Higher education and wealth is not required to be religious or to be intelligent. Most people in the third world actually aren't starving these days.
I"m saying that it's much harder to pay attention to spiritual matters when your starving, living in fear, and oppressed of course. Bring out more animal instincts... canabalism, etc. {OTOH there ARE notable examples of prison camp enlightements or realizations of course... at deaths door, but those are exceptions}
Oh my God, now third worlders are cannibals! Driven by animal instincts. Wow.
BTW Darwin agreed with you on that.
Fact is, most people in the third world are able to feed themselves now. In most countries they even have freedom of religion.
<So third worlders are ignorant starving unable to be interested in spirituality only when they convert to Christianity? >
Sure, the church hands out food.
Wow. When third worlders convert to Christianity, they're just doing it cause the church gives them food. Did you know the growth of Christianity is organic, not driven by foreign missionaries? That third world nations actually send missionaries to the US and Europe now?
<They may be older than Christianity as religious movements but we're talking about their scriptures. >
First of all the writings are thought to be much more direct, certainly than the old testement... ie. less "telephone game" interpretations.
I don't know what that means. I doubt it means anything other than that you like the eastern scriptures better.
SEcond of all of course they're older than the NT which is what Christianity is supposed to be based on, althought you wouldn't know it listening to the bible thumpers on TV.
The oldest Buddhist scriptures were written down about the same time the NT was being written. The versions of the Tao Te Ching handed down date to the Han dynasty ie about 2000 years ago, give or take a century or so. Thus they're of roughly the same age as the NT.
ANd that JEsus went to the East for thirteen years and came back enlightened and able to do all sorts of things that Eastern mystics have been reported to do for millenia... dissapear, bi-locate, communicate non-verbally, burn paper with "Qi", move objects with their minds, etc etc.
youtube.com
Oh my God. That is a myth and a silly one. There's absolutely NO evidence Jesus went to India and brought back anything. There is also no evidence Hindu or Buddhist mystics can bi-locate, disappear, have ESP and telekenisis or any other magic powers.
And you believe this stuff and diss "Bible-thumpers"! Wow, that is hilarious. Why didn't you mention flying carpets, the Hindu rope trick, and dancing cobras while you were at it?
BTW are you even aware of the conflict in your positions?
Believing on one hand, that third worlders are ingnorant, primitive, animalistic, starving, living in fear and only convert to Christianity when bribed by food, like monkeys ...
but also ...
possessing profound spiritual powers allowing their mystics to perform all kinds of magic tricks.
Of course not... they have huge populations much of it advanced... other parts "3rd world"... besides, I doubt they're 'converting' in droves. :))
No, by the millions.
>>>> As Christianity in the West has been either holding steady or declining, the Church in Asia, Africa, and Latin America has been on the rise. In fact, according to Scottish missiologist Andrew Walls, there has been a “massive southward shift of the center of gravity of the Christian world.”
?? Roughly 2/3 of all Protestants live outside Europe and North America (Miller).
?? In 1965 the Christian population of Africa was around 25%. In 2002, it was 46% (Miller).
?? According to World Christian Encyclopedia, there are 2 billion Christians in the world, 560 million in Europe, 480 million in Latin America, 360 million in Africa, 313 million in Asia, and 260 million in North America (Jenkins). <<<
maclellan.net
>>> Churches in Latin America, India and China experience explosive growth
By Editorial Staff
Published December 2007
OXFORD, England (WEIS) – A broad analysis of trends in world evangelization by the international director of the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization predicts the largest response to the Gospel between now and AD 2000 will be in Latin America, India and China.
Tom Houston of Oxford, England, estimates that by AD 2000, there could be 50 million new believers in Latin America, 40 million in India, and 30 million in China.
.... <<<<
forerunner.com
<Nonsense. Chinese and Indian dynasties had official state religions too and codified and manipulated their writings. >
Of course they did... but the 'dark ages' in Europe were much more oppressive and the "institution" of religion there much more powerful.
I think the 'dark ages' were simply the normal lot of most of humanity including the ancient Asian civilizations and that Asian cultures are a lot more similar in these respects to ours than you think.
There was NEVER anything in Taoism (considered by many a "philosophy" anywhere NEAR even BUDDHIST institutionalization... and Buddhist instituationalization was much more fractured and diverse than the Catholic Church... you really are way off base here!!!
Lets consider this:
>>> In the early Han Dynasty, the Tao came to be associated with or conflated with the Xian Di Emperor. .... Zhang Daoling claimed to have begun receiving new revelations from Laozi and went on to found the Celestial Masters sect as the "First Celestial Master". He performed spiritual healing, and collected dues of five pecks of rice from his followers (thus providing an alternative name for his movement). Zhang Daoling's major message was that the world-order would soon come to an end, and be succeeded by an era of "Great Peace" (Taiping).Their activities did hasten the downfall of the Han Dynasty, largely because Zhang's grandson set up a theocratic state into what is now Sichuan province. The same could be said of their contemporaries and fellow Taoists, the Yellow Turban sect.[2] Laozi received imperial recognition as a divinity in the mid second century CE.[3]
.....
Also during the Six Dynasties period, the Celestial Master movement re-emerged in two distinct forms. The Northern Celestial Masters were founded in 424 century by Kou Qianzhi, and a Taoist theocracy was established that lasted until 450 CE.[11] After this time, the Northern Celestial Masters were expelled from the Wei court and re-established themselves at Louguan where they survived into the Tang Dynasty.[12]
....
Taoism gained official status in China during the Tang Dynasty, whose emperors claimed Laozi as their relative.[14] However, it was forced to compete with Confucianism and Buddhism, its major rivals, for patronage and rank. Emperor Xuanzong (685–762), who ruled at the height of the Tang, wrote commentaries on texts from all three of these traditions, which exemplifies the fact that in many people's lives they were not mutually exclusive. This marks the beginning of a long-lived tendency within imperial China, in which the government supported (and simultaneously regulated) all three movements.[15] The Gaozong Emperor added the Tao Te Ching to the list of classics (jing, ?) to be studied for the imperial examinations.[16]
.....
While Taoism suffered a significant setback in 1281 when all copies of the Daozang were ordered burned, this holocaust gave Taoism a chance to renew itself.
.....
By the beginning of the twentieth century, Taoism had fallen so much from favor that only one complete copy of the Daozang still remained, at the White Cloud Monastery in Beijing.[27]
>>>
en.wikipedia.org
It seems the history of Taoism includes Taoist theocratic states, emporers declaring LaoTse divine and their ancestor, scriptures being ordered destroyed. Gee.
<No, both Buddhism and Christianity teach that (check out the "first noble truth"). >
Poppycock. Christianity propogated guilt for sins for thousands of years a control mechanism... something to attain...
And you don't think karma is a control mechanism?
You're lumping in of the first nobel truth as the same thing again simply means you don't even know what it's about... in Buddhism THAT IS THE SIN (shouldn't use that term)... we'll say the 'mistake'.
The 'first noble truth' is certainly NOT about "joy or happiness", is it? Its all about suffering.
< I was referring to joy and happiness with no sin or guilt. Which religious tradition teaches that?>
The NT teaches that... The Catholic Church still teaches it in the gospels and the readings surrounding communion, but has institutionalized guilt in it's dogma.
I confess not have no personal knowledge of Catholic teachings. |
