Could a Christian-Buddhist merge be theoretically possible while still upholding the principals of each religion?
Speculation and Ideas
Samuel Cruz
Jack White
How would anatta work? How would dependence origination work? Or sunyata?
These are core concepts that contradict with Christianity.
Luis Myers
>anatta
A form of "life force" that may change but is there
>dependence origination
These form the "spokes" of the "wheel", combined these could help with communication with God?
>sunyata
got me there, I have nothing.
I'm no expert on any of this I simply think that, there might be more to the puzzle that is "the mystery of faith". I see both of these religions as (in they're most basic of concepts) a form of philosophy.
Evan Cox
Or I guess, could elements of Buddhism be adopted as part of Christianity?
John Martin
Don't know but it could be of help to take a look at the historical approximations of it in Manichaeism and Pure Land Buddhism.
Brandon Green
Love and peace? Be good to others?
Standard morals are standard. Underlying is completely alien to each other.
Austin Green
Ignoring the reality of these two religions ever coming into contact enough to stimulate a hybrid Christian-Buddhist religion and that each has innumerable sects and localizations,theoretically any two religions can combine to form a hybrid, but it would either be a highly complex religion with complicated iconography, ceremonies, traditions, rituals, etc. or each religion would lose a lot of its characteristics in the process. I think a good example is Shinto and Buddhism which are pretty much completely synthesized as a hybrid religion in Japan where people openly worship sacred power from both religions without problems.
It would of course never be likely, but it is possible given the right circumstances. I think when you consider religions as bodies of rules, dogma, philosophies, etc. then it's hard to imagine any two religions combining, but when you focus on the core religious experiences of both Buddhism and Christianity, that is to say their rituals and connections between the sacred and the mundane, you might find that the religions could be creatively synthesized.
Levi Thompson
The East has a less absolutist attitude compared to most of Christianity. For Christianity to be more like Buddhist cultures they'd have to stop seeing their religion as a be and end all to everything and see it as more of a beneficial and perhaps most effective practice, which is probably unlikely to happen.
That just leaves traditional ceremonies and festivities and such like those which were incorporated across the Christian world and would be most fitting in evangelized Buddhist societies.
Brody Stewart
>These contradict
Explain how.
Bentley Sanders
Yeah, like I said, if you try to compare theology, philosophy, ethics, etc. they'll never ever come together. But considering core religious experiences, I could see a hybrid religion in which you could consume the eucharist, meditate, visit a temple for some ceremonies, visit a church for others. Veneration to Boddhisattvas isn't terribly different from saints, and Jesus could easily be interpreted as a Buddha or boddhisattva. Maitreya is the Buddha of the Future who is a boddhisattva now but will return as a Buddha in the next era, doesn't sound that far off a second coming of Christ. I could definitely see the two combine, but not if you're dragging sutras and the Bible and hoping they mash together seamlessly.
James Lewis
Another notable blending of Abrahamic and Indic belief appears to have occurred in South Asian Sufism when one compares the dervishes with the sadhus. I don't really know much about it but at a cursory glance it looks as if they were forcibly or unwillingly converted to Islam and motivated to retain their native traditions even more faithfully as a result. Also just the general repeated worldwide incidence of people diverging from established forms of orthodoxy.
Bentley Clark
Either you guys don't know what they are or you don't know Christianity.
>Anatta
Also known simply as "no-self", reference to how the idea of self/the soul/etc are fabrications/fictions created by the mind. There is a lot more in this, you can read about it on wiki or other books.
This is a direct contradiction on the immortality of the soul, the soul of man, jesus, god, etc.
>dependence origination
There are two ways to go about this. First, since we don't have a "self"/"soul", how are we existing in the first place and what exist? This is the explanation. Basically saying "we" exist because of a cycle of ignorance of the self. Its got plenty of books/articles on the subject.
Two, since we do not have a self/a soul/an essence(anatta), what exists is merely chains of inter-dependent existence.
>Sunyata
On top on the above two, is Sunyata. Given the idea of lack of self/essence/soul/etc of a person, this is extended towards every phenomena in existence. With this, the problems of causality arises, the problems of motion, time, change, etc Nagarjuana wrote a whole book about it. One of the core of Mahayana is basically based on Nagarjuna's refinement of emptiness.
But don't let this fool you, Nagarjuna's work is also applicable to every Buddhist tradition including Theravada since there is no contradiction in his claim and Buddha's "original sayings". Its merely refined and simplified way of combining anatta, impermanance(also a huge contradiction to christianity), dependence origination, and many other buddhist core ideas.
The idea of Sunyata absolutely breaks everything in Christianity. Not only that, it breaks most of the assumed essence-based philosophies like Plato/Socrates/Hindus philosophies/etc. Hindus have come up with a fairly weak strategy by adopting this Sunyata and reframing it as a monist(all is one) idea. They call it Advaita. Sunyata is (all is empty, dependent).
Jace Sanders
Good answers that all equate to "NO". Lets shift the thread theme a bit. Could each religion (Christian & Buddhist), evolve to a point in the way of thinking where they could be closely similar? In the way that we have christian sects?
Sebastian Stewart
Does Buddhism say anything in regards to a diety?
Hunter Johnson
Buddha taught after reaching enlightenment due to the advices from gods.The gods, while they may be seen as powerful, are still unable to free you from Samsara. Buddha tells his follower to stop worshiping and start meditating. Gods became Buddhas followers as well.
Also, since Gods are part of the Samsara, this means they were once mortals too being reborn in the higher God realms due to their high positive karma count. The problem is, Buddhism isn't about acquiring karma points. Its about destroying the whole karma system, but with lots of negative karma at the baseline, the first part is to reach net zero. This means actions that are seen as positives reduce the net negative karmas
Ayden Reyes
Pretty much everything with the exception of the realms of hell and the angel realms(and gods/angels/devils/ghosts/spirits)
Carson Campbell
Also Gods can go "down" a tier and up just being a human is "higher" than a goat. Also there's no creator deity, some might have powers over nature but ultimately(according to The Buddha) being a god isn't all that and shouldn't be a goal in itself.
Camden Long
There is literally no contradiction whatsoever in the doctrines of anatta/sunyata and the doctrine of an immortal soul. The contradiction is entirely one of existentialism vs essentialism/platonism, the latter of which is not remotely required for Christianity despite heavily featuring in medieval theology.
The point of anatta isn't that there is no 'self', but that 'self' is not an unchanging independent existence but a constantly changing collection of interconnected aggragates. The idea that this ever-shifting mass is truly immortal would defy Buddhism, but it wouldn't contradict those specific doctrines remotely.
Impermanence also isn't a contradiction, if anything it serves as a good contrast between the unconditioned, Creator [who is a Being] and the conditioned, everchanging Created [who are not Beings, but Becomings]
Chase Walker
Sunyata negates any sort of immortality.
Anatta negates an immortal soul.
Dependence origination negates interaction of an immortal soul with non-immortal bodies.
Impermanence negates immortal souls, immortal gods, immortal xyz, etc
An immortal soul, an immortal god cannot interact, cause, uncause, condition, uncondition, create or uncreate anything. That is what Buddhism points at.
The very idea of "Creation", "created" and "creator" are the problems highlighted by Sunyata. Not only that, the idea of "Creator" is told as a joke by Buddha. Majority of Buddhist monk/philosopher and Buddha since the ancient times have refuted any idea of such a deity. Even modern day Buddhism unilaterally rejects the idea of a Creator God. The two biggest Buddhist libraries have put out an article each due to this hippie notion that Buddhism is somehow okay with a Creator God.
>buddhanet.net
>accesstoinsight.org
Lets move on from this discussion, since the idea of core Buddhist tenants are contradictory to core of christianity, its best to look at it from superficial view to get something going.
Historically Mani has been a good example. It has adopted some of Buddhist practices like monastics/monk lifestyle. It has adopted Buddhist division of monastic/lay. Since we know Mani has influenced Christianity in these regards, we can say Buddhism and Christianity are already mingling to a degree.
But a full merger, as per OP's idea requires one side to give out on their core idea almost completely.
Angel Williams
JESUS WAS BLACK, you dumbass!
Austin Ward
People already think that Christianity is a coherent belief system, so yeah, anything is possible.
Caleb Fisher
Look up Alan Watts' theory on christ, Jesus himself preached Buddhist, or rather Taoist, ideals.
Levi Rodriguez
good post. also look at early christian gnosticism.
Brody Butler
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Robert Walker
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Hunter Wilson
>Jesus himself preached Buddhist, or rather Taoist, ideals.