I'm not even sure that all sects of Tibetans practice it). Tantra has nothing to do with all of the other flavors of Buddhism.
You've found one practice in one type of Buddhism that you think is distasteful and attempted to make it an indictment of Buddhism as a whole. That's about as fair as if I said Pentacostals handle snakes and drink turpentine, therefore Christians are nutjobs.
You started this thread to try to cast Buddhism in a negative light. You had no intention of trying to learn anything. Your initial premise was basically: Some people think Buddhism is better than Christianity, but I don't think they know very much about Buddhism, so I'll use my master googling skills to see what kind of dirt I can dig up to make Buddhism look bad.
Given how much time you've spent on this endeavor and how little actual dirt you've managed to find, I'd say Buddhism has held up pretty well.
Also, just to be clear, tantric practices, including tantric sex (which does not always involve a "slave", incidentally; most women involved in tantric sex are involved voluntarily) are part of Tibetan Buddhism only (and I'm not even sure that all sects of Tibetans practice it). Tantra has nothing to do with all of the other flavors of Buddhism.
You've found one practice in one type of Buddhism that you think is distasteful and attempted to make it an indictment of Buddhism as a whole. That's about as fair as if I said Pentacostals handle snakes and drink turpentine, therefore Christians are nutjobs.
You started this thread to try to cast Buddhism in a negative light. You had no intention of trying to learn anything. Your initial premise was basically: Some people think Buddhism is better than Christianity, but I don't think they know very much about Buddhism, so I'll use my master googling skills to see what kind of dirt I can dig up to make Buddhism look bad.
Given how much time you've spent on this endeavor and how little actual dirt you've managed to find, I'd say Buddhism has held up pretty well.
The most striking thing about the role of women in the life and teaching of Jesus is the simple fact that they are there. Although the gospel texts contain no special sayings repudiating the view of the day about women, their uniform testimony to the presence of women among the followers of Jesus and to his serious teaching of them constitutes a break with tradition which has been described as being ‘without precedent in [then] contemporary Judaism.' "
High number of references to women
According to New Testament scholar Dr. Frank Stagg and classicist Evelyn Stagg,[3] the synoptic Gospels of the canonical New Testament[4] contain a relatively high number of references to women. Evangelical Bible scholar Gilbert Bilezikian agrees, especially by comparison with literary works of the same epoch.[5]
.82 Neither the Staggs nor Bilezikian find any recorded instance where Jesus disgraces, belittles, reproaches, or stereotypes a woman. These writers claim that examples of the manner of Jesus are instructive for inferring his attitudes toward women and show repeatedly how he liberated and affirmed women.[3] Starr writes that of all founders of religions and religious sects, Jesus stands alone as the one who did not discriminate in some way against women. By word or deed he never encouraged the disparagement of a woman.[6] Karen King concludes, based on the account of Jesus' interaction with a Syrophoenician woman in Mark 7:24-30 and Matthew 15:21-28, that "an unnamed Gentile woman taught Jesus that the ministry of God is not limited to particular groups and persons, but belongs to all who have faith."[7]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_and_women
07-30-2011
, 09:01 PM