Buddhism vs. Biblical Christianity
Intro
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Good morning, if you are joining us today, we have begun a series called Faithology where we are looking at and comparing different religions of the world to Biblical Christianity.
Easter – Biblical Christianity
We started on Easter and saw the essential beliefs of Biblical Christianity, the things that you have got to believe according to the Bible to call yourself a Christian.
Last Week - Islam
Last week we looked at Islam and saw how Islam started and seen that it has grown through conquering other lands and either forcing conversions or taxing or killing non-converts.
We saw that their writings have come through one man, Muhammad,
who never did any miracles,
who is dead to this day, and
who gained power, influence and woman because of the things he said and preached.
This Week - Buddhism
This week we are going to take a look at Buddhism vs. Biblical Christianity.
When I say Buddhism or if you think of a Buddhist, one of 2 things may pop in your mind: Either the Dalai Lama or Tiger Woods.
Tiger Woods
Tiger may pop into your mind when you here Buddhist because of a recent press conference where he was apologizing for his behavior and failings over the past 6 months and where he admitted to be a Buddhist and where he said he needs to get back to his Buddhist roots to help him be a better person.
At that press conference he said, “People probably don’t realize it, but I was raised a Buddhist, and I actively practiced my faith from childhood until I drifted away from it in recent years. Buddhism teaches that a craving for things outside ourselves causes an unhappy and pointless search for security.” (Tiger Woods, press conference, Feb 19th 2010)
Or
Dalai Lama
Maybe you think of the Dalai Lama. The Dalai Lama is the leader of a branch of Buddhism practiced by Tibetan Monks.
You probably have no idea what he believes or what he does, just that he is some sort of Buddhist Monk.
Well today, as we have been doing, we are going to look at some of the beliefs of Buddhism and seek to compare that against Biblical Christianity
to help us gain a better idea of what Buddhism teaches,
to help us be better assured of the truth of Christianity, and
to help us be better equipped to talk to Buddhists the Lord puts in our life.
Background and Overview of Buddhism
Buddhism was founded by Siddhartha Gautama,
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the Buddha, around 500BC
He was born to parents who were nobility in Nepal.
Supposedly, a man had come to his father and said that his son would either be a great king or would lead a holy, ascetic, life.
His father wanted him to be a king, so he kept him from the religious leaders of his day which in that area were Hindu, and from seeing much outside of the city walls of the kingdom.
His father raised him in luxury with all that he could want and kept him in the palace area.
Gautama got married and had a son, but when Gautama was 29, he ended up going out of the city walls and it was outside the walls that
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he saw the “4 sights” which were
An old man with regrets
A sick man suffering
A dead man
An “Ascetic” man, who had renounced material comforts, carrying a begging bowl
It was through these sights that he realized that everyone suffers.
Now Gautama had lived 29 years in the life of luxury, but he realized that as he got older, he too would suffer because this seemed to be the fate of every man.
So he left his home and his family and visited the holy men of the day, and lived an ascetic life for the next 6 years,
renouncing material comforts,
exposing himself to pain,
fasting to where he nearly starved himself to death.
He took this to its extreme and realized there he had not overcome suffering.
He finally sat under a Bodhi tree and began meditating. After many days of meditation, he is said to have reached a state of nirvana, of freedom from suffering and he became the Buddha, the enlightened one.
This enlightenment led to what is known as the
Four Noble Truths
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These four noble truths basically say that
Life means Suffering
The origin of Suffering is attachment
The end of Suffering can be attained
Suffering can be ended by following the Noble Eightfold Path
And this eightfold path included 8 things that you must do to end suffering in your life and achieve nirvana, “the supreme state free from suffering and individual existence.” http://library.thinkquest.org/28505/buddhism/nirva.htm
This eightfold path that must be pursued is
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Right Knowledge
Right Thinking
Right Speech
Right Conduct
Right Livelihood
Right Effort
Right Mindfulness
Right Concentration
Now these are not bad things and pursuing these are not what puts Buddhism in conflict with Christianity.
All true Christians would seek to practice all of those things listed.
Now Buddhists and Christians may disagree on what exactly those things are, but Christians pursue those things to the glory of God.
No, this 8 fold path is not what differentiaties Buddhism from Christianity.
But, there are quite a few other fundamental issues that differentiate Buddhism from Christianity.
The First and main thing that differentiates Buddhism from Christianity is the fact that
Buddhism is Non-theistic while Christianity is Monotheistic
Now this doesn’t necessarily mean Buddhism is Atheistic, which doesn’t believe in God, but Buddhists only say that it has no set belief or teaching about God, which honestly is no different from Atheism.
You can hear this from some of the teaching of Buddhist monks.
According to one Buddhist Monk, “God is not what Buddhism is about... Suffering is... Buddhist’s don’t believe God can end suffering. Only the teaching’s of the Buddha can help us end suffering through wisdom and the activity of compassion.
Kusala Bhikshu (Buddhist Monk - Accessed 4/13/2010 at http://www.urbandharma.org/udharma3/budgod.html)
From a Buddhist website that seeks to help people understand Buddhism, is says,
“In Buddhism there is not, as in most other religions, an Almighty God to be obeyed and feared. The Buddha does not believe in a cosmic potentate, omniscient and omnipresent. In Buddhism there are no divine revelations or divine messengers. A Buddhist is, therefore, not subservient to any higher supernatural power which controls his destinies... Buddhism recognizes the infinite latent possibilities of man and teaches that man can gain deliverance from suffering by his own efforts independent of divine help or mediating priests.” (Narada Thera - Accessed on 4/13/2010 at http://www.buddhanet.net/nutshell03.htm)
This is a problem for a couple of reasons.
Evidence for God
First, the evidence for God is overwhelming. It is just not logical to not believe in God.
The evidence of a Designer in the Universe
The evidence of a Beginning and thus a Beginner in the Universe, a first cause, if you will.
The internal evidence of a knowledge of God in each person.
What about those who don’t believe? It is because they wanted to follow their own thinking and ways initially and then their thinking became futile and their hearts were darkened.
Romans 1:18-23 - 18 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19 since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20 For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities-his eternal power and divine nature-have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.
21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.
And the evidence for this knowledge of God is found everywhere, because even though people’s ideas of God get warped, they are looking for some God because of the last evidence for God,
The internal knowledge of right and wrong.
Buddhists recognize some things as right and wrong, but they determine what is right and wrong by asking if it helps you to come to a place of Nirvana, free from suffering. Who or how this works or why this is, is never discussed in Buddhism.
Christianity, on the other hand is monotheistic, believing in One True God. (James 2:19; Deuteronomy 6:4)
So Buddhism, from my standpoint, not only fails at the very beginning to address the deepest questions of man and ignores the evidenced for God, but not believing in God leads to many other problems in thinking and leads to other differences between Buddhism and Christianity, like
Buddhism teaches the origin of Suffering is attachment while Christianity teaches the origin of suffering is Sin
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In the 4 noble truths of Buddhism we talked about earlier, Buddha said that life means suffering, because he saw that all people suffer at times. I think this is true as well. We are going to experience suffering in this life.
But Buddhism, since it is man centered, and has no belief or teaching about God, believes that the goal and purpose of life should be to end suffering.
Buddha saw that when people liked or desired stuff or things or people or life, they suffered. Therefore, we have the second of the 4 noble truths, “The origin of suffering is attachment.”
He thought people only suffer when they are attached to things.
Christianity, however teaches that the origin of suffering is Sin
It goes all the way back to the beginning. Because of Adam & Eve’s disobedience to God, a curse came upon the world and brought suffering and pain and death into a world that had never experienced it.
In Genesis 3:16-19, we see that
woman suffer in childbirth
men suffer due to difficult work environments now, and that
death has entered the world with disease and sickness and more suffering.
So it is sin that is the origin of suffering according to Christianity.
This leads to other problems as well such as the ways to overcome suffering by detaching ourselves from any desire. This would be right knowledge and right thinking to a Buddhist.
Ultimately, Buddhism leads to a belief that life and self are just an illusion and the purpose of life is to be free from this illusion and be one with the universe.
The person who avoids become attached or desiring anything will reach a state of nirvana, which is not some feeling of ecstasy, but more of a nothingness. Nirvana actually means a “blowing out” as in blowing out of a flame. Buddhists believe that means freedom because then you are free from being attached to the illusion of life anymore and you are at one with all the energy of the universe.
It is this belief of having to reach perfect enlightenment or Nirvana, that leads
Buddhists to teach Reincarnation, while
Christians believe in and teach Resurrection.
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They had to come up with something for those people who don’t reach Nirvana in their lifetime answering the question, what happens when you die and you never achieved nirvana? Your energy is put back into someone or something else, depending on how you lived life, until reach the state of nirvana.
Now there are a boatload of logical problems with this belief.
Who determines the rules for reaching nirvana, if not God?
Who set this whole thing into motion?
Who puts your energy into something else?
They believe in something called karma, which is the sum of all the good or bad we have ever done and determines what we come back as. Bad karma translates to bad reincarnation. Good karma translates into good reincarnation. This is also why Buddhists won’t kill a bug or anything, it might be there deceased relative or it might create bad Karma.
Resurrection
This idea of reincarnation is another fundamental disagreement with Christianity because Christianity teaches and believes in resurrection.
We have been created by God in His image to be eternal, personal beings.
After death, we are judged according to our righteousness.
This is a problem, because none of us our righteous, because we have all sinned.
The penalty for sin is death, separation from God, ultimate suffering.
But because God loved us so much (Buddhists may say that God has not reached a state of Nirvana, since he loves so much his creation, that is if they believed in God). But because God loves us so much, he paid the penalty through the Son of God enduring separation from God and then providing the Son’s perfect righteousness to all who will put their trust in Him, believing in Who He is and what he did.
Those who receive and believe in Him, will be resurrected after they die to eternal life. (John 11:25-26)
Those who do not receive Jesus as their Savior, will also be resurrected, however, they will be eternally separated from God because they failed to receive the only way of salvation there is, the Way God has provided.
So Christianity would again fundamentally be in complete disagreement with Buddhism’s beliefs.
But if, for the sake of argument, we were following Buddhism. How does one overcome desire and attachment?
This is where some of the practices of Buddhism come in.
Buddhism teaches Mediation that empties your mind
Christianity teaches Meditation that fills your mind
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If you read any teachings about Buddhist meditation, you are basically told to focus on your breathing, and this becomes easier and you are better able to put anything else out of your mind, you can move on to a more advanced form of meditation called shikantaza, or emptiness meditation.
A website that promotes Buddhist mediation says that in this type of meditation, “you don’t follow anything at all. There is no concentration -- only quiet mindfulness. You hold your mind as if you were ready for things to happen, but don’t allow your mind to become attached to anything. Things -- sounds, smells, aches, thoughts, images -- just drift in and out, like clouds in a light breeze.”
http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/meditation.html
Doing this I do believe will help you to become detached.
But I want to ask you, how is being detached really living?
It isn’t really living. And in fact Buddhism teaches that you aren’t really living. Life is just an illusion and that if you can reach nirvana, perfect enlightenment, you can stop reincarnating and be detached from the illusion of life and have your energy or life force absorbed into the universe, becoming one with it. You will be completely detached and free from suffering.
So this is what Buddhism hopes to help people do in their meditation, empty them of thinking.
Christianity on the other hand, teaches mediation as well, but it is a meditation that fills our mind and helps us to truly live well.
We don’t meditate on nothing, but we meditate on God’s word
Psalm 1:1-2
Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked
or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers.
2 But his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night.
Meditating on God’s word helps keep us from following after sinners and to live a blessed life instead.
Other Scriptures tell us to meditate on the wonders he has done (Psalm 119:27) or on His wonderful works (Psalm 145:5)
But as we do that, God fills our minds and guides us in truth.
And as we do that, as well, we get to know God and we grow in relationship to Him. We become more deeply attached to Him. Buddhism would teach this is wrong and that you will never reach nirvana becoming attached to God, or anything at all.
And I would agree.
But I would say that Nirvana is not really what you want.
You want freedom and life.
Freedom is not experienced by Nirvana
Freedom is experienced by God’s forgiveness and grace.
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Romans 8:1-3
8:1 Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, 2 because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. 3 For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering.
By God’s grace He has forgiveness to all who receive Jesus By believing in who he is and what He has done and receiving Him as your Savior, repenting of your sin and turning to Him.
Maybe you are not a Buddhist, but you have been living like one, striving to live in a way that you think will eliminate your suffering.
The reality is, is that we will suffer in this life. Jesus told us that. Sin has brought that into the world.
But Jesus overcame sin and the consequences of sin, death, so he could offer that to us for eternity.
Not an eternal emptiness, but an eternal life.
You will never be able to reach this state of complete enlightenment that Buddhists talk about in this life.
It is in heaven when we will understand fully and truly be enlightened (1 Corinthians 13:12).
I am not sure why people would believe a man who says he was enlightened who never claimed to be a god and there is no evidence that supports the things he espoused.
But I know a Man who lived a perfect life and proved the things He said by resurrecting from the dead. He is a man we can trust and follow and experience real freedom and real life when we receive Him as Savior.
Don’t follow a false belief system. Follow the One who speaks truth, who is truth, who offers real life. Follow Jesus.
We are going to close by singing How Great is our God. Make this your prayer today. If you have any other needs or would like to know more about receiving Jesus as your Savior, come up after the service and there will be people to talk with you and pray with you. Let’s sing.
