/christian/ - Christian Discussion and Fellowship

>>561368

Buddhists are the hardest. The last thing they want is an afterlife where one's individuality continues into eternity. Individuality is ignorance.

>>561368

Hindus are primarily difficult because they believe all people, regardless of what they do, serve the Brahman. Whether you're Christian or Satanist or Atheist, they believe you are serving the Brahman. That there is no way to not serve the Brahman.

So, when you talk to a Hindu about Christianity, they will smile and nod and tell you how nice it is that you serve the Brahman.

>>561368

I was born and spent most of my life in India, and one of the things I've observed is that Westerners seem more aware of Dharmic spirituality than of Christian. The fact is Hinduism, like Christianity, has different levels of complexity. At the bottom you get people who would eat cow dung and at the top you find metaphysicians and sages who understood some things long before Westerners did. Most Hindus never learned about it but the ones who did, in my experience, will appreciate it if you dialogue in the same language of understanding. Thomas Merton did a great job of of that I think, as did Valentin Tomberg in his books

>>561400

Thanks.

>>561375

That's pretty terrible. How do you even deal with people like this?

>>561569

I recommend this book.

https://www.amazon.com/Buffalo-Theology-Anniversary-Revised-Expanded/dp/1570752567

>>561386

see >>561372

>>561863

According to Stevie A, the skull church is wrong. However, aghoris swallow the ashes of dead people. That’s cannibalism, and it’s wrong even if you have no problem with the skull church

>>561863

>Temple made of temples

Templeception

>>561704

>>561372

>pastor anderson

I loved his work on Marching to Zion but hes kinds of sketchy in terms of credibility.

>believing in religion that started as a sex cult

>>561375

I agree. They also see Jesus as just an enlightened individual who tried to convey the same enlightenment with different words. So they see no point in converting anyway. I'm not even sure how to approach converting them.

>>561372

this is about as hindu as the kkk is christian

>>561368

>YHWH

You speak english, call Him God

>>565503

>give the most easily correct reasons against it.

I mean the most easily corrected reasons, i need sleep.

>>565491

In Hinduism we find the highest and lowest, most vulgar expressions of religion … Insofar as pagan religions are concerned

I'm very well versed in Eastern Religions, since that's my family background, and while I can give you a far more in depth and detailed version on how they all have big issues etc, i'll keep it short for now and give some basic quick guidelines.

Actually Hindus, especially lower caste hindus are prime targets to be evangelized. All Eastern Dharmic religions have the issue of Karma, which dictates that anything that bad that happens to your life now is because of something you did bad in this life or a previous life. If you're in a poor family, it's cause you were stingy before, if you get cancer, it's cause you did something bad, if you're pretty, it's cause you did something good etc. This tries to maintain social order, keep the rich rich and the poor poor without complaining too much. This is how the caste system is rigidly enforced. So clearly for low caste people especially, they don't like this crap. Our Lord said God causes the rain to fall on the righteous and the wicked, the good and the bad. The blind man was blind not for his sins. So it's totally different. People who believe a karmic worldview essentially are victim blaming. Did your little 5 year old daughter get excruciating painful bone cancer? Well she did some pretty bad stuff in her past lives, that's why she is paying for it now. Your baby brother was repeatedly raped by his uncle? Well, again, he did some really bad things in his past lives to deserve such things and so on. It's actually quite gross.

Second of all, they all believe that the universe is eternal and that we have all been living innumerable lives before this one. Again I can go into detail, including using math, but in essence it means the importance of any one single life is virtually nothing. Even if you commit mass murder and rape a million children, you will be sent to some hell realm for 6 trillion years or something, but you'll come back out. Here's the thing, you or I could have actually already committed such atrocities like 50,000 times and spent 300 trillion years in Hell realms. We wouldn't even know it and we feel fine right now (more or less). You can always put off doing something good for the next life, the next time round, because hey, seriously we've been already doing it for uncountable number of lives before, what is one more life. They try to get around this saying it's rare to have a life where we have the teachings of (insert tradition) here, but basic math shows it's nonsense. The number of odd numbers is EQUAL to the number of counting numbers, not half. So even if you encounter whatever true teachings is once ever 1 million or insert number here times, it will be equal to every life encountering true teachings, since we have had innumerable lives before this.

There are many other problems and such but those are just some main ones which are pretty easy to understand and grasp. Christianity places extreme importance on this life, you get it right or you don't. It also doesn't victim blame, or blame people for suffering, we actually view suffering as a gift. Lastly, even if they are unsure, if you live a righteous life as a Christian and you were wrong you'd still get reborn and will have another go, they really aren't risking their eternal soul at all according to any of the Dharmic religions.

>>565576

>All Eastern Dharmic religions have the issue of Karma, which dictates that anything that bad that happens to your life now is because of something you did bad in this life or a previous life. This is how the caste system is rigidly enforced.

Buddhism is strict on karma yet does away with the caste system in hindu cultures.

>they all believe that the universe is eternal

no they believe the universe changes, is contingent on parts, expands and contracts, and so can't be eternal, only the transcendent realm is 'eternal' which they are trying to realize somehow.

>You can always put off doing something good for the next life, the next time round, because hey, seriously we've been already doing it for uncountable number of lives before, what is one more life. They try to get around this saying it's rare to have a life where we have the teachings of (insert tradition) here, but basic math shows it's nonsense.

This is like making fun of christians who believe in "sola fide" as if they are lazy and dont do any good works because they are just saved by faith. Not realizing that faith engenders good works, as a side effect.

Even if their 'sola fide' idea is incorrect its not right to assume they will actively avoid doing good works in this life. Likewise even if reincarnation is true, no buddhist or hindu would put off doing good works in this life.

>There are many other problems and such but those are just some main ones which are pretty easy to understand and grasp

I guess if you just straw man their religions.

>>565576

IIRC, they don't believe that universe is eternal. In fact, they don't believe that everything is eternal at all. Even brahma dies and is reborn in every 100 brahma years. Only thing eternal is the cyclicity.

>>565587

>>Buddhism is strict on karma yet does away with the caste system in hindu cultures.

Actually this isn't very true. Caste is still a big part of culture in very Buddhist countries like Sri Lanka. Sikhism also claims to do away with caste but it's still enforced. Just because they claim to remove caste, doesn't mean that the logical conclusions of caste are inferred from Karma. If you are born in a good, wealthy, educated family, it's because you have done good things in your past life to merit it, and if you are born poor as a toilet cleaner, it's because you did bad things to merit this. Same with beauty, intelligence and so on. This is in buddhism, and so while they claim to say that there is no caste (i.e. that any one from any caste can become a monk if they choose to) it still has many logical conclusions of caste.

>no they believe the universe changes, is contingent on parts, expands and contracts, and so can't be eternal, only the transcendent realm is 'eternal' which they are trying to realize somehow.

Wrong again. It's more like a multiverse idea, meaning that there has always been universes and will continue to be more. There is no end of the total universe (call it a multiverse as what you will) and it keeps going on.

>Likewise even if reincarnation is true, no buddhist or hindu would put off doing good works in this life.

Even if you do it makes no difference. You have lived innumerable lives before this one. And what do you mean no buddhist or hindu. I know many and this attitude does happen a lot. By putting off good works, for example, (almost) Buddhists believe the best thing to do is to become a monk - but majority do not take up becoming a monk. Why? because they view they can do it in another life. They might still be too attached to this world in this life. In addition, in Buddhism, the highest form of good deed you can do is actually give food and alms to monks, which is pretty useless when we consider it, and actually is a huge problem. But anyways majority of Buddhists for example will just think of doing giving some alms to a monk, hoping for a better rebirth, where they might be less attached to take up "the robes" and become a monk, so they can be liberated.

>I guess if you just straw man their religions.

Seems like you have a very poor meme-tier understanding of the religion, and I doubt you've lived in a dharmic religion majority country, lived with them etc.

>>565612

>IIRC, they don't believe that universe is eternal. In fact, they don't believe that everything is eternal at all. Even brahma dies and is reborn in every 100 brahma years. Only thing eternal is the cyclicity.

See my response above. It still means that there is a multiverse of some sort which is eternal. The universe continually destroys and will be recreated and so on. In Christianity there is only one distinct beginning to the world as we know it, and an end to it.