The Buddhist view on the Theory of Creation by an Omnipotent God
Posted on October 17th, 2012
by Radhika Abeysekera
If the universe was created by an omnipotent Creator God, then it is logical that the said God should take full responsibility for His creation. If a scientist creates an advanced robot with super intelligence that benefits mankind, he gets credit and accolades for his creation. But if his robot malfunctions and starts maiming and killing indiscriminately, the scientist is held responsible for its actions.
Similarly, a manufacturer of any item is fully responsible for its defects and the result and suffering that may be caused by its defects, just as he enjoys the profits and accolades of his success. As such it is logical that whichever God created the universe should be held fully responsible for His creation. The earthquakes, volcanoes, floods and famine that take countless lives and cause untold suffering are the results of the flaws in the creation of the world. And just as we can credit the Creator God for the gentle rain and sun that result in a good harvest we can credit the Creator God for the untold misery.
Similarly, the blind and the handicapped, the sick and the lame can credit God for their suffering and misery just as they credit God for their talents and good health. We could even go as far as to place all evil and good on GodƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢s shoulders. After all, if God created man He should be responsible for manƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢s actions. Even if He decided to give free will to man it was His sole decision and as such He should take responsibility for any lack of wisdom (delusion) in such a decision.
As an all-knowing God we can assume that He was aware that some of His creations would cause more suffering and misery than joy and happiness. The question then arises as to whether God is compassionate or omnipotent? All the misery and suffering in the world indicate that He cannot be both.
Most people would like to assume that God is better than we are and that our goal is to be as God-like as possible, and as such use Him as a role model. And yet, if we were omnipotent would we cause such misery? We now live in a society where we are taught to help our children grow with love and understanding as opposed to spanking and hitting them. How does one relate to a God who kills and maims to teach us to grow?
In the Bhuridatta JƒÆ’-¾ƒ”š‚taka the Buddha challenges the Brahmanic beliefs in an omnipotent Creator God by saying:
ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-He who has eyes can see the sickening sight, Why does not Brahma (God) set his creatures right?
If his wide power no limits can restrain,
Why is his hand so rarely spread to bless?
Why are his creatures condemned to pain?
Why does he not to all give happiness?
Why do fraud, lies and ignorance prevail?
Why triumphs falsehood, truth and justice fail?
I count you Brahma, one the unjust among,
Who made a world in which to shelter wrong.ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚
In the MahƒÆ’-¾ƒ”š‚bodhi JƒÆ’-¾ƒ”š‚taka the Buddha refutes the theory that good things and blessings are engineered by or are the work of anomnipotent God by saying:
ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-If there exists some God all powerful to fulfil
In every creature bliss or woe, and action good or ill
That Lord is stained with sin, man does but work his will.ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚
The Buddha did not advocate the concept of creation by an omnipotent being. According to the Buddha, the law of cause and effect (kamma) operated on all living beings. All beings, including celestial beings, were responsible and accountable for their actions as the law of cause and effect was a natural, universal law. Nor did He believe that there was an omnipotent being who was eternal. Wholesome deeds result in rebirth in celestial realms, but in keeping with the law of impermanence even the extremely long lifespans in the celestial realms come to an end.
Extracted from Questions & Answers in Buddhism
Volume – II
(pages 71 – 72)
see also pages 57 – 61 for ‘Buddhism in the West’
October 17th, 2012 at 4:50 pm
If the GOD is omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, then why does suffering exist at all? Suffering is a challenge to be accepted; it is an adventure. Suffering is not a disease to be destroyed. Without suffering there will be no evolution of consciousness.
October 17th, 2012 at 6:17 pm
An omnipotent God is the creation of man, at a time when men had not understood the nature of things, to inculcate fear him and to force him behave in a civilized and acceptable manner. The concept of God is based on fear of the unknown. When you are not sure of things, you pray to him for help. It’s strange that there remain so many believers of God even today.
The funniest thing to me is, even though God is supposed to be omnipotent and knows it all, including what anyone does and what everyone’s intentions are, still he ignores you if you do not pray to him! You have to beg him for him to help you. God helps only those who glorify him and believe in him. God is so selfish, that anyone who does not pray to Him, however good a human being he may be, is condemned with no salvation whatsoever from Him.
Some are monotheistic Gods while there are polytheistic Gods, each having his own specialty! Some of the so called “Gods” specialize in destruction and death! Are they “Gods” or devils? There seems to be only a hairline difference between them.
Buddhists do not believe in God. They on the other hand believe that gods are servants of good human beings, who live a life free from “akusal”. Buddhists also believe that these celestial beings called gods (there are many), as a matter of fact, depend on good human beings to gather merit to get out of the “samsaara chakra” and reach nibbana.
To me personally, a God would be someone who helps a human being when he does something good, irrespective of his belief and without being asked. Action and not belief should be criterion to be blessed by God.
October 17th, 2012 at 7:03 pm
So many holes can be picked up in the bible’s story of god and his/hers/its “creation”, that it looks like a mosquito net!
October 17th, 2012 at 7:13 pm
GOD is LOVE. Hinduism says LOVE is SHIVA. LOVE is the experiential discovery of that deepest dimension of ourselves and of reality itself that the Siddhārtha Gautama BUDDHA called the “Unborn,” the “Uncreated,” and the “Deathless.” LOVE is the source both of inner and external peace. LOVE is fundamental to the continued survival of humankind.
You can search throughout the entire universe for someone who is more deserving of your love and affection than you are yourself, and that person is not to be found anywhere. You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe deserve your love and affection.
– Siddhārtha Gautama Buddha
Love and Shiva are two, the ignorant say
Love alone is Shiva, they know not
Love is Shiva, when realized
Love alone remains, as Shiva, for ever.
— Thirumanthiram, 270
October 17th, 2012 at 8:38 pm
Satyam, Shivam, Sundaram
is a another expression for God. If so, he must never have created ugly Prabhakaran.
In one of the sutta’s Buddha has explained in detail, how the Gof idea gets into the Brahma.
October 17th, 2012 at 9:14 pm
“You saw me before I was born and scheduled each day of my life before I began to breathe. Every day was recorded in your book!” [The Bible, Psalm 139:16]
Think about Velupillai Prabhakaran. He was evil incarnate, and Prabhakaran is well known for the atrocious things he did. Consider this statement: “Prabhakaran is part of God’s Plan.”
God never does anything accidentally, and he never makes mistakes. He has a reason for everything he creates. Every plant and every animal was planned by God, and every person was designed with a purpose in mind.
If God has a divine plan for each of us, then he had a divine plan for Prabhakaran too. It is when you stop to think about it deeply that the contradictions hit you.
Only by assuming that God is imaginary and prayer is meaningless can science proceed. What would happen if we get down on our knees and pray to God in this way:
Dear God, almighty, all-powerful, all-loving creator of the universe, we pray to you to cure every case of cancer on this planet tonight. We pray in faith, knowing you will bless us
We pray sincerely, knowing that when God answers this completely heartfelt, unselfish, non-materialistic prayer, it will glorify God and help millions of people in remarkable ways.
Will anything happen? No. Of course not. Today’s “God” is just as imaginary as were these historical Gods. The fact that millions of people worship a God is meaningless.
In the beginning a natural event created the universe and the earth did not form until billions of years later. Bible says that light and darkness are created after the water but before the sun. We know that the sun came first, then the planet and its rotation (which is what causes light and darkness to occur on a daily basis) and then the water, and this all happened over million of years.
Man did not come from a handful of dust through some mythological being. Man evolved from other species like every other living thing has for hundreds of millions of years. The Bible talks about a world-wide flood that covered earth in miles of water and killed everything, yet we know it never happened. That is clear from the archeolgical record. There was no tower of Babel where God confounded the languages of mankind.
“GOD planned the days of your life in advance, choosing the exact time of your birth and death.” Let’s examine one simple implication of this statement. What this means is that God has pre-planned every abortion that has taken place. If the concept of “God’s plan” is true, then God wants us to be aborting children. Every single abortion is planned by God, so God must be doing it for a reason. So both the mother who requests the abortion and the doctor who performs it are blameless. Since it is God who planned the abortion of the child, the mother and doctor are simply puppets who are fulfilling God’s plan, are they not? If abortion is part of God’s plan, why are Christians fighting it? God is the all-powerful ruler of the universe, and his plan is for more than a million children a year to die in the United States through abortion. If God’s plan is true, then each one of those abortions was meticulously planned by God.
There is no scientific evidence indicating that God exists. God has never left any physical evidence of his existence on earth. God has never spoken to modern man, for example by taking over all the television stations and broadcasting a rational message to everyone. Huge, amazing atrocities like the ethnic cleansing and AIDS occur without any response from God. There is no empirical evidence showing that God exists.
October 17th, 2012 at 9:45 pm
Can Science prove Life came into existence in a state of nothingness? That’s Magic. Illusion/Magic is a deception of the Mind. The quest to know your Creator is a long and tedious process. One should apply the power of Critical thinking and evaluation. Embark on it before the Master switch is turned off.
Definition of God in the Islamic Faith is, He is The One; Not Divisible! The eternal!. He begetteth not nor was begotten. And there is none comparable unto Him. No? beginning No end. Only Death is an absolute certainty in Life. The rest is based on Belief, Faith, Fun, Evidence, Logic, Love, Respect, Humility, Devotion, Peace, Prosperity, Perseverance, so on and so forth. Seek the purpose of life with an open mind so we shall find happiness and contentment.
He it is Who hath placed you as viceroys of the earth and hath exalted some of you in rank above others, that He may try you
by (the test of) that which He hath given you. Lo! Thy Lord is swift in prosecution, and Lo! He verily is Forgiving,
Merciful. (The Noble Quran 6:165)
Have not those who disbelieve known that the heavens and the earth were of one piece, then We parted them, and we made every
living thing of water? Will they not then believe? (The Noble Quran 21:30)
And We have placed in the earth firm hills lest it quake with them, and We have placed therein ravines as roads that haply they may find their way. (The Noble Quran 21:31)
And we have made the sky a roof withheld (from them). Yet they turn away from its portents. (The Noble Quran 21:32)
And He it is Who created the night and the day, and the sun and the moon. They float, each in an orbit. (The Noble Quran 21:33)
We appointed immortality for no mortal before thee. What! if thou diest, can they be immortal! (The Noble Quran 21:34)
Have they not travelled in the land and seen the nature of the consequence for those who were before them, and they were mightier than these in power? Allah is not such that aught in the heavens or in the earth escapeth Him. Lo! He is the Wise, the Mighty. (The Noble Quran 35:44)
If Allah took mankind to task by that which they deserve, He would not leave a living creature on the surface of the earth; but He reprieveth them unto an appointed term, and when their term cometh – then verily (they will know that) Allah is ever Seer of His slaves. (The Noble Quran 35:45)
October 18th, 2012 at 1:03 am
Friends NT and HussainF,
Please read the article I wrote some time ago published on Lankaweb
http://www.lankaweb.com/news/items/2011/02/11/some-suttras-of-interest-delivered-by-buddha/
and read especially the para on
Brahma-nimantanika Suttra – a long suttra in short, where Thatagata tames both God and Satan in one go
and shows them their folly, and let us know your thoughts on that.
Certainly blind faith is not for wise people like you.
HussainF – I am no Thomian if ever you presumed that. I come from Randles Hill where the English Language was invented and the Anglo Saxon fool followed it blindly and now the Indian fool has taken that aboard. Ha Ha!.
October 18th, 2012 at 4:27 am
The mind created the creator.
Therefore it is no surprise that this “creator” has inherited the flaws of the mind that created it.
No amount of sugar coated scripture can hide this fact. The bitter truth comes to light in the behavior of fundamentalists of that particular scripture.
An overwhelming majority of Christians have the maturity to figure this out. That is why we do not see the practices of the dark ages like burning people for heresy today. Unfortunately Wahabi’s are too brain dead to figure this out. That is why Saudi Arabia and countries in the Middle East (except Israel of course) still practice barbaric amputations, stoning, beheadings etc.
It is up to the civilized world to make sure that Wahabis DO NOT spread this barbarism across the whole world through violence, intimidation, deception and procreation.
October 18th, 2012 at 4:43 am
Mjaya,
“An overwhelming majority of Christians have the maturity to figure this out. That is why we do not see the practices of the dark ages like burning people for heresy today. Unfortunately Wahabi’s are too brain dead to figure this out. That is why Saudi Arabia and countries in the Middle East (except Israel of course) still practice barbaric amputations, stoning, beheadings etc.”
I don’t think it is “overwhelming majority “. But I agree overwhelming majority of Muslims had lost their brain to understand very very simple logic.
I also agree that Saudi is the most uncivilized barbaric bastrad of a country with overwhelming majority of FOOLS.
But , do not discount Zionist brutalities, barbaric murders, inhuman unthnikable crimes are not at all second to Wahabis.
They are doing it under the cover of “western civilization”, you need mush more wisdom to see it.
October 18th, 2012 at 4:46 am
By the way, we have a hero in Sri Lanka. Ranjan Ramanayake, a parliamentarian of Sri Lanka’s main opposition United National Party (UNP), has requested President Mahinda Rajapaksa in writing to take up the issue of Sri Lankan housemaid Rizana Nafeek, who is on death row in Saudi Arabia.
Why can’t Maharaja privately discuss this with the big Wahabi when he meets him ?
October 18th, 2012 at 6:07 am
The way to change the world is to change people’s minds. As more and more people openly discuss the fact that “God” is completely imaginary, the world becomes a better place. The people who believe in “religion” look sillier and sillier. Eventually, religion becomes a fringe activity that is meaningless. Can “God” and “Allah” create themselves? Whether God can or cannot create Himself, a believer must land upon one of the two horns of this diabolical impasse: God can create Himself out of NOTHING. Therefore, NOTHINGNESS is greater than Allah? On the other hand, God cannot create Himself out of NOTHING? Therefore, God is not absolute. God is relatively weak, and completely redundant!
Believers and the faithful, usually argue that GOD has always existed and, thus, this question “What caused God to exist?” is simply meaningless. They say that God is beyond time. So, God has set the universal clock in motion when He created this world.
There is no escape from time and life of God outside time is categorically meaningless. Time is an essential attribute of God. No time no God, but the reverse is not true. There is always time whether there is God or not!
Nevertheless, light bulb did not always exist. There were no light bulbs in the 18th Century. Can it, then, be said that light bulbs ‘began to exist’ in the 19th century? So, was the light bulbs in the process of ‘coming into’ existence during the interval in which it was being developed or being invented?
The idea of ‘GOD’ is the model and the blueprint according to which we would certainly construct us, our life style, our thoughts and ways. If we are given the power to re-design and build us from scratch in this sense, even though God has no basis in any reality, an ideal may sound absolutely perfect, useful and we should keep God as a moral guiding star and blueprint for improving us at all levels. But “Man created all concepts” so GOD is totally superfluous.
The word Allah is just the Arabic word for God. This started when Bible “translator’ substituted the word Allah where the word God should should have been used in the Arabic translation of the Bible. In pre-Islamic times both Allah-worship and Baal-worship involved the worship of the sun, the moon and the stars. The worship of sun is condemned in the Bible which defines them as astral religions. ( Second Kings 21:3,5. 23:5. Second Chronicles 33:5) The crescent moon, which was the symbol of moon worship is also the symbol of Islam.
Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism are agnostic in regard to god and similar thoughts are also known by Greek philosophers. They all show that we can all live very well without god.
The main problem with Allah is that Allah is behaving like a very primitive man. He erased even whole cities and all his inhabitants, He punished people like insects. He taught wrong and contradictory things about nature, about the way humans came into being, wrong things about mountains, the way sperm is gushed out from the backbone and so many things.
God is the product of human minds. Not just sane human minds but deluded ones, scheming human minds that wanted all the power and pelf in the world without having to honestly work for it. It is the product of scoundrels, thugs, marauding goons who would use this creature of their mind to literally put the “fear of ‘god’ ” in the minds of gullible millions to live off in comfort and luxury. Take the Pope :he lives like a king , and do his minion bishops and clergy down the hierarchy live like some executive of multinational company. Mullahs, imams, ayatollahs, etc all live like the feudal lords of yore. So do the organized “Babas”, “Bhahavans” and other leaders of Hinduism. All these scoundrels own billions of dollars worth assets( real estates, investments,hard cash,etc) and they continue to make many more millions every day with all the tax concessions,etc to spread their tentacles around the vested interests like politicians, businessmen , wealthy property-owners, bureaucrats ,etc , even amongst the judiciary and the police. These filthy scumbags are all thriving in the name of a so called non-existing “GOD”. And this impotent “all merciful god” is just a mute witness to all the atrocities committed in his name . Why ? Because these scoundrels do know very well that there is no “God/” and there is no “hell, heaven, Satan, jinns, angels,” etc. All plain lies.
October 18th, 2012 at 6:10 am
Hussain Fahmy and others please watch the following
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeSSwKffj9o
October 18th, 2012 at 7:17 am
If we think of God as a form of pure, other dimensional type of Energy that pervades the entire Universe, then the concept of God seems possible.
We know that the visible Universe (human beings, animals, trees, minerals, etc.) operates on a set of Laws, as do the forces of the unseen Universe (Laws of Physics in Light, Sound, Magnetism etc). From what Source do these Laws flow ? There must be a Source.
For some thousands of years the human mind has evolved to a point where it questions the reason for our very existence. Without the “hypothesis” of an other dimensional God/Shiva/Truth/Allah (G.O.D. = Generator, Operator & Destroyer), our brains find it difficult to accept life, such as it is now on earth, full of contradictions and suffering, momentary happiness, seeking, always seeking for that elusive Something …. In our Ignorance, we thrash about like fish out of water.
To seek God/Allah/Truth/Shiva within each human being, guiding him/her, makes sense to me. Everything else worthwhile seems to fall into place if we accept that theory, that a sliver of “Truth”/God is within us.
God seems to me to be some sort of invisible force, seeking to FEEL its creation through the ‘crown of its creation’, the human being. It is more than possible that there are other universes, planets, worlds out there with different life forms, seen and unseen, seeking the same goal of ‘self realisation’. Patterns are usually repeated in the Universe.
We can only construct a hypothetical idea and work through it to make sense of human life on earth. We can only strive to understand God/Truth/Allah/Shiva – I don’t think our puny minds can ever comprehend fully the vastness or beauty of this Power. But, the possibility is there to merge with It.
If we do not seek the ultimate goal of Self Realization (God Realisation), will earth as we know it now, be destroyed as a failed experiment ?
Re Buddhism & God : Can someone tell me what the Buddha meant when he said “Truth is within you” ? And why the emphasis on Meditation. Why did Jesus Christ say : “the Kingdom of Heaven is within You” (Heaven is where God resides),
and “be Still and Thou shalt know Me” ? Why Raj Yoga (the highest form of Yoga in Hinduism ? (Yoga means Yoke to God).
I think the Buddha used another word for ‘God’ other than the word used during his time in India because of the Caste system (now over 3,000 yrs in existence and dwindling), being tied to the Hindu religion. The intractable Caste System of that time had the God word in Hindu religion. The Buddha may have changed it to ‘Truth’ and also questioned the word ‘God’ to break with the Caste system. The Buddha said that a person is high born or low born only through his/her actions.
Readers, please write in your views on this. I do not mean to hurt anyone by my remarks.
For some clarity, please listen to talks on http://www.wopg.org
October 18th, 2012 at 10:04 am
Doe it matter whether there was a creator or not really. Buddha said this in Agganna sutta (see wikipedia or other sources), ‘The Buddha told that sooner or later, after a very long time, there would be a time when the world shrinks. At a time of contraction, beings are mostly born in the Abhassara Brahma world. And there they dwell, mind-made, feeding on delight, self-luminous, moving through the air, glorious………..’
October 18th, 2012 at 11:57 am
Just adding to the thoughts of the very learned Einstein and others, if I may, with utter humility: ”Time creates, changes and destroys everything but time itself needs no creator – it exists and does away with the conceptual need for a ‘creator God’. And the only major religion following this reasoning has no such God is in fact Buddhism. Buddhism clearly fits in this respect with accepted scientific knowledge – S de Silva – London
October 18th, 2012 at 5:51 pm
The connected question is why the god created Satan or devil. If he did not created Satan there will not be any evil in the world and muslims need not go to Mecca to stone devil.
October 18th, 2012 at 9:20 pm
Is “S De SIlva” = Ben Silva , ultimately realised Einstein’s ( just another smart person) ideas did not oppose Buddhism ?
October 18th, 2012 at 10:55 pm
Let me have the contact email of the author of this article so that I would be able to get in touch on subjects related to this – that cannot be posted here.
October 18th, 2012 at 11:00 pm
If the mind created the Creator, Who created the Mind? Logically, the creation cannot create by itself and be The Creator as well at the same time. Time exists only with Day and Night. Plagiarizer’s comments differ from 17th to 18th Oct. The absence of Light is Darkness.
Allah has created Angels with reason but having no desires; animals with desires but no reason, & man with both reason and desires. Therefore, if one’s reason is stronger than his desires, he is like an Angel… while if his desires are stronger than his reason, he is like an animal.
October 18th, 2012 at 11:15 pm
HussainFahmy
You say; “Allah has created Angels”. Could you tell us where in Koran it says that Allah created Angel and Devil.
Leela
October 18th, 2012 at 11:33 pm
Allah created the Angles and Devils so that He may Test the Humankind to filter the Good from the Evil doers and reward them for their actions during this short Life on Earth. IN ALL FAIRNESS, ACCOUNTABILITY AND RESTORATION OF THE RIGHTS OF ALL HIS CREATION AT AN APPOINTED PERIOD IS ASSURED. One is free to Believe it or Not.
October 18th, 2012 at 11:40 pm
Mr.HussainFahmy,
Please, would you answer my question straight; give me the Sura and the verse Nos. Thank you.
Leela
October 18th, 2012 at 11:54 pm
The Noble Quran is in the Public Domain to research and study. The fruits of ones labour is rewarded for their sincere intention.
The link
http://www.quranexplorer.com/
October 19th, 2012 at 3:14 am
The monetheist religions are an extension of the primitive man’s fear of the unknown. It has been invented to explain the unknown. The theory of God has reduced man to nothing. The supreme God manipulates the man and every thing he does is the power of god expressed through the “robotic” human being.
There is no philosophy, there is no intelligence, there is no ability to create and invent , these are all different facets of God. God is in every thing. The unintelligent man who assumes that he is nothing without God prays to Him. He prays to HIM, when he is helpless, when ill, when he cannot invent, and create.
The God and the religions man has invented are just Fairy Tales. There is nothing substantial in the stories, as much as the God is an unsubstantial, invisible myth. It is no the God that created man , but it is the Man that created God.
To prove God man invented stories, and even mathematics. Man built huge buildings the bigger the taller the Church it is more frequented, thinking it is thought of as the house of the all mighty. Even the Church struck fear into its followers , even the statue of a man nailed on to a cross does not inspire, love and compassion, but creates fear and shows the power of the almighty.
It is by creating fear in God that these monotheist religions could exist. The Koran says, if you are two talking there is a third listening, if there are three there is a forth listening . Thus they create fear in God. Thus the man unable to deny God through fear of repercussions by the God of the book , believe in a non-existent, absent “absent” God.
October 19th, 2012 at 3:43 am
If life cannot come into existance from nothingness, nor is Allah could come out from nothingness.
If Allah came into existence from nothingness, he is nothing. So he will only create nothing.
October 19th, 2012 at 3:52 am
Fahmy,
It is the mind that create the mind. There is no such thing called mind. There is no person of thing but only the act of creation.
Out of the act of creation, (lack of wisdom) Allah hu Akbar has been created, together with Mohamed, Jihad, endless killing, suicide bombs, Shriah law, Polygamy, Jesus, God, punishment,judgement day,….. list goes on. Does not sound pleasant words, does it ?
October 19th, 2012 at 4:07 am
“Allah created the Angles and Devils so that He may Test the Humankind to filter the Good from the Evil doers and reward them for their actions during this short Life on Earth.”
Now thats really strange! After all if God knows everything (yes everything) then why does he have to test someone in the first place? Can’t he read that person’s mind? So it seems that the mind is indeed above the creator!
Also if there was a creator who created this world, life, evil etc. etc. Why can’t this creator create something today to convince all of us unbelievers? Has the creator gone on retirement?
October 19th, 2012 at 4:11 am
Problem is , at the moment the stupid creater is creating poor little children to thorw stones at mighty Zionist army rather than creating a monster to eat all Zionist.
October 19th, 2012 at 4:11 am
I forgot to add:
Go round visiting Churches in Europe. Some of them are grotesque with gnomes, and strange animals figures the gargoyles . They have built them huge or even small amoung houses such as those orthodox churches in Greece. They give so much of importance to the Church and lavish it with riches, while the people have not been looked after, God does not pay attention to suffering man. He makes them suffer more. He wants them to make penance.
It is the same with Mosques in the Muslim countries . And what Mosques elsewhere. But the God- an all loving God is not present in any one of them. Hindu Kovils are no exceptions with their pantheon of Gods. The Gopuram of a Kovil with distorted human figures do not inspire love, compassion or sanctity. With Ganesh, and blood loving Kali there is nothing sacred.
But the Hindus have at least a philosophy, and their limited meditation which ends up in moderate mental cleansing.
But the Buddhist Temples are simple the white Stupa is more cosmic and is symbolic of the power of mind to rise upwards from matter. The bo tree which gave shade to the Buddha during his enlightenment process is sanctified in the memory of that event. In side the temple the Smiling Buddha inspires, love and compassion in any One. Buddha was a human being, the statues were created by man in memory of his great love and compassion.
His religion is from known suffering of man to the unknown Nibbana , where as Christianity and other monotheist religions are from unknown God to an Unknown Paradise
October 19th, 2012 at 4:38 am
Charles,
Slight correction.
Once the suffering is “fully” known – end of suffering cannot be unknow.
Once the suffering is understood, the cause of suffering is also clear and hence the path to end suffering ( Nibbana).
Nibbana is not really unknown but “5 Neevarana” covers it.
October 19th, 2012 at 5:25 am
Mr.HussainFahmy,
So far, you haven’t answered my question. So, Let me rephrase it for you.
Though you said “Allah created the Angles and Devils”, you have failed to tell me where in the Koran or the Bible (the parts you accept) that says Allah (the God) created Angels and Devil.
Let me tell you that nowhere in the Bible or the Koran says that the God had created the Devil. But, from the beginning itself the God had many dealings with the Devil. That is why you said “Allah created the Angles and Devils”. That means; the Devil should have been there before God created anything. So, if both the God and the Devil has been in existence without being created, the Devil should be set in an equal footing with the God.
Also, nowhere in the Bible or Koran says that the God had made other Gods (angles). But Genesis 3.22 says that this God had spoken to other Gods. They were not created, so where do Devil and those Gods come from? Over to you Mr.HussainFahmy.
Leela
October 19th, 2012 at 6:45 am
To Leela,
Angels (Arabic: ملائكة malāʾikah; singular: ملاك malāk) are heavenly beings mentioned many times in the Qur’an and Hadith. Unlike humans or jinn, they have no free will and therefore can do only what God orders them to do. see an example below,
Praise be to Allah, Who created (out of nothing) the heavens and the earth, Who made the angels, messengers with wings,- two, or three, or four (pairs): He adds to Creation as He pleases: for Allah has power over all things.
—Qur’an, sura 35 (Fatir) ayat 1[15]
In Islam, the Devil is known as ʾIblīs (Arabic: إبليس, plural: ابالسة ʾAbālisa) or Shayṭān (Arabic: شيطان, plural: شياطين Shayāṭīn). According to the Quran, God created Iblis out of “smokeless fire or from the pure flame of fire” (along with all of the other jinn) and created man out of clay.
The angels do not have free will and cannot sin because they were not granted the freedom by God to disobey. When God created Adam (see Islamic view of Adam), he commanded all the angels and Iblis (whose rank allowed him to be considered equal to that of an angel) to prostrate to Adam as was termed “the Best of Creation”. All the angels did so. The jinn Iblis refused to obey, and was brought in to a state of rebellion against God.[12] For this God cast him out of the Garden, and intended to punish him. Iblis begged God to delay the punishment until the Last Day (the Day of Judgment): this God granted, as he is Most Merciful (ar-Raḥīm).[13]
It is We Who created you and gave you shape; then We bade the angels prostrate to Adam, and they prostrate; not so Iblis; He refused to be of those who prostrate.
God said: “What prevented thee from prostrating when I commanded thee?” He said: “I am better than he: Thou didst create me from fire, and him from clay.”
—Qurʾān (Yusuf Ali’s translation), sura 7 (Al-A’raf), ayat 11-12[14]
Iblis was proud and arrogant and considered himself superior to Adam, since Adam was made from clay and Iblis from smokeless fire. For this act of disobedience, God cursed him to Hell for eternity, but gave him respite until the Day of Judgment (Qiyāmah), after Iblis requested it.[15] Iblis obtained permission from God and vowed that he would use this time to lead all human men and women astray to Hell as a way of revenge against them. By refusing to obey God’s order he was thrown out of Paradise and thereafter he was called “Shaytan”.
He said: “Give me respite till the day they are raised up.”
(Allah) said: “Be thou among those who have respite.”
He said: “Because thou hast thrown me out of the way, lo! I will lie in wait for them on thy straight way:
“Then will I assault them from before them and behind them, from their right and their left: Nor wilt thou find, in most of them, gratitude (for thy mercies).”
(Allah) said: “Get out from this, disgraced and expelled. If any of them follow thee,- Hell will I fill with you all.
—Qurʾān (Yusuf Ali’s translation), sura 7 (Al-A’raf), ayat 14-18[16]
Although God grants the request, he also warns Satan that he would have no authority over his sincere ‘ubūd “devoted servants”.[12]
“As for My servants, no authority shalt thou have over them:” Enough is thy Lord for a Disposer of affairs.
—Qurʾān (Yusuf Ali’s translation), sura 17 (Al-Isra), ayah 65[17]
October 19th, 2012 at 6:49 am
What I wanted say was that Buddhism unlike other religions could be verified from available evidence. The end could be understood as possible, from knowing the beginning. That is a simple way of putting it without explaining Dukkha and Nibbana and how to arrive at it etc.
But your statement, “Nibbana is not really unknown but “5 Neevarana” covers it.” is new to me. I have not read or have been told that the5 Nivarana “covers” Nibbana” If you could explain that it would be a great help, you can reply me personally to: perera.charles@gmail.com.
October 19th, 2012 at 9:11 am
Why did God select Mohammad to make the revelations. Mohammad was an ordinary desert Arab with little morals. He married his brothers widow. He was a merchant therefore he may have heard the stories in the Old testament, and wanted to start another religion to an undisciplined desert Arab community of which he was a leaders, and told them that the God was speaking to them through him.
“ The recent controversy began about eight months ago, after Soroush spoke with a Dutch reporter about one of Islam’s most sensitive issues: the divine origin of the Koran. Muslims have long believed that their holy book was transmitted word for word by God through the Prophet Muhammad. In the interview, however, Soroush made explicit his alternative belief that the Koran was a “prophetic experience.” He told me that the prophet “was at the same time the receiver and the producer of the Koran or, if you will, the subject and the object of the revelation.” Soroush said that “when you read the Koran, you have to feel that a human being is speaking to you, i.e. the words, images, rules and regulations and the like all are coming from a human mind.” He added, “This mind, of course, is special in the sense that it is imbued with divinity and inspired by God.” ( from Who wrote the Koran ? The New York Times -5.12.2008
October 19th, 2012 at 10:45 am
Mr. Muhandiram
You wrote; “God said: “What prevented thee from prostrating when I commanded thee?” He said: “I am better than he: Thou didst create me from fire, and him from clay.” — Qurʾān (Yusuf Ali’s translation), sura 7 (Al-A’raf), ayat 11-12[14]”
In so far as I can see, that description is nothing but the Devil reminding his all powerful creator about the superior way he was made over and above Adam. To tell you the truth that’s not a creation story.
At the beginning Muhammad has accepted the creation story in Torah and even read out a revelation (Koran 4:163) that accepted many a Torah characters as Prophets of Allah. So, read here the creation story in the first chapter of the first book of Torah, the Genesis.
Its first two items say:
1. “In the beginning the God created the heaven and the earth.”
2. “And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of the God moved upon the face of the waters.”
Now as we move further along the God’s creation order, we can read his work for the first day in the next three items says:
3,4,5. “And God said, Let there be light; and there was light.” “And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.” “And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.” And, that was the first day’s work of the God.
Never mind, the rest of the first chapter of the Bible but I must say that God’s creation was done in an orderly manner. Accordingly, following is the list of his work done for each day.
Day 1: Sky, Earth, light.
Day 2: Water, both in ocean basins and above the sky (!)
Day 3: Plants.
Day 4: Sun, Moon, Stars.
Day 5: Sea monsters (whales), fish, birds, land animals, creepy-crawlies (reptiles, insects, etc.)
Day 6: Humans (apparently, here both sexes were made the same day at the same time. But, Geneses 2 000has a different story. See page 52)
Day 7: Nothing created for creation completed, so a holiday.
There are no angels or the Devil created in the creation story.
When Jews and Christians in Mecca realized Muhammad is plagiarizing their Bible – Torah, they refused to accept Muhammad as a Messiah of their (Abraham’s) God, Then Muhammad got annoyed and declared Hebrew Bible and Christian Bible corrupted. Koran 2:40 and a dozen more verses demeaned Jews for charging Muhammad when he needed more scripture stories to call his own. In Koran 2:59 Allah lambasted the Jews: “The wicked [Jews] changed and perverted the word We [Allah] had spoken to a word distorted.” Because of their egregious behaviour, the Jews “became like apes despised.”
Now you can understand why many verses in Koran like 15.26, 21.37 and etc and Tabari I:188, 189, 216, 219, 258 etc in Hadith explains creation in a different way to that in Genesis 1 that I copied as above. Surely, if Allah and Yahweh is the same, they cannot say different things at different times. It is obvious that Muhammad plagiarized bits and pieces from Torah.
Leela
October 19th, 2012 at 3:47 pm
Dear Charles,
“Buddhism unlike other religions could be verified from available evidence”.- perfect words. That is exactly ture and it explains what I meant.
Even Nibbana can be verfied, it present is here and now.
Neevaranas are, (I am sure you are aware of)
1. kamachchanda – as the words mean – always sticking to kama – one can experiece this when “kaama” ( say desire) is high, at that moment we see very little, we just want it – cannot see the surroundings even properly.
2. Viyapada – hatred, anger – again subtle hatred you may not notice but when it is high, cannot see anything.
3.Theenamidda – kind of laziness, not intense
4. Uddachch Kukkuchcha – Jumping from thought to thought – restlesness
5. Vichikichcha – doubt of dhamma ( for example , how can Fahmy even think straight when he doubts the truth so much ?)
When the Neevarana’s become very weak, one can almost feel Nibbana. That is why I said tt is there but we do not see.
You may have noticed, when on eloses a loved one, if they are Buddhists they are convinced 1st Noble truth exist ( There is suffering). But as the time pass by, they get indulged in the 5 neevarana more and more and become “normal”. There is nothing wrong in being normal, but as you said Nibbana become “unknown”.
I can try an eample.
Say one buys a brand new expensive car. He is happy. You try to maintain that happiness which is born of something out side you. You wash, polish this outside object and try to maintain it . But rainy days come, minor accidents happen, you inevitably suffer. More you love that car blindly, more you suffer. One day you get fed up and sell it and buy an old but reliable car. No need not wash that regularly, you don’t worry about scratches, you feel free – you feel Nibbaana !
Just imagine “your self” is the car. When you understood the suffering, why it is present and with the eleimination of the root cause you discover Nibbana !
I am not qulified to say too much of this simple truth. One thing for sure is happiness out of love and compassion is much higer than happiness out of wining.
http://www.buddhanet.net/4noble.htm
October 19th, 2012 at 3:49 pm
Mr. Moo-handiram,
“The angels do not have free will and cannot sin because they were not granted the freedom by God to disobey.”
In that case, how could you say, “The jinn Iblis refused to obey,”?? Is is your mistake or god’s??
“For this God cast him out of the Garden, and intended to punish him. Iblis begged God to delay the punishment until the Last Day (the Day of Judgment): this God granted, as he is Most Merciful (ar-Raḥīm).[13]”
So this “Iblis” who did not have a free will, was able to change god’s mind? HILARIOUS!!
Why didn’t this god extend his “MOST MERCIFULNESS” to Adam and Eve, after all they were god’s “Best of Creation”?
“God created Iblis out of “smokeless fire or from the pure flame of fire” (along with all of the other jinn) and created man out of clay.”
But the the heavens and the earth, were made out of nothing. So why did god need clay to create a human?
Looks like god has put clay in lots of peoples brains!!!!!
October 19th, 2012 at 3:58 pm
Neevarana = Nibbana – Aavaran = Covering Nibbana – literally. Sinhala language contains Paali words.
October 19th, 2012 at 4:07 pm
We are arguing with people FULL OF IGNORANCE. They are unable to move, scared to teeth.
One need not be a Buddhist to argue about unnecsaary God idea. It is soooo foolish. Let the FOOLS with so much ignorance be FOOLS.
More worthwhile arguments will be with FOOLS who do not believe a God yet argue about non-existance of 4 Noble truth.
If one accepts 1st noble truth exist ( i.e. “There is suffering”), he/she is no FOOL. It is a pleasure to argue then on.
October 19th, 2012 at 4:19 pm
Muḥammad ibn `Abd Allāh started a religion for his own benefit. Before turned to be a prophet for fun and profit, Muhammad ibn `Abd Allāh – the merchant traveled quite widely and met Jews, Christians and Greeks, whose ideas emerged later in the inspiration he claimed to receive from Allah. Muhammad ibn `Abd Allāh was charismatic and intelligent. Idiots don’t build empires, but they sometimes run them, like Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus and George W Bush, but they never build them. Founding an empire requires talent, intelligence, application, often charisma and ruthlessness. No halfwit or ignoramus has ever founded a civilization or started an empire.
It is not possible for a religion to arise which does evil and nothing more. Nobody would join it or bring their children up in it. Islam offered some improvements over the previous situation in pagan Arabia. The status of women improved, or so Muslims have claimed, they were no longer treated like field slaves to be whipped mercilessly, they rose in status to that of house slaves, to be patronized and whipped mercifully.
Muhammad ibn `Abd Allāh also swept away much of the old order’s rigid structures of class, he had some tendencies which you could almost describe as egalitarian. Not democratic socialist of course, let’s not get carried away, but he did institute a taxation system which worked to alleviate absolute poverty. So, when you compare Muhammad ibn `Abd Allāh to tyrants he stands alongside those tyrants who while conquering a lot of people, slaughtering his enemies, selling their children and raping their women did manage to do a few things to add to the positive side of the ledger. But when you compare him to great spiritual leaders like Confucius, Laozi or Buddha, well, he looks like a ruthless tyrant.
The claim that the status of women improved under Muhammad ibn `Abd Allāh is disputed by many who say that the status of women went down under Islam. Women lost the right to own and control property. Muhammad ibn `Abd Allāh’s first wife, Khadijah, who was a wealthy widow and trader in her own right employed Muhammad ibn `Abd Allāh before marrying him. Perhaps 25 years of being the husband of one older wife who was wealthy and powerful in her own right contributed to Muhammad ibn `Abd Allāh’s rather extreme treatment of women.
Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh was a camel-mounted pirate, a warlord, a slave trader and the murderer of defenseless prisoners.
Muḥammad ibn `Abd Allāh did not invent monotheism. The Pharaoh Akhenaten in Egypt’s 18th dynasty had put a single sun deity at the centre of worship 2,000 years before Muhammad ibn `Abd Allāh. Monotheism makes totalitarianism and intolerance much easier. Monotheism is responsible for more human suffering than any idea ever thought up by humans, with the possible exception of the idea that faith is a virtue, but we can’t blame Muhammad ibn `Abd Allāh. Whatever his myriad faults are originality of thought is not one of them.
Muhammad ibn `Abd Allāh did not initiate slavery. Slavery had been universal across Africa, Asia and Europe for several thousands of years. Slavery was considered to be totally normal. We can’t blame Muhammad ibn `Abd Allāh for inventing slavery. But Muhammad ibn `Abd Allāh thoroughly endorsed slavery and engaged in the trading, keeping and taking of slaves himself. Nobody wants to be enslaved and making, keeping and trading of slaves is totally abhorrent under any circumstances. Slavery is wrong period.
Muhammad ibn `Abd Allāh did not invent the barbaric and primitive practice of marrying very young girls. Joseph was a 90 years old man at the time of marriage with the Mary – Mother of Jesus od Nazreth. Muhammad ibn `Abd Allāh married Aisha at the age of 6, he watched over her until the age of 9 when he took her into his household as his wife, with all that this normally entails. Aisha was accused of being unfaithful to Muhammad ibn `Abd Allāh. Muhammad ibn `Abd Allāhdeclared that Aisha was innocent after a convenient divine revelation and decreed that from then on all accusations of adultery which includes rape require 4 reliable men as witnesses. To this day Muslim women are being thrown into prison or even stoned to death in places where sharia law is applied for the sin of being raped without enough 4 reliable men as witnesses.
The common claim that Muhammad ibn `Abd Allāh was a pedophile is unfair. If this had been the case Muhammad ibn `Abd Allāh could have had a lot more children in his tent. Muhammad ibn `Abd Allāh’s first marriage was to an older widow, which lasted 25 years during which time he had no other wife. Muhammad ibn `Abd Allāh had something in the order of 16 wives and most of these were widows and older women. The statistics on the safety of childbirth among the under 14 give strong support to the idea that marriage at the first hint of puberty is an extremely bad example for any potential role-model to set. This bad example is blighting the lives of millions of girls and is directly responsible for many cases of miscarriage and horrific damage to young girls’ bodies. Many women have a lifetime of incontinence and infertility because they followed the example of Islam’s perfect man.
Muhammad ibn `Abd Allāh did not invent the ritual sacrifice of animals. The Hebrews had done it for thousands of years. Animal sacrifice was also done by many other civilizations including the Greeks.
Muhammad ibn `Abd Allāh did not introduce animal sacrifice to Arabia as his tribe and many others had been sacrificing to their Pagan gods for centuries and the younger Muhammad ibn `Abd Allāh himself had both sacrificed to pagan gods and eaten the meat of that sacrifice.
Muhammad ibn `Abd Allāh did not invent homosexuality, pedophilia, pederasty, the oppression of homosexuals nor hypocrisy over homosexuality. Muhammad ibn `Abd Allāh merely carried on the traditions of persecuting homosexuals while extolling boy love and offering the cheap promise of plentiful supplies of fresh young boys for those who would die fighting for his cause. What exactly does a martyr with 72 virgins need young boys for? The Qur’an is silent.
Muhammad ibn `Abd Allāh did not invent the strange barbarous practice of circumcision. Jews copied male circumcision from the Egyptians. Circumcision was carried out across large parts of Africa, Asia and the Middle East. Even today the butchery of the genitals of young girls is widespread across Africa, practiced by Muslims, practitioners of African traditional religions and Christians. Female Genital Mutilation is very common in Egypt and Ethiopia among Christians, it is not right to blame this on Muhammad ibn `Abd Allāh.
October 19th, 2012 at 7:52 pm
God, is the logic that governs the universe,we try to understand and decipher. In Saivaism, God is described as one who is beyond what is known now of the past and present (“Munnai Palamaikum, Pinnai Puthumaikum). Beyond these points is the unknown- the ‘God’. The word in Tamil for God is ‘Kadavul’- one who is both beyond us and within us. We yet know very little of us and what is beyond us. We have understood much of what this ‘God’ is, but have much much more to learn. It is likely that we will never know who or what this ‘God’ is. We have learned that there is a planet , 5000 light years away that has four suns, a few days back! What the four suns mean in terms of a single planet is beyond comprehension!
Religions are beliefs that have been institutionalized. These beliefs are but mere ‘Glimpses” of ‘the ‘God’. Most of us practive our religions out of blind faith or habit. When practiced in their true essence, all religions help regulate social conduct, in the context of the environment in which the came forth. They define our utter insignificance in terms of the universe. We are nothing, but our ego does not permit us to accept this. We try to play ‘God” without knowing who this ‘God’ is.
However, religions and beliefs, have become the bone of contention for the common man. Religions and beliefs that define man as unique in his search for the meaning or logic behind what is unfolding around him-the inquiring mind- and elevated him to the highest point in the animal kingdom, have also pushed back man into the lowest point at most times. In terms of the theory of creation, I have always said that, ” Man was God’s mistake”!
October 19th, 2012 at 9:15 pm
TO : Wickrama,
The both Jinn and Angels are not same.Angels are created by light and Jinn’s are by fire.(both are defferent creatures).the difference between Jinn’s and human is,that both are created by different matter.
Now come to the point of article.
I have some quetsion from you,
Is Buddism not believing God?
Is Gauthama Buddha,invited people to worship statue’s?
Is gauthama Buddha ask you people to worship him?
Why so many Statues in Pansal and Vihara?
Why worshiping Gautham Buddha’s bones?
Is Gauthama Buddha God?
Why Buddhists in Sri Lanka killed so many innocents,(around 200000)since independents?
Why Hindus are worshipping Devil’s as there God?
Why Hindus are preaching not to kill animals,while killing Humans?
For now it’s enough.answer it.then remain will follow.
October 19th, 2012 at 9:22 pm
Correction
Why Hindus are worshipping Devil’s as their God
October 19th, 2012 at 10:50 pm
“Why Buddhists in Sri Lanka killed so many innocents,(around 200000)since independents?”
Even if we assume Buddhist killed 2 million, they did not kill to satisfy Buddha or because Buddha said “kill the non-belivers” or expecting 100 girls nest birth. Sinhala Buddhist are great people beyond such stupid didiotic beliefs.
Buddhist kill for daily needs if required, but they know it is not bad and cruel.
Muslims kill knwoing its is good for them and as a respect to hypothetical God , without even a statue seen.
Muslims kill others and kill themselves because of religion. Because of Allah the poor thing.
Other questions do not need answers, if Mohamed Muhandirum lived in Sri lanka, he is supposed to know it. He can research and find out if he doesn’t know.
October 20th, 2012 at 1:18 am
The proof is in the pudding. 1.8 Billion Muslims and growing in the world within a short span of 1400 odd years, Approximately 4.5 Million Muslims will converge in Makkah this month to perform Hajj. No matter what’s being written or said in these posts; the phenomenal growth is unstoppable. There is absolutely no need to slander those who believe; in the one who Created every single Neutrino or slander the one who does not believe in any form of Creator. The truth will be clear at the time of Death.
Lo! those who love that slander should be spread concerning those who believe, theirs will be a painful punishment in the world and the Hereafter. Allah knoweth. Ye know not. (The Noble Quran 23:19)
No soul can ever die except by Allah’s leave and at a term appointed. Whoso desireth the reward of the world, We bestow on him thereof; and whoso desireth the reward of the Hereafter, We bestow on him thereof. We shall reward the thankful. (The Noble Quran 3:145)
Every soul will taste of death. And ye will be paid on the Day of Resurrection only that which ye have fairly earned. Whoso is removed from the Fire and is made to enter paradise, he indeed is triumphant. The life of this world is but comfort of illusion. (The Noble Quran 3:185)
The blind man is not equal with the seer; (The Noble Quran 35:19)
Nor is darkness (tantamount to) light; (The Noble Quran 35:20)
Nor is the shadow equal with the sun’s full heat; (The Noble Quran 35:21)
Nor are the living equal with the dead. Lo! Allah maketh whom He will to hear. Thou canst not reach those who are in the graves. (The Noble Quran 35:22)
Thou art but a warner. (The Noble Quran 35:23)
Lo! We have sent thee with the Truth, a bearer of glad tidings and a warner; and there is not a nation but a warner hath passed among them. (The Noble Quran 35:24)
And if they deny thee, those before them also denied. Their messengers came unto them with clear proofs (of Allah’s Sovereignty), and with the Psalms and the Scripture giving light. (The Noble Quran 35:25)
Say: O disbelievers! (The Noble Quran 109:1) I worship not that which ye worship; (The Noble Quran 109:2) Nor worship ye that which I worship. (The Noble Quran 109:3) And I shall not worship that which ye worship. (The Noble Quran 109:4) Nor will ye worship that which I worship. (The Noble Quran 109:5) Unto you your religion, and unto me my religion. (The Noble Quran 109:6)
October 20th, 2012 at 1:29 am
“The blind man is not equal with the seer” – 100% agreed.
Don’t know why Allah created Buddha.
Mohomud Muhandiram would like to know the Buddhism existed more than 1000 year longer than Islam.
If Buddhists are challanged with killing ( even though killing is a bad kamma) they will answer accordingly. This is why Buddhism still exists. Otherwise all the Buddhist have been eliminated by Muslims long long ago.
Angulimala killed 999 people, yet became Arahant before death.
Buddhist believe in themselves- not mythical Allah or any other god. They will fight themselves without the aid of a mythical creature and win as they see everything intensely where as others could be blind of their illogical, unarguable faith.
October 20th, 2012 at 2:03 am
To Dham or damn.
You mean to say(agreed),there is no any practissing Buddhists in Sri Lanka,and Buddhism is dead(which Gauthama Buddha taught).
You people are disgrace to Gauthama Buddha,(one of the great messenger of God).we never ever disrespect Gauthama Buddha,but we cant agree,what you people are doing.(which Gauthama Buddha not taught).
October 20th, 2012 at 3:01 am
Muhandiram,
There are many practicing Buddhists in Sri Lanka, no doubt. Sri lanka is not alone. There are many practicing ture Buddhists all over the world.
Buddha refuted all “Creator God” nonsence, so how can he be a messenger of the mythical creature Allah ?
Buddha said, “only killing I approve , is killing of defilements ( bad thoughts in the mind). Mohumad is the messenger and he said “go and kill non believers”. How on this earth or heaven Buddha be a messenger of a killer ?
We people are a disgrace to Allah because we spread Metta(Love), Karuna(compassion), Mudita(alguistic joy) and Upekkha , not killing.
October 20th, 2012 at 3:34 am
Dr.Narendran,
I couldn’t agree with you more; ” Man was God’s mistake” but only if there is a creator God. Just to let readers know about God’s thinking and logic let me write a bit about Noah and the Arc.
Even after eating the forbidding fruit decedents of Adam and Eva reached a great success. Success, they may have reached, but the God observed the wickedness and impiety of the man. And that observation led the God to be remorseful. The sheer depravity of man repented the God that he had made man on the earth. (Ge: 6.5-6) says just the way you said.
What I cannot understand is; with his foresight and power, God had not put his children in the correct track. Then God saw his children’s wickedness and decided to punish them by creating a great flood and killed every man, woman and animals on earth. If God is benign he should have foreseen it prevented it. God killed the animals for no fault of their own. What a way to reprimand.
For some luck of the entire living things, a man called Noah and his family found grace in the eyes of the Load. For some unknown reason, God decided to save a male and a female of every kind of animal you can think of as well. They were all saved together in the ark of gopher wood. This story is written in detail and very clearly in chapter 6, 7 & 8 of the book named Torah of the Jewish Bible.
The God thought he could eradicate badness by making a through kill. Though God had wiped out everything but a single good family, he could not make all the new comers pious. He had utterly failed in his attempt to make humans pious to him appropriately.
Of all the humans, only fundamentalists of Jews, Christians and Muslims believe in the creation myth, today. All the namesake Jews, Christians and Muslims study the details of Darwin’s theory of evolution and not the tale of God’s creation. Unbelievers of God exceeds the fanatical believers by far. When added to the numbers of Buddhists, Atheists that do not believe in Creator God, they exceed all the pious by far. So, it is just the same situation today as before the flood. So, did God achieve what he wanted from the great flood? No! He only murdered the young, the old and the sick alike.
If we are to accept the story of Noah, the Arc and the flood to be true, we have to believe, all human beings in this world today have been descended from Noah, his wife, his sons and their wives. Also, we have to accept; each and every animal we see around, and in images in Discovery TV, National Geographic and in many films about nature are born out of the animals that were saved in the Arc.
What’s more, the Jewish Bible says; the God had commanded the size of the arc or the boat that saved Noah and company to be made exactly to 100x50x33 cubits. Whatever the measure of cubit may be, it was made by Noah and his family. Hence, we could easily visualize the size of the Arc would have been. If so, one could imagine the number and the types of animals that have been packed in it too. We could visualize foxes and rabbits, eagles and pigeons, and all kinds of rivals such as lions, tigers, hennas and wilder beast just to name a few, cruising together in perfect harmony for one hundred and fifty days that the flood is said to have lasted?
Anyway, Jews, believe Abraham’s God is the one that steer their life deed. Christians believe the God Jesus steer their life deed. Muslims believe Allah steer their life deed. Truth is; all that falls down to Abraham’s God. And they earnestly pray to that one God and hope to be with him after death. Yet, each say only theirs is true, and accuses the others of being fraud.
Jews, Christians and Muslims never had any harmony throughout their history. Each had been slaying the other to promote their own road-map to God’s heaven. Each one of them prays for the one God and seeks his assistance to kill the other for the sake of that one God. Now televangelist Jimmy Graham has the hypocrisy to say in Larry King live that Muslim’s God is not the God of the Christian. One can only feel pity for their hapless God.
Leela
October 20th, 2012 at 4:32 am
This is getting better by the minute!
Some people are too brain dead to realize that when people become brain dead because of scripture, they behave like a herd of cattle. Its as if they have “clay” in their brains (probably left behind when the creator created them).
Also, there are probably millions of children in the world who believe in Santa Claus. Does it mean Santa Claus exists?
BTW: Leprechauns do exist, it is mentioned in the Book of Leprechauns known as Das Leprechaunis. According to the Das Leprechaunis, the great creator Leprechaun Uno created the world from ice cream and pop corn.
October 20th, 2012 at 4:47 am
There is a simple question that will show that a creator is nothing more than an absurdity,
Q: Can the creator (assuming he exists) create an indestructible object?
If he cannot then he is not omnipotent because he cannot create it in the first place.
If he can then he will no longer be omnipotent because the object he creates cannot be destroyed, so if he cannot destroy his own creation, he is no longer omnipotent.
Let this be the question that makes those who cannot think for themselves think for the first time!
October 20th, 2012 at 5:16 am
You don’t allow them to answer.
If they answered, they would become “those who cannot think for themselves “.
According to Buddhism, the one who thinks he is the God is a deluded individual.
The “God” waited in the heaven all alone for a long long time. No one else was there. He felt a bit lonely and suddenly another being appeared. He thought it must have been created by him. He told the smaller God, I created you.
By the way, the God , after his long long long life span, goes direct to hell. Poor thing!
October 20th, 2012 at 5:25 am
“However, religions and beliefs, have become the bone of contention for the common man. Religions and beliefs that define man as unique in his search for the meaning or logic behind what is unfolding around him-the inquiring mind- and elevated him to the highest point in the animal kingdom, have also pushed back man into the lowest point at most times. In terms of the theory of creation, I have always said that, ” Man was God’s mistake”!
– Dr. Rajasingham Narendran
As a 66 years old well experienced Animal Scientist with PhD from University of Guelph you know better than us about animal kingdom.
But as a person who spent so many years in Wahhabi Kingdom, including working as an Associate Professor at King Faisal University, you should watch the you tube video – the link is provided in one of my comments above
(or search v=MeSSwKffj9o in youtube or google)
October 20th, 2012 at 6:25 am
“The proof is in the pudding. 1.8 Billion Muslims and growing in the world within a short span of 1400 odd years, Approximately 4.5 Million Muslims will converge in Makkah this month to perform Hajj. No matter what’s being written or said in these posts; the phenomenal growth is unstoppable. There is absolutely no need to slander those who believe; in the one who Created every single Neutrino or slander the one who does not believe in any form of Creator. The truth will be clear at the time of Death”
– Hussain Fahmy
Dear Hussain Fahmy !
Do not worry about death right now. You are only 56 years old anyway. ‘Pie in the sky when you die’ is no substitute for not having any real pie while you live in this world. Emoting about angels prophets and spirits does not get countries and nations built. Faith is belief in the absence of proof. But as a committed Muslim living in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, praying five times a day, you live in your own myopic world of Qur’an, like millions of others. Similarly millions of Christians live in their own myopic world of Bible.
Religions are the opium of the masses !!!! Strongly religious people are addicted to their ‘opium’ and will have a hard time quitting it.
“Religion is, indeed, the self-consciousness and self-esteem of man who has either not yet won through to himself, or has already lost himself again. But man is no abstract being squatting outside the world. Man is the world of man – state, society. This state and this society produce religion, which is an inverted consciousness of the world, because they are an inverted world. Religion is the general theory of this world, its encyclopedic compendium, its logic in popular form, its spiritual point d’honneur, its enthusiasm, its moral sanction, its solemn complement, and its universal basis of consolation and justification. It is the fantastic realisation of the human essence since the human essence has not acquired any true reality. The struggle against religion is, therefore, indirectly the struggle against that world whose spiritual aroma is religion.
Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.
The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo.”
– Karl Heinrich Marx
Karl Marx downplayed the negative influence of religions. Religion is not merely an opiate, but a poison.
During Karl Marx’s period opium was practically the only effective pain-killer available and while pain-killers do relieve pain they don’t cure the underlying disease. So it is with religion, at least a lot of the time. Religion is some kind fictitious comfort blanket for existential angst and material hardship. Our lives are filled with many good things, but also with many terrible things as well. No reform can entirely remove evil or disease or death from humanity. Pain and suffering can always be around the corner, in the most unexpected places and times.
Religions are not merely the pain killer of the ignorant but a tool that is used by the powerful to control the powerless. Control, not simply relief from suffering, is likewise at the heart of Islam, Christianity and all other organized religions.
Religions are facile because they provide an easy explanation of the world, thereby freeing the individual of the need to think. Religions are corrupt due to their proponents seek to subvert the weakest of us — the children and the gullible. Religions are harmful since they replace reason with dogma. Religions are dangerous because they replace human innate morality with random construction. We create a ‘god’ in our imagination and then promote this ‘god’ to a position that is above such trivialities as basic human morality. Religions are the license to deviate from morality, in the most perverse ways, without guilt. Religion is the most pernicious form of superstition, a major source of evil, dehumanizing, and impedes progress. Religions are nowadays, often full of anger and resentment, and used as vehicles for protest.
Religions are used to be our opium, but now we have moved on to a more modern drug: MEDIA , television and internet. Even enthusiastic theists spend more time watching the Television and searching internet than time in mosque, church etc. People sit passively in front of screen, lapping it up, mostly, completely uncritically, just absorbing its myriad messages and that’s why Zionists not only control our money , they control our media too.
October 20th, 2012 at 6:54 pm
How people among general public are aware of the last paragraph from NT ?
October 21st, 2012 at 6:17 am
Zionists control the skies too. Dumping thousand of poisious Aluminium into the upper atmosphere on dialy basis.
They are poisoning the world phisically and Wahabis like Fhamy are poisoning the mind of people.
October 22nd, 2012 at 3:58 pm
All that we see and hear are ILLUSIONS. Modern science says that if the nucleus of an atom was the size of an orange then the size of the orbit of the electrons is equal to the size of a foot ball field. This is why all the seers and great Teachers have always said that this life is an Illusion. However there is “something” whatever name you wish to call it, which is sustaining all LIFE.
In an attempt to look at Life from grass roots levels, some of the ideas below will require a paradigm shift in thinking away from the mechanistic way we have been used to think. I hope you do not find it too strange.
For those who are interested there is a book written by Peter Tompkins and Christopher Bird called the “Secret Life of Plants”. They did extensive experiments with plant life. In these experiments, plants were connected to Electroencephalographs to measure reactions accurately. They did a lot of experiments. In one experiment they had a potted plant in one room and a group of people went past it and then one of them tore up the plant. They had another potted plant in another room which was connected to a Electroencephalograph and all the people who went past the first plant went past the second plant. When the person who tore up the first plant came near the second plant, the needles on the Electroencephalograph went wild. This proved that the second plant ‘knew’ what happened to the first plant, and correctly identified the ‘murderer’. They did many experiments to prove plants were ‘sentient’ and it is all there in the book. There is also a video which was made of the work by the same name. It is available as a dvd. What this proves is that Consciousness or Awareness is not limited to human beings and animals. All living things are aware. They only vary in the degree of Consciousness. As you all know, Humans are the most conscious, then the animals, lastly the plants. Animals and humans eat the plants, and humans also eat the animals. (Some humans are less conscious than animals because some animals such as Dolphins are very evolved).
It has been my experience that if we show love to plants or to animals they really reciprocate. Plants will give an abundant yield. In the Secret lives of plants they found that plants produce abundantly when classical music played but wilt when acid rock is played.
In an experiment in UK, mice were taught to run through a maze to get at some food. A control group of mice in Australia, learnt to run the same maze almost immediately to reach their food, without the hesitation of the first group in UK. This proved that the learning process came about very fast, through the ether, proving also that sentient life is connected. They seemed to have communicated through the ether.
In our opinion this is the Cosmic Consciousness that some people refer to, and what the Buddha referring to Nirvana said: “O bhikkus, there is the Unborn, the Ungrown, and Unconditioned. Were there not the Unborn the, Ungrown and the Unconditioned, there would be no escape for the born, grown and conditioned.——————– etc”. He goes on to say “Here the four elements of solidity, fluidity, heat and motion have no place; the notions of length and breadth, the subtle and the gross, the good and evil, name and form are altogether destroyed; neither this world or the other, nor coming or going or standing, neither death nor birth nor sense objects are to be found.” See page 37 (hard copy edition) of “What the Buddha Taught” by Walpola Rahula. In our humble opinion, Nirvana is the experience of this Universal Power (what ever you call it) by the human Conciousness. In India, a form of greeting is Jai Sat Chit Anand. This means ‘glory to Truth (Sat), Chit (Conciousness) and the result of plugging Consciousness into Truth is Bliss (Anand). Truth is another name for this Power. In Meditation, the Human Consciousness can get connected to the Universal Power or Life Energy within us. In practical terms, for a lay person to reach this Consciousness, the three aspects, Dhana, Seela, Bhavana really makes sense.
All the religions are based on the experiences of person who underwent a transformation by becoming one with this Energy. They were then able to transform others who came in contact with them. They tried hard to put into words their experience and from the writings we can see words strive but fail. They all seemed to experience bliss, rapture and a deep state of fulfillment, contentment and peace in their consciousness. However once they were gone only the words remained and even today people are fighting over the words they are trying to interpret. The experience was not in the words but in direct transmission of the experience by the Teachers.
In Russia, experimenters did a lot of work to photograph the aura of living things. There are photographs you can look up on Google called the Kirlian photos which show the aura of living things. One interesting thing is they took a photo of a leaf using the Kirlian method then cut off a part of the leaf and photographed it again. What was revealed was that there was a glowing fine structure of the cut off part of the leaf remaining as an aura or ‘ghost’, which slowly faded over two hours. It means that under the gross body of living things there is a structure composed of energy or Cosmic Consciousness which is the matrix on which the matter is laid down. This would explain how a tree come out of the genes of a tiny seed and yet know exactly where to put the leaves, the branches, the flowers etc. – the ‘ghost’ pattern is in the genetic material.
The whole Universe is interconnected and is permeated by this Energy or Force. If you have the seen the film “Star Wars”, you can see that George Lucas got it right. He had a near death experience when he was 17 yrs old, and that may have had something to do with it. There are many writers such as Gina Cerminara, Dr Raymond Moody, who have documented out of the body experiences (near death) which collaborates that the human Consciousness is not in the brain.
October 28th, 2012 at 4:36 pm
Buddhist priesthood in India was perished by the slaughter of the Buddhist priesthood perpetrated by the Muslim invaders in 11th century. By slaughtering the Buddhist priesthood in India, the Muslim invaders killed Buddhism in India. Thousands of Buddhist monks in India were killed outright by the commanders of Muslim invaders. The Muslim invaders raised to the ground the Buddhist monasteries with which India was studded. The Muslim invaders sacked all the Buddhist Universities in India including Nalanda, Vikramshila, Jagaddala and Odanthapuri. Indian Buddhist monks fled away in thousands from India to Nepal, Tibet and Indo-China.
Due to the the pressures of caste, and with no political support structure left in place to resist social mores, thousands of Buddhists in the Indian sub-continent were converted as Muslims during the Muslim invasion.
Buddhism has seen a revival in India recently due to the the influence of Kripasaran Mahasthavir and Dr Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar. In 1890, Pandit C. Ayodhya Dasa (also known as Ayothee Thass) a Tamil Siddha physician, founded the Sakya Buddhist Society (also known as the Indian Buddhist Association ) in Madras with branches in many places including Karnataka. The first president of the Indian Buddhist Association was the German-born American Paul Carus, the author of The Gospel of Buddha. Pandit Ayodhya DasaThass established a weekly magazine called Oru Paisa Tamizhan (“One Cent Tamil”) in Madras in 1907, which served as a newsletter linking all the new branches of the Sakya Buddhist Society. The magazine discussed traditions and practices of Tamil Buddhism, new developments in the Buddhist world, and the Indian subcontinent’s history from the Buddhist point of view.
Buddhism is a method of cultivating the mind. Since Buddhism affirms that the universe is governed by impersonal laws and not by any creator-god; it has no use for prayer, for the Buddha was a teacher and not a god; and it regards devotion not as a religious obligation but as a means of expressing gratitude to its founder and as a means of self-development. Hence Buddhism is is not a religion at all
Nature abhors a vacuum, and religious entrepreneurs, taking advantage of the situation, seize the opportunity to spew prophetic nonsense. At least some area of life should be left to the individual where the person is totally free, without anybody else deciding for him, where he can open his wings like an eagle and fly across the sun – no chains, no bondages, no hindrances.
Honesty is honesty – it cannot be Muslim, it cannot be Christian. Truth is simply truth – it is neither Christian nor Hindu. Love is simply love – it cannot be Eastern and it cannot be Western. Compassion is compassion – it does not belong to any race, to any country, to any climate; it is not dependent on any geography, or any history.
Meditation is simply so scientific that just as you accept physics without bothering about whether it is Hindu or Muslim, you accept chemistry without ever thinking whether it is Protestant or Catholic. When you go to the doctor, you never bother whether the medicine is Christian or Muslim.
The inner reality is simply a pure silence: thousands of flowers blossom there but they don’t belong to any organization. They are the reward of your own search, of your own inward-going.
All the organized religions care basically depriving humanity of religion because they are misdirecting you. They are always directing you outwards — their God is far away in the sky. And when you pray, folding your hands towards the sky, you don’t realize that there is nobody to hear you.
In fact, the one who is praying, the one who is alive in you, the one who is breathing in you, is the God.
You have just to discover it.
It is hidden in the layers of your false personality. Find out, in your innocence, and life becomes a sheer joy, a song without words, a dance, a celebration. And at the very end of your celebration, there is nothing but tears of gratitude. Those tears of gratitude belong to the individual heart, overflowing with gratefulness towards existence.
Heaven is a “fairy story” for people afraid of the dark. Thoughts of heaven may stave off fears of death and the idea of an afterlife offers some hope in a world where life has been pretty harsh. Religious belief in the afterlife can be a powerful motivator to follow the rules of the religion. If you think of your body as a machine, it’s kind of hard to believe in life after death.Regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers. A deity no longer has any place in theories on the creation of the universe in the light of a series of developments in physics.
We are born and reborn at every moment. Like many other Buddhist teachings, is easily verifiable by reference to our own experience and by science. The cells in the human body die and are replaced thousand times during the course of one’s life. This is part of the process of birth, death and rebirth. If we look at our mind, we find that mental states of worry, happiness etc., change every moment. They die and are replaced by new states. If we look at our body or the mind, our experience is characterized by continuous birth, death and rebirth. Our lives appear to be unbroken blocks of continuous events, but, when we maintain the straightforward frankness of our own mind as it comes to life each instant, even without effort, even without training, we are beautifully born each instant. We die with each instant, and go on to be born again, instant by instant.
Buddhism is a way of life based on the training of the mind. Its one ultimate aim is to show the way to complete liberation from suffering by the attainment of the Unconditioned, a state beyond the range of the normal untrained mind. Its immediate aim is to strike at the roots of suffering in everyday life. All human activity is directed, either immediately or remotely, towards the attainment of happiness in some form or other; or, to express the same thing in negative terms, all human activity is directed towards liberation from some kind of unsatisfactoriness or dissatisfaction. Dissatisfaction, then, can be regarded as the starting point in human activity, with happiness as its ultimate goal.
The material world around us, is not based on ‘loose’ particles with empty space between them. There is no empty space, all is filled with energy. We live in one gigantic energy field. This energy field is even bigger then our universe, and probably encompasses all universes. So this means if we move our arms, we ‘push’ aside energy, and this will have effect throughout the whole field, it will not have huge effect, but it is like we in a pool, and we cause ripples and currents when we splash our arms, not just around us, but in the whole pool. The reality around us is based on different levels of worlds, that all are fixed in this field. Our organs are made out of cells, the cells are made out of cytoplasm, the cytoplasm is made out of molecules, the molecules are made out of neutrons, protons, and electrons, neutrons, protons, and electrons are based on quarks and energy waves, these quarks and energy waves are again based on smaller waves and we will end up in a giant pool of energy.
December 2nd, 2014 at 9:24 pm
All the religions believe that God created the world including people. But if we are created by someone, we are only puppets, we don’t have our own soul. And if we are created by somebody, he can uncreate us any moment. He neither asked us whether we wanted to be created, nor is he going to ask us: “Do you want to be uncreated?” All the strings are in his hands, even our life. Then there is no question of any enlightenment. There is no freedom at all. God pulls the strings, we dance; he pulls the strings, we cry; he pulls the strings, we start war, murders, suicide. We are just a puppet and he is the puppeteer. Then there is no question of sin or virtue, no question of sinners and saints. Nothing is good and nothing is bad, because we are only puppets. A puppet cannot be responsible for its actions. Responsibility belongs to someone who has the freedom to act. Either God can exist or freedom, both cannot exist together.
If we accept God as the creator, we are destroying the whole dignity of consciousness, of freedom, of love. We are taking all responsibility from man, and we are taking all his freedom away. We are reducing the whole of existence to just the whim of a strange fellow called God.
If there is no God and man is free, that will simply mean man is now capable of doing anything, good or bad; there is nobody to judge him, nobody to forgive him. This freedom will be simply licentiousness.
God was non-existential, but it was a good consolation. It used to fill people’s interior, although it was a lie. But even a lie, repeated thousands and thousands of times for millennia, becomes almost a truth. God has been a great consolation to people in their fear, in their dread, in their awareness of old age and death, and beyond – the unknown darkness. Lies can console you, you have to understand it. In fact lies are sweeter than the truth. Truth is bitter in the beginning, sweet in the end, and lies are sweet in the beginning, bitter in the end – when they are exposed. Then comes a tremendous bitterness, that we have been deceived by all our parents, by all our teachers, by all our priests, by all our so-called leaders. We have been continuously deceived. That frustration brings up a great distrust in everybody. Nobody is worthy of trust…It creates a vacuum. The stars and sun and moon, the trees and birds and earth – everything in the universe will feel a small place is vacant which cannot be filled by anybody except you. This gives you a tremendous joy, a fulfillment that you are related to existence, and existence cares for you. Once you are clean and clear, you can see tremendous love falling on you from all dimensions.
When you see the rose flowers blossoming, have you ever thought that all this color, all this softness, all this beauty was hidden somewhere in the seed? But the seed alone was not enough to become a rose, it needed the support of existence – the soil, the water, the sun. Then the seed disappeared into the soil and the rosebush started growing. Now it needs air, it needs water, it needs the earth, it needs the sun, it needs the moon. All these together transform the seed which was almost like a dead piece of stone. Suddenly a transformation, a metamorphosis. These roses, these colors, this beauty, this fragrance, cannot come from it unless existence has it already. It all may be hidden, it may be covered in the seed. But anything that happens means it was there already – maybe as a potential. You have intelligence…