[Buddha-l] the existence of God in Buddhism

[Piya Tan]

This sort of nitty gritty I suppose is what is grist for the academic mill:
it's what get the academics paid.

For me, Buddhism smells just as sweet by any name since it brings me great
happiness and acceptance of life, realizing what a huge big ego I have and
finding ways of blowing it bigger so that it will burst.

This is also an interesting reflection on naama,ruupa: we simply need to
name something before we can relate to it.

Still, as a famous linguist once said: The name is not the thing named. or
more simpy: the word is not the thing.

Looks like the Johannine Gospel hits a brick wall here as far as linguistics
go. Evangelists in old Burma once tried smuggling Christianity into the
country by translating John 1:1 into Burmese as "In the beginning was the
Dharma, and the Dharma was with God, and the Dharma was God." Hm that's what
Buddhadasa once said too.

That's great because I foresee the next millennium, maybe sooner, when
labels stick more loosely and people look more towards the true inner
stillness of the storm's eye.

Piya

On 8/24/06, Ilana Maymind <maymind.3 at osu.edu> wrote:
>
>  Emilio Gentile in a newly published *Politics as Religion*, (Princeton
> University Press, 2006) in his discussion related to the term "secular
> religion" (used interchangeably with "political religion" or "secular
> religion") states the following: " If, for example, your definition of a
> religion is premised on the existence of a supernatural divinity, then you
> would be justified in denying that a belief system that considers a secular
> entity to be sacred could be a religious phenomenon.  However, if we accept
> this definition, we would be obliged *to deny that Buddhism is a religious
> phenomenon, because it does not allow for the existence of God,* whereas
> the Nazi political religion could be considered a religious phenomenon,
> because it did not deny the existence of god, even though it dressed that
> god up in its own ideology" (3).
>
> I wonder if anyone could comment on the highlighted?
>
> Thank you
>
> Ilana Maymind
> Generated through Dragon NaturallySpeaking 7.3
>
> A great truth wants to be criticized, not idolized
> Nietzsche
>
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