Saturday, February 25, 2023

Why the God of the Bible is evil or untrue


Why the God of the Bible [if real would be] evil
(Planet Curious) Feb. 10, 2023. Should the God described in the Christian Bible and Abrahamic scriptures be considered a good and moral character? Dan Barker, Lawrence Krauss, skeptic Michael Shermer argue "no."

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Buddhism and the God-Idea
Ven. Nyanaponika Thera (BuddhaNet ed. via accesstoinsight.org) edited and expanded by Dhr. Seven, Ashley Wells, Wisdom Quarterly
Selected texts (bps.lk)
Quite contradictory views have been expressed in Western literature on the attitude of Buddhism toward the concept of God and gods (mono- and polytheism).
  • The Buddha was not a theist.
  • The Buddha was not an atheist. (It's a mistake and an oversimplification to lump him as one for some of the things he said, explained, or taught. Just as there are living beings, there are "gods" in the sense of devas, brahma, great brahmas, and light beings of the fine material, and incorporeal beings of the immaterial planes).
  • The Buddha was certainly not agnostic.
  • In a conventional sense one might regard him as a polytheist, but in an ultimate sense this would also be incorrect.
  • He was a nontheist, a peculiar teaching that says that it does not matter to one's own awakening/enlightenment if there is or is not a "God" or "gods." Such beings are caught in the Wheel of Rebirth (samsara) and do not know Freedom (nirvana) any better than lower beings cycling through rebirths. The highborn will fall; the lowborn will rise; and the revolving goes on and on endlessly. But nirvana is an end of the suffering. Nirvana is not a rebirth, not a heaven, not nothingness (as many logical thinkers wrongly conclude), not anything that can be conceived and expressed in words, but it can be experienced. CONTINUED

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