/christian/ - Christian Discussion and Fellowship

I've done a bit of Buddhism and Taoism and so called "neutral" sytems. They kinda correlate to yoga.

I think that, in the best case scenario, nothing will happen to you and you'll just waste a lot of time. But, if you start feeling some inner peace, or joy, that's a bad sign because you've let your guard down for external influences. (the devil) Even if you start being more kind to people, don't be fooled. It's not the love Christ had, it's just pride masquerading as virtue.

Thank God I was unsuccessful at many attempts of magic/meditation. Read the life of St. Cyprian, he was the most powerful pagan priest but then he tried to cast his spells on a nun; he failed and eventually converted to Christianity.

Has anyone here read the book called Christ: The Eternal Tao? It seems heretical but IDK

>>575773

>>575770

Thanks for the info, its really helpful

I luckily don't believe in meditation of that sort, so I never really got to mess myself up

Other than Buddhism/Taoism, what about the Jap types? I hear they have a pretty neutral system of things on their end, trying to both appease good & evil at the same time, heretical, but not actively violent to most outsiders (nowadays)

I was under the impression that the eastern religions all operate under the same axioms. I don't know any thing about Toaism except the Tao is apparantly the eastern equivilent of the logos, and so that brings in some syncretists and perrenialists into the mix. I thought buddhism and hinduism is essentially the same, except that the latter attempts to present an origin story and cosmology with all the bells and tassles that entails, whereas buddhism is simply stripped down to not care about any of that stuff and focus instead on achieving, through practicing ascetism (self denial), self-enlightenment and reach a state nirvana and see the ultimate truth that everything is interconnected and one and to destroy yourself to become fully become one with the universe. That's why people often say buddhism is less a religion, more a philosophy. Similarly, confucianism is a philosphical outlook, more than anything else. Alan Watts is a famous dude who was into buddhism and by extension hinduism, not from a Christian perspective mind. Look him up on youtube.

See first link for a book with what I believe presents semi Christian/syncretised/perrenialised perspective on Tao, and the second for a supposedly fully Christian perspective on Buddhism and Hinduism.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/265423.Christ_the_Eternal_Tao

https://www.amazon.com/Buddhism-Connexion-Brahmanism-Hinduism-Christianity/dp/1440050953

Needless to say it is my understaning that all the eastern approaches take pantheism as it's starting point, that is, everything is God. Which, as I saw R.C Sproul put it the other day in a vid, is really unhelpful as it means it's impossible to actually say anything meaningful about God in the first place, on the basis God is nothing in particular. It also means morality is relative and a matter of perspective, which is a horrendous conclusion that I don't know how people can live with. I believe the eastern traditions also view the material universe as a mirrage, to be overcome. Hence also the escaping the re-incarnation cycle and achieving nirvana. I think Hindu's specifically acknowledge that the universe is just a dream of God.

This is all skimmed from my passing readings online though, no in depth study. I may be wrong.

>they seem to not pose any active threat

I suppose the threat is that they are not the truth in full. Also with practices like yoga to release kundlini awakening etc. sounds like you'd be leaving yourself very vulnerable to demonic influences. I am also

They aren't a threat in the same way that e.g. Islam is, but they are still a distraction. I don't believe that you can consider yourself a Christian and perform Yoga, for example.

Their views of suffering differ diametrically from the Christian perspective, and their practise of meditation (particularly in buddhism) is more about abandonment than the Christian view of recollection and contemplation of God.

The Buddhist article on New Advent is really good.

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03028b.htm

>Buddhism has accomplished but little for the uplifting of humanity in comparison with Christianity. One of its most attractive features, which, unfortunately, has become wellnigh obsolete, was its practice of benevolence towards the sick and needy. Between Buddhists and Brahmins there was a commendable rivalry in maintaining dispensaries of food and medicine. But this charity did not, like the Christian form, extend to the prolonged nursing of unfortunates stricken with contagious and incurable diseases, to the protection of foundlings, to the bringing up of orphans, to the rescue of fallen women, to the care of the aged and insane. Asylums and hospitals in this sense are unknown to Buddhism. The consecration of religious men and women to the lifelong service of afflicted humanity is foreign to dreamy Buddhist monasticism. Again, the wonderful efficacy displayed by the religion of Christ in purifying the morals of pagan Europe has no parallel in Buddhist annals. Wherever the religion of Buddha has prevailed, it has proved singularly inefficient to lift society to a high standard of morality. It has not weaned the people of Tibet and Mongolia from the custom of abandoning the aged, nor the Chinese from the practice of infanticide. Outside the establishment of the order of nuns, it has done next to nothing to raise woman from her state of degradation in Oriental lands. It has shown itself utterly helpless to cope with the moral plagues of humanity. The consentient testimony of witnesses above the suspicion of prejudice establishes the fact that at the present day Buddhist monks are everywhere strikingly deficient in that moral earnestness and exemplary conduct which distinguished the early followers of Buddha. In short, Buddhism is all but dead. In its huge organism the faint pulsations of life are still discernible, but its power of activity is gone. The spread of European civilization over the East will inevitably bring about its extinction.

>>575775

I posted about it, but I haven't read it

>>575778

Again I know nothing, but I understand shintoism to essentially just be Jap's version of paganism. The good/evil balance, while not necessarily eastern, is another aspect that differs from the Abrahamic faths, in that they are described as being dualistic or centring on a dualism, that is equal eternal opposing, uncreated powers of good and evil fighting it out eternally. Very different to our approach (and also possibly not logically consistent iirc C.S Lewis's framing of it in Mere Christianity?). Didn't realise Shinto was dualistic if that's the case either.

>>575778

>what about the Jap types

If I recall correctly it's just a Japanese version of paganism where they believe in a countless number of gods and they have taken many concepts from Buddhism over the years. The zigzaggy things look cool though.

>>575775

My priest said that it could be useful for someone coming to Christianity after toying around with Eastern religions, but not to bother with it otherwise. Apparently the monk who wrote it was more or less writing in largely unexplored territory, so some of the ideas he explored are in need of refining.

>>575778

>Jap types

Shintoism is like a weird half-way house between paganism and animism in that there are definite Kami like Amaterasu, Raijin and Hachiman, but basically there are millions of anonymous lesser deities of forests, rivers, mountains etc. It's also big on veneration and worship of ancestors. Given this, however, it is basically like Hindiusm or any other polytheism that you can imagine.

Interestingly, even today, however, there is still something of a low-key conflict between Shintoism and Buddhism which is analogous to the low-key conflict between Europeans between Christianity and Paganism (i.e. ancient native religion vs imported forerign religion).

I don't know much about Japanese buddhism other than Zen buddhism which appears to be nothing other than vaguely philosophical non-sequiturs.

>>575778

You could also look into the Religions of the actual nations like the religious/communist/dictatorship of North Korea, the nature worship of japan, and such. I don't really know the specific name for them but basically the religious culture of the nations themselves.

Also pay attentions to the satanic symbolism in them, the dragons, snakes, and lightning bolts, worship of suns/light, the use of giants or any other peculiarities related to the descriptions that the bible uses.

this is another good introductory book, aparently, although not in depth by it's nature https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2767121-a-spectator-s-guide-to-world-religions