The four noble truths of Buddhism

There are many factions within Buddhism just as there are within Christianity, but the thing that defines Buddhism is the four noble truths:

1. Life is suffering.
2. The cause of suffering is desire.
3. To get rid of suffering, one must get rid of desire.
4. To get rid of desire, one must follow the eight fold path.

I won't go into the eight fold path right now, but I just wanted to point out a problem in the four noble truths. The problem is that the only reason anybody would pay any attentionn to it is if they had a desire to get rid of suffering. But desire is the cause of suffering. Do you see the problem here? One can't even begin to get rid of suffering until one embraces the very cause of suffering. One must have a desire to get rid of desire, so one must embrace what he's trying to avoid. As soon as one has a desire to get rid of suffering, he increases his suffering.

Buddhists and Jehovah's Witnesses

Today, I'm going to do something different. In keeping with what I said yesterday, I'm not going to pick on the Jehovah's Witnesses today. In fact, I'm not going to make any argument at all. I'm just going to make what strikes me as an interesting observation about Buddhists and Jehovah's Witnesses. As you know, I'm taking a comparitive religion class, and we just finished Buddhism last week. I wanted to write about Buddhism, but I was sick. I've still got a few things I want to say about Buddhism, but I figured by making this observation, I could make a nice smooth transition from picking on Jehovah's Witnesses to picking on Buddhists.

What is the absolute worst thing that can happen to a person according to Jehovah's Witnesses? You see, they don't believe God will send anybody to hell, but they do believe God punishes the wicked. So what's the most God-awful thing God can do to them? He can wipe them out of existence. In fact, that's what he does. To be extinguished is, to Jehovah's Witnesses, the absolute worst thing that can happen to you. Annihilation is reserved for the willfully wicked.

What is the ultimate goal of Buddhists? What is the absolute best thing that can happen to them? The best thing that can happen to a person according to Buddhists is they can enter Nirvana. Nirvana literally means "extinguished." You basically cease to exist. To reach Nirvana is to escape the cycle of birth and rebirth--to rise above karma. When you reach Nirvana, you get absorbed into the emptiness of reality, and cease to exist as an individual. The compassion of the Mahayana Buddhists is so great that they will take a vow not to enter Nirvana until every blade of grass is enlightened. That way, everything--every blade of grass--can enter Nirvana and become extinguished.

Isn't that interesting? One religion thinks being extinguished is the most horrible thing that can happen to a person, and it's the ultimate punishment of God. Another religion things being extinguished is the most wonderful thing that can happen to a person, and it's the ultimate goal. I just find that interesting.

Guilt by association and Jehovah's Witnesses

After this, I'll stop picking on the Jehovah's Witnesses for a while. I don't know how long of a while, though. I was planning on writing about the bodily resurrection of Jesus and resurrection in general, at which time I planned to pick on the JW's again. I'll pick on the Catholics one of these days, too. And I also plan on picking on the Unitarian Universalists. I was going to pick on the Buddhists, too, but that was all going to happen while I was sick. Now I'll have to do that another time.

Guilt by association is where you fault an idea because some nasty person believed in it. It's a fallacy, because whether an idea is true or not has nothing to do with who believes it. Even Hitler believed that two and two make four.

Jehovah's Witnesses will often fault the Trinity because the big bad Constantine believed in it and even enforced it by the sword. Or they'll point to all the mean nasty crusaders who believed in the Trinity. Supposedly, this has some bearing on whether or not the Trinity is true. Well, it doesn't. It's irrelevent whether Constantine believed in the Trinity or not. And it's historically inaccurate to imply that he invented it.

The genetic fallacy and Jehovah's Witnesses

Here's another fallacy Jehovah's Witnesses use in their arguments. They use this fallacy in several arguments, but the most common is in their argument against celebrating Christmas.

The genetic fallacy is when you argue agaist a present thing or idea based on its shady past or origins. You assume that what was true in the past is true in the present. For example, suppose drums were originally invented for use in conjuring up the spirits of dead ancestors. A person would be committing the genetic fallacy if, for that reason, they thought using drums in the present is bad. Just because people use drums today doesn't mean they pour any spiritual significance in it.

Jehovah's Witnesses will point out that many aspects of the Christmas celebration originated from a pagan holiday--Saturnalia. It took place on December 25th, etc. The Chrismas tree bears some similarities to ashera poles. All of these observations are used to argue that Christians shouldn't celebrate Christmas, but this is a clear example of the genetic fallacy. Just because Saturnalia was celebrated on December 25, or just because people cut down trees to make ashera poles doesn't mean people who celebrate Christmas today pour any pagan meaning into their celebration. There's nothing inherently wrong with cutting down a tree, putting it in the living room, and decorating it anymore than there's something wrong with beating a drum. And there's nothing wrong with giving gifts. There's nothing wrong with having a big dinner with your family. And there's nothing wrong with doing these things for the purpose of celebrating the birth of Jesus. And there's nothing wrong with doing it on a particular day that happens to have also been the day Saturnalia (or any other pagan holiday) was celebrated.

The same thing applies to Easter. Although some aspects of a pagan holiday have been retained (such as rabbits and easter eggs), that doesn't mean Christian pour any of those meanings into their celebration of Easter today. There's nothing inherently wrong with Easter eggs, rabbits, or candy.

I've been sick

In case anybody is wondering why I haven't posted anything new lately, it's because I've been sick, and I have felt like it. I'll start posting again when I get to feeling better.

A punitive God

In my western civilization class several years ago, our teacher said, "My God is not punitive." I am often surprised at the aversion people have to the idea that God would punish anybody. The view seems odd to me. If the ultimate authority in the universe can't punish anybody, then what right do we have to punish people? And yet most people have no problem with sending criminals to jail. Does it strike anybody else as completely backwards that the government would have the right to punish people, but God doesn't?

Why does God want us to worship him?

God doesn't need anything from us. He doesn't even need us to stroke his ego. Why, then, does he require us to worship him?

J. Budziszewski addressed this topic very briefly in his book, What We Can't Not Know and it got me to thinking about it.

We all recognize that we owe gratitude to people we recieve a benefit from. That's why we should thank somebody for a gift or a favour. Well ultimately, all gifts and things, and even our very existence, comes from God, so we owe the ultimate gratitude to God. That's basically what Budziszewski said, but don't take that as a quote, because it's just the general idea I got from him, and that was several months ago.

Since morality has its origin in God, then God must enforce what's right--even the ultimate gratitude that we owe him. Worship is the expression of that ultimate form of gratitude.

It has nothing to do with God's ego. In fact, it's not even possible for God to have an inflated ego. Anselm defined God as a being than which none greater can be conceived. Not even God can conceive of a greater greatness than his own, because no greater greatness is possible.

When not to use an exfoliate

The next time you begin to itch for no apparent reason, and somebody says,"Hey, why don't you just take a shower and scrub yourself down with Aloofa? It worked for me," don't listen to them!