Wednesday, May 22, 2013

From Yuttadhammo: Team Mormon vs. Team Buddha


Team Mormon vs. Team Buddha Posted on September 18, 2010 by Yuttadhammo The Mormons came to visit today. What I learned: Very few people go to hell. Judas Escariot is one of them. I am not. There are three kingdoms of God. I’m probably going to the second one. Only in the third kingdom do you “get” to be with your family for the rest of eternity. rotfl. Jesus will not bring the Armageddon, he will come to end it. (Me: Nice of him. Them: Yeah, sure is.) God has a physical body, but in the beginning we didn’t. God gave us physical bodies so we could be more like him We have to suffer because God wants to teach us something. Even babies that get smashed off of trees. God has a physical body because he went through what we are going through. The last point was a personal belief of Elder Greg, and really set up a bridge between us; I expressed my appreciation of such open-mindedness, and explained that in Buddhism we believe everyone, godly and human, has things to learn as well; the only difference is that we on my side of the bridge don’t find the necessity to bring a creator into the picture at all… the universe does a great job teaching us already. That and the fact that we don’t consider living with ones family for the rest of eternity the summum bonum of existence. I don’t, anyway We compared moral codes – they are stricter than me in that they don’t get to use the Internet except for email. They have to live off $100 a day in food. I gave them my left over alms food and told them to come back every day if they like. I gave them books and DVDs on how to meditate, they gave me a Book of Mormon, some pamphlets and a DVD. All in all, they were pretty cool, except for the whole Jesus Christ thing, but they gave me examples of how important things like compassion and peace are in their religion and we left it at that. After all, what do I care if they believe Jesus Christ was the son of God? They weren’t pushy or overbearing at all, and the most important thing about them is that I got the feeling I could have left them my apartment for a week and come back to find everything in better condition than when I left it. More than I can say for some of my fellow atheists… This entry was posted in Uncategorized and tagged america, god, humour, samsara, society, suffering. Bookmark the permalink. ← Mindful UniverseDetermination FAIL → 8 Responses to Team Mormon vs. Team Buddha dstoker says: September 19, 2010 at 10:03 am Hi, I stumbled across your blog today, the combination of Mormons, Monks, Wats caught my attention. I am a believing Mormon who was a missionary among Cambodia refugees in Massachusetts, which indelibly heightened my attachment to Buddhism and the culture, history and people of Southeast Asia . I've compared some elements of Mormonism and Theravada Buddhism on my own blog before if you're interested. http://thoughtsofaseeker.net/monks-in-caves-or-sa… I do think Mormons and Buddhists can have some interesting discussions that are not possible between traditional Christianity and Buddhism. Mormons reject traditional Christianity's beliefs in original sin, have very different views of the physical body than traditional Christianity, and Mormonism has a unique parallel to the bodhisattvas of Mahayana Buddhism, namely the comparison of Kuan Yin and the Three Nephites. Obviously there are some conflicting presuppositions when looking at the underlying philosophy/theology but in the end I think both groups respect one another for the ideals of ridding oneself of covetousness, lust and the things of this world to a way of life that is devoid of cruelty, falsehood, and wrongfulness to others. Log in to Reply Yuttadhammo says: September 19, 2010 at 11:24 am Hey, thanks for stopping by and leaving your comment. I am happy to have the thought that with a little open-mindedness we can actually work together to make the world a better place, rather than waste our time and effort fighting over the truth of history. All the best to you – if these two guys come back, I'll tell them you stopped in. Log in to Reply Mettaboy says: September 19, 2010 at 5:05 pm Mutual respect, acceptance and goodwill–well done by both sides. Log in to Reply Bob Z says: September 21, 2010 at 4:49 am My son is a converted Mormon. Recently my wife and I attended a Mormon service when my grand daughter was presented to the Congregation. During the course of the service, many young people got up to share their thoughts about going to the main temple – we live outside Washington DC – and baptizing dead people by proxy. I was struck by the compassion for the deceased shown by these young people. Any who, thanks for the great post and for feeding those Mormon kids. Log in to Reply Yuttadhammo says: September 21, 2010 at 12:57 pm Thanks for sharing that. The two kids didn't actually take the food, but they came back to the neighbourhood yesterday and I confronted them about it. They admitted to forgetting to take it, and as punishment I gave them another bag full to carry back, extracting promises from them to come back and get more when they are in the neighbourhood again. I asked them if they had anyone to share it with, because it was really a lot of food; turns out there are four of them in all, so I imagine it will go to good use. On the other hand, I imagine some of my neighbours would not be so pleased to know I'm encouraging them in their shenanigans… Log in to Reply paraselenee says: September 21, 2010 at 8:56 pm I recently found your YouTube videos and ultimately this page. I just wanna know, as a practicing Buddhist atheist, what do you have against atheists? I feel I need to make amends for any atheist who has offended you. Not all of us are bad or as ruthless as Bill Maher (I like his stance on monotheism, but differ with Buddhism [yes, I'm biased]). I try to live my life by the teachings of Buddha, but ultimately don't believe in god[s]. I hope that there is a way to change the way you view atheists as a whole. We are not all bad people out to mock all religions. We're just plagued by those who give us a bad name. Log in to Reply Yuttadhammo says: September 21, 2010 at 9:07 pm I don't have anything against atheists, what gave you that idea? I think I'm fairly clear in my videos and blog posts that I am an atheist myself. I don't think there is any "we" in atheism, though, since it is merely the lack of belief. I find people like Bill Maher, Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Matt Dillahunty, etc. offensive not because of their atheism but because they seem to think that being atheist means holding an outdated, classical-physics-based, materialistic view of reality which in turn renders them inoculated against any sort of mental development whatsoever. They are crude people with crude beliefs that belong in the stone age along with God, prayer and superstition. But no, I think atheism is just a sign of intelligence, nothing more, nothing less. Log in to Reply ew1234 says: October 10, 2010 at 10:02 pm A few times I let Jehovah's witnesses in my house. They live on $100 in food? Where do they sleep? I will be kinder to the Mormon boys when they say hi to me. I thought they just collected money for the church. The jehovah's witnesses sell the little books. I guess the mormons are different.

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