Help- Please

[waitingformyking]

I've been on another board for the past couple of weeks and we discuss geo-political and just recently religious topics. I'm in a den of vipers and wolves. Now I'm looking for a answer to this last reply which would actually give these individuals a chance to rethink thier position.
moderators....I didn't supply the link and I'm hoping I didn't break any rules.

To live a virtuous life is good but to selflessly devote yourself to others with no desire for payback and no thought of doing good for others solely to bring accolade or merit to your self is better.

The key to escaping the physical realm of suffering is to release the ego and care selflessly for all other living beings.

Easier said than done as we all cling to the illusion that there is a Self to satisfy. THe Self is an illusion. The ego is an illusion. When realized, all the world and what we think of as Reality becomes illusion.

Then you will move on.

The power resides in the illusion that is You.

Up to the challenge?

This sounds like New Age. It sounds that you are saying we are Gods ourselves. I remember man tried this once before with the 'Tower of Babel"
I agree to give selflessly is a great gift. More people should adhere to this philosophy.
Yet...you are using words which are becoming more and more prevalent today. You are putting the Creation above the Creator....this is dangerious talk. Our power comes from the Creator. If you didn't add a means to produce electricy in your house, will the house still generator electricity?
Nothing is done without the Creator, this is a huge point which people are missing.
Are you telling me that there is no Creator and we just happen to pop into existence through random occurances?
Are we Gods?
This is why we are heading in the direction we are heading. The desire to eliminate who God is, is another tool to isolate man from the gift of Salvation and Eternity.
It's difficult to except something we can't see or touch, so he told us from over 26 centuries ago, what we will see today. He knew that those who actually looked for the answer would find them in his Book. There is not one person who can actually predict our future exactly like he did.We are limited to what we can do. Can we transcend Time and Space? Do we know exactly what is going to happen anywhere in the World 20 minutes from now?

The truth is hard to take for the majority of the world. The world would rather view truth as something that just pertains to an individual and not something that is objective, because that then leads to something beyond us...outside and transcendent of us. It removes "us" from godhood.

Yes, we are all Gods, some of us accept the weight of the task and others push the responsibility of the mantle onto others. Those "others" were/are Gods as well, why else the accuracy of their documents? Your way of worship is just as valid as any other, but not more valid.

[Rich Kelley]

This isn't going to help one bit, but I've read your post and some thoughts have happened.

I don't have all the answers but I know a wrong answer when I hear one. Often I think it a blessing of the Holy Spirit that I just know something is wrong. Sometimes the reason may show up later in my readings of board threads, the Scripture etc. I have stopped responding or engaging people that make comments that would end up in pages of dribble with no hope. I am not like Paul yet where I can go to a city that has hundreds of gods, and somehow begin talking about one of their gods and end up talking about GOD to some of listeners present. Sometimes there is peace just in knowing that others are wrong and not proving it.

[perigrini]

To live a virtuous life is good but to selflessly devote yourself to others with no desire for payback and no thought of doing good for others solely to bring accolade or merit to your self is better.

The key to escaping the physical realm of suffering is to release the ego and care selflessly for all other living beings.

Easier said than done as we all cling to the illusion that there is a Self to satisfy. THe Self is an illusion. The ego is an illusion. When realized, all the world and what we think of as Reality becomes illusion.

Then you will move on.

The power resides in the illusion that is You.

Up to the challenge?

I've seen this sort of thing presented before, it's tripe.

To live a virtuous life is good but to selflessly devote yourself to others with no desire for payback and no thought of doing good for others solely to bring accolade or merit to your self is better.

Rather one agree or disagrees is immaterial...this is a claim of objective fact, and therefore needs to either be presented as an opinon, or he needs to provide the transcendent source of this claim.

The key to escaping the physical realm of suffering is to release the ego and care selflessly for all other living beings.

Again, another unsupported claim posing as fact. Furthermore, the premise assumes there is no God as what he says one should live for is caring for other living beings. Christians should live for God...which will include taking care of others. The problem is in his focus. He has shifted from the Creator to the creation. This is a very common secular humanist error.

Easier said than done as we all cling to the illusion that there is a Self to satisfy. THe Self is an illusion.

I'm sure this is the portion that threw up "new age" flags for you, and rightly so.
The core assumption here is we are all part of some nebulous single entity and only think we're an individual. Bunk. There no evidence to support such a claim. Although, I suppose if you asked them to prove this they'd come up with more gobbeldy gook.

The ego is an illusion.

The whole post is a series of silliness...of unsupported and unsupportable claims. And he isn't even consistant...he says the ego is an illusion...but then goes on to say...

Then you will move on.

The power resides in the illusion that is You.

Well, if the ego is an illusion, then it's erroneous to refer to "you", which he does twice here. That is to say, if you as an individual is an illusion then it's nonsense to refer to you as an individual. The truth is, at his core, he doesn't believe the junk he's spouting either...although I'm sure you won't get an admission to that.


Blessings,

perigrini

[crmann]

Hi, Waitingformyking.....

I all of my 69 years, I've never come across anyone who is any better than Perigrini in countering these kinds of opinions...

You can depend on Peri...

Thanks, Peri....

[waitingformyking]

Yes....I liked his answers...they weren't bable and had substance. Thank You again.

Even though this board I'm visiting is a complete 180 of what my beliefs are...I'm drawn to it for this certain reason. We can read about things on this board of what beliefs are out there, but actually comfronting them is sweetness in the mouth but sour in the stomac...if you know what I mean.

[crmann]

waitingformyking,

Peri could enter any den of iniquity and back them into a corner from which they could not escape.

[waitingformyking]

Peri,
His source is the "Diamond Sutra", which from my understanding is alot of make me feel good stuff and speaking in circles without giving a definate answer to the question. Are you familiar with this?

[Lookfortruth]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diamond_Sutra

That looks to me like Buddahism....

[waitingformyking]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diamond_Sutra

That looks to me like Buddahism....

It is.... but what little I read from it shows me alot of nothing. I do know they are waiting for a Maitrera (spelling).

From my understanding Budda was a man who decided to live from begging and charity from others until he passed out from starvation and all of a sudden gotten "enlightenment"

[perigrini]

waitingformyking,

Peri could enter any den of iniquity and back them into a corner from which they could not escape.

I appreciate the high regard, but there is a huge number of individuals who are much more skilled than I am in addressing this sort of junk. For example, Constance Cumby is vastly more versed in this cultic realm than I am.
I just have a bit of an eye for faulty arguments.

Blessings,

perigrini

[perigrini]

Peri,
His source is the "Diamond Sutra", which from my understanding is alot of make me feel good stuff and speaking in circles without giving a definate answer to the question. Are you familiar with this?

I am not familar with it, but an amusing line of questioning occurs to me.

This is a snippet from Wikipedia about the Diamond Sutra...

A copy of the Diamond Sutra, found sealed in a cave in China in the early 20th century, is the oldest known printed book, with a date of 868.

Here's another snippet regarding Buddha....

The time of his birth and death are uncertain: most early 20th-century historians date his lifetime from circa 563 BCE to 483 BCE; more recently, however, at a specialist symposium on this question,[2] the majority of those scholars who presented definite opinions gave dates within 20 years either side of 400 BCE for the Buddha's death, with others supporting earlier or later dates.

So the question that comes to mind is, if Buddha lived somewhere between 563 BC and 380 BC depending upon which historian group one ascribes to AND the oldest copy of the book dates to 868 AD, then there is a period of about 1300 years between the oldest copy of the Sutra and the life of Buddha. So how do they know these are actually the teachings of Buddha? And even if they were, how do they know they have not been altered in the millennia between Buddha and the oldest copy?

The reason I find this line of questioning amusing is that it's the same line they throw at the Bible...and yet a Christian can respond (at a minimum) that there is a supernatural God who has insured the transmission of the Bible accurately. Buddhism has no such ability to appeal to supernatural transmission of it's texts.
So I find it amusing to use their own arguments, much more effectively and reasonably, against their own claims to ancient texts.

And as evidence that this line of questioning has some valdity beyond simply amusing me here is an additional excerpt from Wikipedia on Buddha...

The Buddha and his monks spent four months each year discussing and rehearsing his teachings, and after his death his monks set about preserving them. A council was held shortly after his death, and another was held a century later. At these councils the monks attempted to establish and authenticate the extant accounts of the life and teachings of the Buddha following systematic rules. They divided the teachings into distinct but overlapping bodies of material, and assigned specific monks to preserve each one. This was done orally until three generations after the Buddha's death, when they were recorded. By this point, the monks had added or altered some material themselves, in particular magnifying the figure of the Buddha.

If there were not false versions of "Buddha" teachings then there would have been no requirement for a council to combat alternative versions.

Additionally, this clearly states that the monks have added and altered the material.

All this undermines any potential value of the Diamond Sutra because it might be one of the altered texts, or be a later creation entirely, or simply not have been related accurately.

Blessings,

perigrini

PS by way of clarification...I am not suggesting there is any value, potential or real in the Diamond Sutra. What I mean here is that even for a devout follower of this Sutra it should be viewed as compromised.

p.

[Lookfortruth]

Being that this discussion is about other religions, I am going to move it to the proper forum. Thanks!