I completely disagree with this assesment of Buddhism

Started by Solitary, August 21, 2015, 04:53:29 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

Baruch

Yes, the Buddha is at least legendary.  His first bio was centuries late, the first big promotion of his system was under Emperor Asoka ... the history of early Christianity was similar ... and in both cases miracles are proclaimed post-facto.

But in both cases, you do have followers who are not mythical or legendary.  Once we have the sayings of the old monk and nuns and the Dhammapada ... we have the beginning of Buddhist literature.  The references to Buddha may be allegorical, just as they may be in the Gospels, or even mythical as they are in the Epistles of Paul.

A mythical founder is more powerful for most people than a legendary founder.  Similarly a legendary found is more powerful for most people than a historical founder.  Atheists are part of the population that don't follow this pattern.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

reasonwell

#31
It's always fun to win huge amounts here

Gerard

Quote from: Baruch on August 23, 2015, 10:06:42 AM
Part of the Michael Wood video love letter to India from a couple years ago.  He is one of my favorite historians.  This one gave the recipe of soma ... maybe that is still a state secret in India ;-)

It is dogma for some Hindus, that the Vedic people have always been in India and never came from anyplace else.  For some this is driven by politics.  I know there is a Native American group that likes to claim that they never came from Siberia.  In any case, the Vedic people have been in India so long ... I can't as a neutral get too excited about it.  This kind of chauvinism extends even to Stone Age questions ... for awhile, scholarship showed that modern humans didn't interbreed with Neanderthals ... but are all recently connected to African peoples.  Now we know that there was interbreeding at least outside of Africa, while both species existed ... though interbreeding kind of violates the definition of species.  It may be that the idea of "species" is specious ;-) .. same as race.  In any case, the Neanderthal are descended from even earlier hominids, who came out of Africa even earlier (Homo Erectus).  The fact that residual Neanderthals were isolated to Europe ... this implies something less than chauvinistic about Europeans (those who were there before the Indo-Aryans arrived).
Indo-European languages and the associated people did not originate in India. They moved there later, gave parts of the country their languages and at least some of their religion and were assimilated, although it must have been a substantial immigration.

Gerard

Baruch

There were pre-existing folks in India, going back 40,000 years (the folks who walked around the Indian Ocean from Africa to Australia).  The current Hinduism is a mixed bag of high and low.  The high Hinduism comes from Central Asia, the E branch of Indo-European folks, from 6,000 years ago.  The low Hinduism in the village is the evolved part of the aboriginal culture.  The Aryan part is patriarchal, and the Dravidian part is matriarchal.  The S Indian village has many local minor goddesses.  This crystalized in Bengal into the worship of Durga/Kali.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.