korossyl
Vajda
So, there is no dedicated city view. You just zoom in really far.
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StrainX: What it comes down to is I still can see many ways of bastardizing Christianity with Confucianism, Buddhism and other religions (or non-religions). In Buddhism's case, God, not as as a Christian anthropomorphic God, but a Jewish unknowable undescrible existance can easily be substituted as a Buddhist non-creator, a cycle of sin and redemption for the Buddhist analog, heaven as nirvana, and so on. Perhaps such bastardizations would not be acceptable to purists, but who is to say what is the correct interpretation? Religion isn't verifiable and it comes down to someone claiming his intrepretation is right to tell you that you are wrong and for you to accept it or not.
For me the Analects seem to contain enough pithy sayings that could have originated from the New Testament and vice versa so as to not be totally anthetical. As for Abraham sacrificing his son, sure that is part of Christian canon, but to me the Old Testament has not much to do with Christian beliefs as promoted by Jesus and therefore not much to do with Christianity other than being a lauching board for credibility.
As for Christianity and Confucianism being compatible, who is to say Buddhism as set down by Siddhartha is compatible with Confucianism, and not some artifact of being introduced into a Confucian society? Perhaps it was intrinsically compatible, or perhaps it also became bastardized by Chinese trying to comprehend it through Confucian and Taoist eyes. You have Sanskrit and Pakrit canons, who is to say they are authentic or if they have been bastardized themselves like some Vulgate Bible.
> And finally, getting to reason why Buddhism exists as a religion in the first place ? It is so that people can learn a pathway that individual themselves can mold themselves and practice to reduce suffering at its roots, ie eliminating causes of suffering, broadly categorized as hate, anger, attachments and ignorance of the way the universe works.
Isn't this also the central message of what Jesus preached? Be good to your neighbor, don't hate and steal, etc, etc and you will be rewarded with an ending cycle of non-suffering, i.e. heaven? Aside from the praying which I'm not sure what's up with that, although you could consider it some inept kind of meditation.
On topic of Christian oppression in China, yes I am still skeptical of that. I had taken a Chinese history class at an American University many years ago and I have never heard of even one, although it's quite possible that I skipped the class when it was mentioned. The Wikipedia article on Christian persecutions lists 3 for China. The first was a Taoist Tang who purged Buddhists first then all others. The second was during the Qing, and I have a hard time counting Manchus as Confucianists, and the third was for the communist era.
For me the Analects seem to contain enough pithy sayings that could have originated from the New Testament and vice versa so as to not be totally anthetical. As for Abraham sacrificing his son, sure that is part of Christian canon, but to me the Old Testament has not much to do with Christian beliefs as promoted by Jesus and therefore not much to do with Christianity other than being a lauching board for credibility.
As for Christianity and Confucianism being compatible, who is to say Buddhism as set down by Siddhartha is compatible with Confucianism, and not some artifact of being introduced into a Confucian society? Perhaps it was intrinsically compatible, or perhaps it also became bastardized by Chinese trying to comprehend it through Confucian and Taoist eyes. You have Sanskrit and Pakrit canons, who is to say they are authentic or if they have been bastardized themselves like some Vulgate Bible.
> And finally, getting to reason why Buddhism exists as a religion in the first place ? It is so that people can learn a pathway that individual themselves can mold themselves and practice to reduce suffering at its roots, ie eliminating causes of suffering, broadly categorized as hate, anger, attachments and ignorance of the way the universe works.
Isn't this also the central message of what Jesus preached? Be good to your neighbor, don't hate and steal, etc, etc and you will be rewarded with an ending cycle of non-suffering, i.e. heaven? Aside from the praying which I'm not sure what's up with that, although you could consider it some inept kind of meditation.
On topic of Christian oppression in China, yes I am still skeptical of that. I had taken a Chinese history class at an American University many years ago and I have never heard of even one, although it's quite possible that I skipped the class when it was mentioned. The Wikipedia article on Christian persecutions lists 3 for China. The first was a Taoist Tang who purged Buddhists first then all others. The second was during the Qing, and I have a hard time counting Manchus as Confucianists, and the third was for the communist era.
KindredSpirits
Chieftain
I hate to rain on your theological parade but I think I've discovered a new missionary image on screen shots 3 and 10, there's a bloke in green with a tall hat, he looks like a Confucian or Islamic missionary...I think.
http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/civilizationiv/screenindex.html
http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/civilizationiv/screenindex.html
korossyl
Vajda
salty said:
The main Christian churches, i.e. the Catholic Church, the Orthodox Church, and the main Protestant denominations, since before the fall of the Roman Empire have used a specific set of articles summed up in the Apostle's Creed as the indisputable and necessary core beliefs of Christians. It begins with "I believe in God the Father almighty, Creator of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord." That's pretty much incompatible with the teachings of Buddhism. The Bible itself has a number of specific statements that are not in any way meshable with core Buddhist doctrines. Hebrews 9:27, for instance, states clearly "It is appointed for men to die once, and then comes the judgment." Now, anyone can, as you say, "bastardize" anything together with anything, but to dent the Apostle's Creed is to place oneself far outside the historical church, and to deny such a clear and direct statement from what can be considered the basis of Christian belief is not just bastardization. Sure, the exact line where one becomes not a believer can be debated by purists and heretics, but at a certain point, to make that argument is ridiculous.
See, when you start to dilute, pick and choose the tenets that are most convienent or likable to you in a religion, you're basically making your own religion or sect, and when it comes down to picking and choosing fundamental beliefs... you're definitely making a new religion that is your own and not the original. Those who pick and choose in Buddhism and decide that they won't accept the Buddha's saying that there is no creator god, have just created a new religion of their own. They are no longer Buddhists. And when you start to reinvent the wheel, it also implies that you think of yourself as wiser than the originator of your religion because you're saying that some things he says are right, but you know personally for a fact that the things you want to deny are definitely wrong, which is kind of a bad place to start with if you want to call yourself a member of that religion.
Much of the Analects are simply quotes of Confucius, and several other prominent Confucian scholars and sages. At best, they can be called aphorisms. Unfortunately, book learning the Analects is not the proper approach to understanding Confucianism because the aphorisms alone are just sayings, and lack the reasoning behind the sayings from which you can only learn if you read other classics, or are schooled in Confucianism. On the surface, as I have said earlier, most religions kind of have the same rules. Christianity, Buddhism, and Confucianism alike say thou shall not kill. However, like I said, the difference is in the reasoning. A Chinese saying says, an escaped convict, a jail warden, and a vagrant are all going westward into the desert. They are all doing the same thing since they are all going westward, but the reason for which they go westward vary greatly. If you take Confucian, Buddhist, and Christian aphorisms and precepts and line them up side by side, well they can all sound like one came from the other, or vice versa. For example, a line like "dust to dust, ashes to ashes" is something that has similar reverberation in all 3 philosophies.
As to whether the Buddhism has so to speak made compatible with Confucianism due to an artifact, I have to disagree that WE CAN say that the Buddhism set down by Prince Siddartha is compatible with Confucianism, simply by analyzing the primary sources, as there are plenty of dharma from the Buddha that are pre Mahayana and pre contact with China. And in actuality, the dharma from the Buddha make up the core of Buddhism for both Theravada and Mahayana Buddhism. All the fundamentals of Buddhism I have been talking about is what the Buddha says himself (and you have to think of it this way too, much of everything that is said in Mahayana Buddhism by patriarchs and masters, isn't anything the Buddha has not yet taught, it is simply a different application of the same principle, or a different way to explain the same fundamental principle). So yes, I CAN, without a doubt say that the teachings of the Buddha himself, don't present a contradiction with Confucian philosophy.
However, that is not to say that Chinese Buddhism as a whole has not adopted Confucian principles, and Confucians have not adopted Buddhist principles. But its practical adaptations we're talking about. And the reason why adapting is possible is because the fundamental outlook of the universe and its driving force, which is the natural law, is something both philosophies are agreeable on, and hence, they were used to reinforce one another. Neo Confucianism, incorporates a zen like method to focus students on their studies. On the other hand, Buddhist adapt a Confucian hiearchy of master and students within the monastaries so that it becomes like a Confucian scholastic community. However, Buddhist texts have not been edited for this to happen. The thing is that it didn't have to. Theres nothing in Buddhism that says you can't organize a monastary in such a Confucian style in order to teach and train in Buddhism.
There is a saying from the Japanese Prince Shotoku, as he constructed Japans Seventeen point constitution which declared Japan a Confucian and Buddhist for all eternity, that the Buddha is the greatest teacher of all that is cosmic, and Confucius is the master of all that is of the mundane state. That is just to give some extra insight as to how East Asia has used the 2 philosophies complementarily.
Regarding your message about Jesus's goal to eliminate suffering. True, most religions try to teach something like this, but Buddhism is one step different. When you go to heaven in the Christian concept, its still a world up there where there is no suffering. In fact there can even be pleasure. In Buddhism, the goal is to eliminate everything, both suffering and pleasure. The challenge that Buddhism poses to religions which promise a heaven is that they ask these questions. First, suffering in the mundane world alone, in just one life, can be thought of to stem from anger, hate, greed, attachments, ignorance of the universe's mechanisms. When you have a personal god who still suffers from these afflictions (and there are plenty of instances where God gets angry, and of course he always hates evil, as well as spites those who don't believe in him), how is it possible for him to create a world for others that is devoid of these ? Another challenge is that a heaven is still a kind of world, from which people still are people. Not all believers of a God who go to heaven can acheive the elimination of all the precepts set by their God in the first place. Its impossible to eliminate suffering all together if you still hate the negative emotions listed above. Therefore, the concept of a heaven as the ultimate goal of aleviating suffering is thought of to be an falsity, an impossibility and mere sophistry in Buddhism. True alleviation from suffering is not practice of the precepts alone, but to acheive a state of mind that is cognizant enough that you can live a lifestyle which accrues no karma, hence escaping the cycle of life and death all together in the long run. Enlightenment, a state where you have cultivated yourself to the point where you no longer have anger, hate, greed, ignorance, and attachments is the only way to fully escape suffering. This is quite different from the goals if Christianity.
In terms of purges, the earliest major purge of Buddhism in China stemmed from a lot of emperors who favored Daoism and were pushed by Confucian scholars, who as I mentioned earlier, were rather ignorant of Buddhism to start with, based on the primary sources. The xenophobia in China pushed them to believe that because Buddhism was an Indian religion, it would usurp Chinese social order and that because it was foreign, it had to be wrong. Realistically, the early purges did no hold up, and Buddhism was strongest in China during the Tang to the Sung Dynasties. The Manchu... well they on the surface call themselves Confucian, but even though their rulers have read the books, they haven't got a clue how to run a Confucian government. Ironically, Manchu rulers are actually pretty devout Buddhists. However, early on, there were some purges, including that of Shaolin temple mainly out of the fear that these temples and cultural sites would be the sites and sources of Han Chinese rebellion against the Manchu. Finally, the commis are not Confucians. They just purged everything recklessly so its not necessary to discuss them.
If you didn't hear much about East Asian purges of Christianity in China, then you probably skipped classes, or its something thats not very savory to teach in a predominantly Christian society. Nonetheless, it did happen.
Much of the Analects are simply quotes of Confucius, and several other prominent Confucian scholars and sages. At best, they can be called aphorisms. Unfortunately, book learning the Analects is not the proper approach to understanding Confucianism because the aphorisms alone are just sayings, and lack the reasoning behind the sayings from which you can only learn if you read other classics, or are schooled in Confucianism. On the surface, as I have said earlier, most religions kind of have the same rules. Christianity, Buddhism, and Confucianism alike say thou shall not kill. However, like I said, the difference is in the reasoning. A Chinese saying says, an escaped convict, a jail warden, and a vagrant are all going westward into the desert. They are all doing the same thing since they are all going westward, but the reason for which they go westward vary greatly. If you take Confucian, Buddhist, and Christian aphorisms and precepts and line them up side by side, well they can all sound like one came from the other, or vice versa. For example, a line like "dust to dust, ashes to ashes" is something that has similar reverberation in all 3 philosophies.
As to whether the Buddhism has so to speak made compatible with Confucianism due to an artifact, I have to disagree that WE CAN say that the Buddhism set down by Prince Siddartha is compatible with Confucianism, simply by analyzing the primary sources, as there are plenty of dharma from the Buddha that are pre Mahayana and pre contact with China. And in actuality, the dharma from the Buddha make up the core of Buddhism for both Theravada and Mahayana Buddhism. All the fundamentals of Buddhism I have been talking about is what the Buddha says himself (and you have to think of it this way too, much of everything that is said in Mahayana Buddhism by patriarchs and masters, isn't anything the Buddha has not yet taught, it is simply a different application of the same principle, or a different way to explain the same fundamental principle). So yes, I CAN, without a doubt say that the teachings of the Buddha himself, don't present a contradiction with Confucian philosophy.
However, that is not to say that Chinese Buddhism as a whole has not adopted Confucian principles, and Confucians have not adopted Buddhist principles. But its practical adaptations we're talking about. And the reason why adapting is possible is because the fundamental outlook of the universe and its driving force, which is the natural law, is something both philosophies are agreeable on, and hence, they were used to reinforce one another. Neo Confucianism, incorporates a zen like method to focus students on their studies. On the other hand, Buddhist adapt a Confucian hiearchy of master and students within the monastaries so that it becomes like a Confucian scholastic community. However, Buddhist texts have not been edited for this to happen. The thing is that it didn't have to. Theres nothing in Buddhism that says you can't organize a monastary in such a Confucian style in order to teach and train in Buddhism.
There is a saying from the Japanese Prince Shotoku, as he constructed Japans Seventeen point constitution which declared Japan a Confucian and Buddhist for all eternity, that the Buddha is the greatest teacher of all that is cosmic, and Confucius is the master of all that is of the mundane state. That is just to give some extra insight as to how East Asia has used the 2 philosophies complementarily.
Regarding your message about Jesus's goal to eliminate suffering. True, most religions try to teach something like this, but Buddhism is one step different. When you go to heaven in the Christian concept, its still a world up there where there is no suffering. In fact there can even be pleasure. In Buddhism, the goal is to eliminate everything, both suffering and pleasure. The challenge that Buddhism poses to religions which promise a heaven is that they ask these questions. First, suffering in the mundane world alone, in just one life, can be thought of to stem from anger, hate, greed, attachments, ignorance of the universe's mechanisms. When you have a personal god who still suffers from these afflictions (and there are plenty of instances where God gets angry, and of course he always hates evil, as well as spites those who don't believe in him), how is it possible for him to create a world for others that is devoid of these ? Another challenge is that a heaven is still a kind of world, from which people still are people. Not all believers of a God who go to heaven can acheive the elimination of all the precepts set by their God in the first place. Its impossible to eliminate suffering all together if you still hate the negative emotions listed above. Therefore, the concept of a heaven as the ultimate goal of aleviating suffering is thought of to be an falsity, an impossibility and mere sophistry in Buddhism. True alleviation from suffering is not practice of the precepts alone, but to acheive a state of mind that is cognizant enough that you can live a lifestyle which accrues no karma, hence escaping the cycle of life and death all together in the long run. Enlightenment, a state where you have cultivated yourself to the point where you no longer have anger, hate, greed, ignorance, and attachments is the only way to fully escape suffering. This is quite different from the goals if Christianity.
In terms of purges, the earliest major purge of Buddhism in China stemmed from a lot of emperors who favored Daoism and were pushed by Confucian scholars, who as I mentioned earlier, were rather ignorant of Buddhism to start with, based on the primary sources. The xenophobia in China pushed them to believe that because Buddhism was an Indian religion, it would usurp Chinese social order and that because it was foreign, it had to be wrong. Realistically, the early purges did no hold up, and Buddhism was strongest in China during the Tang to the Sung Dynasties. The Manchu... well they on the surface call themselves Confucian, but even though their rulers have read the books, they haven't got a clue how to run a Confucian government. Ironically, Manchu rulers are actually pretty devout Buddhists. However, early on, there were some purges, including that of Shaolin temple mainly out of the fear that these temples and cultural sites would be the sites and sources of Han Chinese rebellion against the Manchu. Finally, the commis are not Confucians. They just purged everything recklessly so its not necessary to discuss them.
If you didn't hear much about East Asian purges of Christianity in China, then you probably skipped classes, or its something thats not very savory to teach in a predominantly Christian society. Nonetheless, it did happen.
StrainX said:
Well, I think I'm guilty of originally floating that concept, TVA22 got blamed for it, it looks like you two agree on a lot of things. I was thinking about pluralism and detachment. Say detachment is a 'capacity' kind of like the sense of smell. Bears, dogs, and cats have a much greater sense of smell than humans, in which it also varies. Also, the 'capacity' for detachment. Now, don't read in too much about 'animals' or 'metaphors' into this. Maybe one is born with detachment, maybe one cultivates it, maybe God or the leader gives it to one, or none of the above. One question religions address is 'What do I do?' In the world, the answer is often the same, even coming from lines of different religious reasoning. Now detached from say subjective experience, 'all' of the information can be regarded, the different lines of reasoning perceived, and depending on how apt or inept one is, put into practice. That is, controlling oneself from a detached view of the world allows for more moral, or worldy, or both, behavior. Right? And behavior is what really matters, right? Or not? From a human perspective, if you got Jesus, Buddha, Mohammed, and a dozen other religious and worldly heroes together in one room, ostensibly all human beings in this example, no Jehovah, for instance, they might not seem all that different. They would all do the right thing, right? Only, maybe Confucious would get elected president, do a wonderful job, and Jesus would heal the sick, etc., they'd be different, but no one would kill anyone, for example. Or would they. Maybe somebody ought to kill Jesus, it is a focal point of Christianity that shouldn't be left out. Or a horrible mistake. Or if it had turned out differently, it wouldn't have mattered anyway. Except for the killers and other non-believers, of course. Depending on one's perspective. The point is, whether one is highly detached or not, ultimately it is still a subjective experience. It is one's mind, one's experience. The 'Objective Truth', well, do we know it? Then, what people believe, is it right? How does one know? Subjectively, the inept and/or undetached can be saved by faith alone without even 'doing' the right thing in the world, being carnal and selfish and not helping the community particularly much, behaving wrongly, from lack of natural aptitude, from the point of view of some beliefs. If one suffers, one deserves it, according to some but not all beliefs. But the apt, well, in the world, they are socially promoted, and get more 'good' 'things', right?, but at what point should one reject further promotion or 'benefits' on the grounds that it isn't right? For the state, because God says, for the sake of intangibles, categorize the world's religion's different ways of interpeting that, and run all the permutations. Some say, it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to achieve heaven. Could the emporer possibly not be rich, or rich and good, he's the lucky camel that makes it, or what? More power, more influence, more capacity to wreak good or evil in the world. Is it gratifying to be good? Is it good to be apt? Is it noble to suffer? What does one do, what does one believe? History is long, there's a lot of differing and different expamles from the past. And present. Can any of the rules ever be changed? By you? Or me, or that guy? For everybody, or noone?
Objectively, did I inadvertently start a pissing contest? Did I participate in one? Did I win or lose?
In game terms, I think pluralism would be the way to go. If I were the game designer, I would devise a way to equalize the different "'religions'" depth, in like, mathematical game terms. Somehow their differences should not compromise this depth, but probably will a little. So in game terms, the religions end up being 'equal', more or less, but don't make any claim to actually truthfully represent the religions' names they carry. That could start an argument. They'll all be kind of equally truncated. It's just supposed to be a game after all
Because let's face it, there aren't necessarily moral consequences for the mis-treatment of, for example, AI entities. This (civ) game gives a kind of top-down detachment that doesn't hit one real hard with how the 'individuals' represented are 'affected' by all this, they don't feel anything, they aren't real. Only one is. And the designers, etc. So, conquering the 'world', or 'winning', or whatever, is a passtime. A 'game', in 'game terms', do you see what I mean?Similar threads
