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Original poster

A Buddhist really wanting Christian answers

137 replies

Pandemonium · 11/01/2008 00:48

I'm considering sending my ds to a Christian infant/primary school and am worrying endlessly about it. I'm a Buddhist but this school is the best one in my catchment area (amongst other poorer performing Christian schools) so my concerns are that I really do not understand the concept of God and what ds will be taught about 'Him'.

As a Buddhist I appreciate the teachings of Jesus, sometimes referred to as a Boddhistva by buddhists; but what is God? I really was brought up to understand in that God was an omniscient male who created the world, an external kind of spiritual presence who understood everyone's deepest souls.

Do Christians currently think the universe is overviewed by this supernatural figure and is this taught to children? Or do Christians believe that God exists as a force within themselves only? Does anyone believe in Heaven, really?

OP posts:
EachPeachPearMum · 11/01/2008 02:40

or even earlier if you want someone other than me to answer!

singledadofthree · 11/01/2008 02:40

have to - am up again soon - and have a hard day ahead.

hedonia · 11/01/2008 02:41

why you up now??

hedonia · 11/01/2008 02:41

why all you up??!

singledadofthree · 11/01/2008 02:42

enjoy a mental/spiritual workout now and then - altho i'm not really used to it.

hedonia · 11/01/2008 02:43

mmmm

hedonia · 11/01/2008 02:43

insominac?

hedonia · 11/01/2008 02:44

butI',m very bad..I'm a sinner!

singledadofthree · 11/01/2008 02:46

dont loose sleep over it - like we're gonna get any - theres always hope for us all.

hedonia · 11/01/2008 02:50

you really thinK

Niecie · 11/01/2008 02:56

This is moving too fast for me - I've got my books out now!!

Am new to studying Christianity, not sure about what I believe in. This is all proving that I have a lot to learn!

What I do believe though is that science and Chrisitianity aren't incompatible.

What I don't believe is that God, if he exists, is controlling the world like some giant computer game and that he decides to do evil/bad things on purpose. I think he is supposed to have created this perfect thing called the universe and that it all got spoiled by Adam and Eve and their apple. As a result bad things happen. God could stop them but doesn't because we haven't all renounced our sins and also because out of evil (which includes crime, natural disasters, disease etc) quite often comes good. We know ourselves better, move closer to God and live a better life. A bit tough on those who get crushed by falling buildings but at least they get to heaven and meet God and all their pain and suffering is over.

People study this stuff for years though. Not easy to answer in a few middle-of-the-night sentences!

DutchOma · 11/01/2008 11:41

As far as 9/11 goes, I believe we missed a golden opportunity here and George Bush and Tony Blair messed it up for us.
We had the chance to say:-"Ok, this has happened, it was an awful thing to do, but maybe you had a point, I don't know. So, let's spend all the money we would otherwise spend on retribution on restoration. Let's invest in food programmes for the third world, let's take the Christian point of view that we forgive those who trespass against us." Did we? Like heck. Would God have wanted us to do that? Well? What do you think? Was it His fault we didn't?
God is good, but we are sinners and must all share the blame. God does His very best for us in sending Jesus to take our sin upon Himself. He doesn't force us to believe, that would totally defy the object of the exercise. He gives us the chance and we can take it or leave it.

As far as the school question is concerned:- there's good and bad everywhere and it depends a lot on the people who run it. If they can manage to teach your child that God is good and cares for them, all good and well. If not, find a different school.

SueBaroo · 11/01/2008 11:50

OK, well, as a Christian, I believe all of existence is ruled over by a personal diety. I believe that He is present everywhere, but is also especially resident outside of our existence, in what I would call 'Heaven'. He is uncreated - the uncaused cause, if you like.

Original poster
Pandemonium · 11/01/2008 16:46

Dutchoma I agree with you absolutely about the missed opportunity following 9/11 but both Bush and Blair are high-profile Christians and failed to follow Jesus's teaching on this with devastating consequences. No, it is not 'God's' fault.

Niecie, you talk about 'going to heaven and meet[ing] God' in a very matter-of-fact way! Does God assume human form for this meeting do you think or is it a meeting of 'spirits' in the air around us?

In buddhist teaching human nature has a tendency towards anger, greed and stupidity and happiness lies in our ability to transform these poisons into positive value creating thoughts and actions. It is a personal effort and only achieved through strong determination to create happiness for oneself and others.

I do not want ds to form the belief that he is simply a 'sinner' but just believing in a God makes it somehow better.

OP posts:
SueBaroo · 11/01/2008 16:48

Pandemonium, meeting God will be pretty much beyond our frame of reference, I would have thought. But Jesus is still Jesus, I suppose.

It isn't Christian belief that 'we are sinners, but if we believe in a God, that's makes us better'.

Original poster
Pandemonium · 11/01/2008 16:56

Must you die to meet God? Can you meet him in life, perhaps through prayer?

OP posts:
Original poster
Pandemonium · 11/01/2008 16:58

and Christians do believe we are all sinners right?

OP posts:
SueBaroo · 11/01/2008 17:06

Christian belief is that meeting God is something we all do at some point, for good or ill. It is certainly possible to meet Him in this life, through faith.
It is a Christian belief that we are all sinners, yes.

DutchOma · 11/01/2008 17:20

It is a Christian belief that we are all sinners and there is nothing we can do about changing that.
Christians believe that Jesus came to live on this earth for a while, died on the cross for our sins (He had no sin of his own) and so made us perfect in God's eyes. We can accept or reject that sacrifice but the Jesus says that "nobody comes to the Father except through me".

Original poster
Pandemonium · 11/01/2008 18:41

SB no wish to nitpick but under what circumstances could meeting God be 'for ill' ? Is it the punitive God of the old Testament you refer to?

Btw many thanks for all these replies. I'm trying to understand all this.

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SueBaroo · 11/01/2008 18:49

You're not nitpicky, you're asking reasonable questions.

It's the holy God of the entire bible, actually, I don't understand there to be two different Gods in the bible.

It's my belief that meeting God with any sense of your own goodness or self-righteousness is a very bad idea indeed, because God has standards of goodness that we cannot reach in and of ourselves.

Niecie · 11/01/2008 21:00

Pandemonium - I have no idea what heaven is like tbh! I don't think anybody really knows as nobody on earth has been there yet. I can only assume that it will be like the perfect place that God created when he made the world before Adam and Eve ate the apple. I don't know if that is a view shared by anybody else!

Original poster
Pandemonium · 12/01/2008 01:37

Niecie, yes Heaven is the destination then, but we have 'no idea what heaven is like'?

Does the church debate this; try and clarify?

Nobody seems to know any of it. Do Christians Imagine, reach through prayer, sense their God? Are there realisations, truths understood, eternal lives gloriously gained? Its seems a bit limp tbh..meeting God is 'beyond our frame of reference'...'nobody really knows' about heaven....

so what will a Christian teach ds about the world?

Something they were taught themselves by another priest as some sort of half-truth half-myth? Where does science stand or provable theory?

Everyone seems to be guessing .

OP posts:
SueBaroo · 12/01/2008 02:08

Revelation 4 is where we get some of our information about heaven, pandemonium. You might notice that passage is less about a place, more about the person of Almighty God.

The Christian faith is primarily based on the biblical record, so that's where the 'concrete' nature of our faith is found.

I experience God by praying to Him, and reading His word in the bible, which is, in a spiritual sense, made alive to me by his Holy Spirit.

It's hard to be able to say what Christians would teach your son, because there are a lot of different people in various different flavours of Christian religion. Some Christians believe God started the big bang and the process of evolution, some of us believe He had a much more direct 'hands-on' approach. But I would think any school would have to follow a standard curriculum that you could see for yourself anyway.

If I were teaching your son, I'd encourage him to use his critical faculties to the full, because I believe God gave us minds and an intellect to use, not to bypass.

Does any of that help at all?

Yummers · 13/01/2008 13:42

hmm... just a thought and i know i'll get flamed for saying this, but why would you want to send your child to a christian school if you have such fundamental doubts about christianity? These schools are already famously over-subscribed, with regular church goers having to take on insane amounts of work within the church in order to qualify as being 'actively engaged within church life' and get their children in. Is it really fair to push the competition up even further by attempting to send your child to a school when you're not even sure you wnat him to follow the religious doctrine which will be an integral part of his education? Isn't Buddhism about honesty and being true to your inner self????