Is Buddhism profounder than Christianity?

Question

Is Buddhism profounder than Christianity?
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Answer

Hi Third P,brbrWhen you are dealing with two large religions it is difficult to restrict comparisons between them to philosophical terms. In a sense attempting to compare depth or profundity between two religions ultimately must exceed philosophy including the philosophy of religion. The ultimate profundity of a religion can only be measured in religious terms. brbrHowever, since there are so many levels to religious experience, your question has some real validity. But I still feel that the two religions should be compared on religious terms what they offer a religous aspirant, pilgrim, seeker, etc. not what they offer the philosopher.brbrOne approach to your question can be focused on where the path of each religion leads. Does one offer a more profound path, a more profound journey and a more profound outcome? Does Buddhism offer a more profound form of enlightenment than Christianity?brbrI was raised a Christian and had to learn about Buddhism gradually once I had divorced myself from my upbringing. I have been extremely disappointed in the way Christianity has been laid out in the Four Gospels. I find the Gnostic Gospels to be more instructive and to offer a more profound approach to understanding the religious path as well as offering clues for personal transformation.brbrThe goal of Buddhism is ultimate and therefore utterly profound. The implications of this outcome the attainment of enlightenment and the path to get there are also profound. The way Buddhism treats compassion is also profound. Buddhist logic is profound. It is more integrated, consistent, holistic, and so its discipline is more accessible.brbrThere is a dangerous confusion in Christianity and in the way it presents itself. This is extremely unfortunate because many aspects of Christanity are sound, deep, important, meaningful. However, Christianity lost its roots around A.D. when it started to make arbitrary decisions which became dogma soon thereafter. The purpose of these decisions was to consolidate power. The result was the inner power of Christianity was taken away from the individual. The reality of the religious path which exalts the human spirit and purifies the human mind and soul, was displaced from the individual as a religous means and projected onto a mythical construction as if it were a patent or brand name. brbrThis action by the church went to extremes with the notion of a bodily resurrection as the apotheosis of Christianity. No one even the best minds in the world have been permitted to contest the veracity and even likelihood of a bodily resurrection. This form of Authoritarianism lacks profundity if at least part of the religious way is to impart understanding.brbrFor this reason Christianity has distorted the true significance and potential reality of the principle of resurrection that necessarily follows the equally important and mysterious principle of quotcrucifixionquot the very event which might have been shared by both Buddhism and Christianity and even modern Freemasonry! Moreover, they have reduced the ultimate goal and principle of ancient Egypt to a fairytale a fairytale that has alienated many people, from philosophers to scientists to normal citizens who cannot help their inborn need to seek the truth of things. Christianity has also driven a wedge of sorts between Christians and Jews that strikes me as more arbitrary than anything else. brbrBuddhism promises ultimate resurrection, redemption and enlightenment provided one follow a highly disciplined path which is not all suffering. The Tibetans are famous for their exemplary cheerfulness even when on this straight and narrow path. brbrChristianity could offer the same outcome. All it would have to do is permit critical reform in critical areas. It has to return the principle of quotChristquot to the people, the individual, the natural aspirant who we already know from Proverbs are all children of the one, living creator. The reality of Christ is the ultimate reality a reality it shares with that of Buddha, the Atman of Hinduism, the One Heart of the Hopi People, etc. This reality in the end when fully realized is spiritual, All Embracing, pure, indescribable. The achievement must be gathered up by the individual, within the individual. Only when the individual has put in the ultimate effort does the final moment of enlightenment then look as if it came from God or was sanctioned by God. The relation between divine sanction and personal effort is mysterious and blurry. Both religions try to deal with it as best they can. But to me Buddhism is a little more profound in the way it guides the individual from the outset. Christianity is too confusing because it has taken too much away from the individual thus making the individual feel bad, evil, worthless. When young, it is very difficult to understand why one is being treated as bad or worthless before one feels one has done anything wrong. brbrIt seems to me that Buddhism has greater insight into the problem of sin and evil and teaches how to transform both. Christianity is too harsh, too violent in its approach to the overcoming and transformation of quotLuciferquot or the Egyptian quotSethquot. In this sense I find it much less profound both philosophically and psychologically than Buddhism.brbrChristianity could become quite profound if it would reform key principles that currently characterize it. But this would mean it would have to share the Christ principle on a more equal basis. It would have to let go the patent. It would have to acknowledge that the true path leads to spiritual resurrection not bodily resurrection. Most of us will still find spiritual resurrection difficult to both believe in and attain, but at least we would not be forced to choose between believing in bodily resurrrection or not believing in it and being condemend if we choose not to believe in it. This is a dubious, intimidating way to force people to believe in the Almighty and his infinite powers. It is not the body that is resurrected. What is resurrected is spirit and Buddhism offers the aspirant the path to achieve that enlightened resurrection or enlightened state of being, of existence. brbrBuddhism offers countless practices to achieve this end and to break the wheel of Karma. Incidentally in Egypt that is exactly the goal of Horus. Horus was the direct path that broke the whole Osirian cycle of reincarnation. But the function of Horus in the end was similar to the function of the Buddhist quotBodhisatvaquot. Both were not to spend eternity for themselves alone in a state of ecstatic nirvana. The Bodhisatva is to return to earth to help others along the path with wisdom not do the work for them. Horus was to preserve justice everywhere forever. Lofty concepts to be sure! But these principles are also as profound as it gets. In these cases the individual must work and labor and in the end cannot lean on anything other than the divine within themselves. It is a profound concept of spiritual selfreliance that most be continuously renewed and strengthened.brbrPerhaps Christianity came to believe that all these high attainments were impossible for the average man. But what makes Christianity less profound for me is the way it lowers the expectation and aspiration of the average man by placing the final goal of all religion completely out of reach, as if for all time it were the sole prerogative and privilege of Gods quotOnly Begotten Sonquot who was taken back up into heaven in body form. This idea is so entrenched in so many peoples minds that most have come to assume that the Egyptians also believed in the bodily resurrrection which they most emphatically did not. Again and again we read in the Pyramid Texts that what ascends, what departs the body is the ka, the spiritstate of the individual. It is stated with perfect clarity that the mummified body remains in its tomb, carefully guarded in places like the Valley of the Kings here below.brbrTo become as profound as Buddhism, Christianity needs to reform some aspects of the Four Gospels. It has driven a wedge between its own adherents and countless selfrespecting, reverential, but reasonableminded individuals who would prefer to learn more about the meaning of spiritual resurrection the mystical reunion of man and the Divine than to be intimidated into accepting that the Sole Son of God, born of a virgin which violates our understanding of the mysteries of biological development not to mention function, was the only one capable of resurrection following a questionable crucifixion that has only served to confuse that principle as well. brbrThis lacks depth. It lacks understanding. It lacks compassion. And it lacks the method for teaching compassion, not that compassion is easy to learn in any religion.brbrAnd I repeat, the way the mysterious crucifixion has been handled has only served to drive a painful wedge between Jews and Christians another unfortunate leftover from two thousand years ago. But in the meanwhile we also learn very little about the archetype, or principle, or meaning, or significance of the crucifixion which must precede the resurrection if the resurrection is to occur at all. Christianity teaches only the dark, evil side of the crucifixion, when in all religious paths it is known that the crucifixion is an inner phase that brings about both rectification and purification that in turn precedes the famed mystical marriage between male and female. Christianity has turned the crucifixion into an act of barbaric betrayal and ignorant cruelty instead of teaching its true function within the true religious path that leads to an exaltation of spirit. brbrBuddhism teaches a sacred science that allows an individual to be transformed by these principles all the way to enlightenment which is to say all the way to mystical illumination and integration. brbrThe New Testament is filled with nuggets of gold, seeds of wisdom. But it uses intimidation and harshness where deep wisdom and gentle understanding would go much further to encourage people to seek a better state of being. I believe that Buddhist compassion envelops that religion like a placenta. And for me this imparts a certain profundity that I find has been expelled from Christianity.brbrThis is the best I can do for now with your profound question Third P. Many more pages would be required to equal the profundity of the question.