Faith Freedom International :: View topic - **For Spinoza** Repicropating Your "Gift"

Faith Freedom International

FAQ

Memberlist

Usergroups

Profile

**For Spinoza** Repicropating Your "Gift"

This forum is locked: you cannot post, reply to, or edit topics.

This topic is locked: you cannot edit posts or make replies.

Faith Freedom International Forum Index -> Buddhism

View previous topic :: View next topic

Author

Message

ultraman agul

Joined: 22 Jan 2003
Posts: 1302
Location: Dar al-Islam

Posted: Thu Sep 04, 2003 9:18 pm Post subject: **For Spinoza** Repicropating Your "Gift"

Since Spinoza decided to send me a "gift", allow me to repicropate the favour by posting an excerpt from the forthcoming booklet, Buddhism: A Muslim Primer, authored by yours truly, of course.

Quote:

V. BUDDHIST ETHICS AND SOCIAL ORDER (revised)

Our aim is to review the concept of ethics in Islam and to contrast it with the Buddhist version of what consists of ethics and social order. For that purpose, a short exposition on the concept of man from the Islamic and Buddhist viewpoint would be given, so as to give a clear picture on the situation before we proceed to our analysis of ethics in both religions.

A. The Islamic Concept of Man

According to Islamic tradition, mankind was created in a state of fitrah - the natural disposition of man - and all have the innate recognition that no created entity is worthy of worship, since it is only reserved for God alone (the doctrine of tauhiyd) . This was all part of God’s ‘design plan’; that the raison d’etre of man is the desire to know and worship Him. This natural tendency to worship God, however, is damaged by sinful influences from Satan and other social hindrances. The fitrah can be supplemented by divine illumination, where God Himself instigates the believer to faith in Him. One who has committed an evil deed in the past may repent by asking for forgiveness directly from Him. Indeed, Islam attaches so much importance to the love of God and love of man that it warns against too much of formalism. Since man falls under the constant monitorship of God, it commits the Muslim to takes space and time seriously in order to fulfill the divine patterns pertinent to that current space and time in which he stands that constitutes his felicity, or his damnation.

B. The Buddhist Concept of Man

Buddhist tradition naturally concedes that man’s current state is based on the cycle of karma and its retribution. A person who has committed an evil deed will experience reincarnation after death in horrible forms and damnation to atone for past sins. The world is regarded as evil, and salvation or felicity is understood as its negation, namely as freedom from the world. This is done in a variety of fashions depending on the school of Buddhism that is practiced. Hence there is no concept of “repentance”, as felicity is understood as climatically an escape from the world’s damnation. Tradition states that the Buddha established the sangha, the religious order of the monks who are made up of the disciples of the Buddha. Hence the sangha as a monastic institution became the religious example to laity who lived with family but aspired for the righteous path. The spiritual life of individuals and congregation of the religious order permeated to the rest of the world. The corporate life of the sangha became a society of higher order with a disciplined social and religious life and is perceived to have possessed the highest moral and ethical values.

C. The Approach to Ethics and Social Order

Islam’s approach to the problems of the world is to emphasize on improving the homo religious nature of man, which forms the basis of the fitrah. Islamic ethics therefore begins with the identification of the divine purpose in the creation of man. It confirms the fact that though God had created mankind as the best of all creatures and as the khalifah or vicegerent - a term denoting man’s stewardship of the earth as a consequence of his being made in the image of God - man would have to endure life in this world with all its difficulties as a test to seek His Pleasure alone with their deeds and actions. The very name of the faith, ‘Islam’, is an active verb, meaning to subject oneself in obedience to the divine commandments and to carry them out. Such a usage would be impossible to relate in English, indeed impossible in Buddhist religious consciousness, as Buddhism’s negative soteriology holds that separation from the desires of the world by concentrating on efforts of meditation is an important step towards the path of “enlightenment”.

Thus by setting God's pleasure as the desirable objective of man’s life, Islam has furnished the highest possible standard of morality. This is bound to provide limitless avenues for the moral evolution of humanity. Indeed, Islam is the only religion on the earth that exhorts man to work and strive for the betterment of oneself on earth, while at the same time exhorts the individual to not ignore his duties towards the Creator, as the following hadith demonstrates, “Commit yourself to prayer and worship, as though as you will die the following day, and strive to work hard and gain wealth, as though as you will live for a thousand years.” Suffering and happiness on earth is seen as two sides of the same coin, both originating from God as a test for mankind, as the Qur’an states, “Be sure We shall test you with something of fear and hunger, some loss in goods or lives or the fruits (of your toil), but give glad tidings to those who patiently persevere.”

In contrast to the above approach that Islam undertakes, Buddhism’s sine qua non is to put an end to the seemingly endless cycle of rebirths, of which it sees the Creation as an endless state of suffering or misery in which all human and other life endures. However, the Buddhist rationale that misery and suffering stemming from desires seems more towards the psychological. As desire is but merely one aspect of man’s natural disposition, one will always desire for the best, but if desire is not fulfilled, one will invariably feel miserable. For that reason misery is merely a psychological phenomenon of one’s desire not being fulfilled. In this regard, we would like to refer to Ibn Rushd, or Averroes, who was quoted to have said, “True happiness for man can surely be achieved through mental and psychological health, and people cannot enjoy psychological health unless they follow ways that lead to happiness in the hereafter, and unless they believe in God and His Oneness.”

The only meaningful duty that Buddhism espouses is that man should seek release from the world through rigorous discipline and mental effort. Evidently, the only morality that can be harmonized with this view is individualistic and world denying. Interaction with the world, however, is tolerated for as long as the goal is to achieve total freedom from the clutches of the world, from its karma, for the individual alone. A person can therefore be a polytheist or an atheist depending on how he perceives his world, as it does not affect the final outcome or goals of Buddhism. “The Muslim, therefore,” remarks Ismail Raji’ al-Faruqi, “is the diametrical opposite of the monaster, whether Buddhist or Christian, who withdraws from other persons precisely in order to work on himself, alone.” There is therefore no question why Islam is rightfully called “din al-fitrah” - the religion of the fitrah - due to its realistic stance on the innate nature of man.

Footnotes are omitted for brevity. Let's see how his response to this would be, okay folks? Wink

- MENJ
_________________
Allah matlamat kami, Al-Quran perlembagaan kami, ar-Rasul ikutan kami, penentang Islam musuh kami, jihad jalan kami dan berkorban pada jalan-Nya adalah setinggi-tinggi pengorbanan

ultraman agul

Joined: 22 Jan 2003
Posts: 1302
Location: Dar al-Islam

Posted: Fri Sep 05, 2003 4:05 am Post subject:

The silence is deafening.... ***********VICTORY!********* - MENJ _________________ Allah matlamat kami, Al-Quran perlembagaan kami, ar-Rasul ikutan kami, penentang Islam musuh kami, jihad jalan kami dan berkorban pada jalan-Nya adalah setinggi-tinggi pengorbanan

Spinoza

Joined: 31 Dec 1969
Posts: 1214

Posted: Fri Sep 05, 2003 4:31 am Post subject:

Quote:

How nice of you.

Quote:

…blahblah…

It’s “raison d’être”, don’t use a word that often if you can’t even spell it properly, if you do not wish to look like a fool.

Quote:

…blah…blah…Buddhist….

Quote:

Islam’s approach to the problems of the world is to emphasize on improving the homo religious nature of man,

Homo religious? Heheh…chuckle…you do have to wait for Janna before you get your share of young boys to play with Menj.

Quote:

…Thus by setting God's pleasure as the desirable objective of man’s life, Islam has furnished the highest possible standard of morality.

Ehm, why is that? This statement is based on the premise that there IS a God, that this God needs to be pleasured AND that pleasuring Him is the highest form of morality. You have not shown either of this to be true, nor have you proven the fact that only Muslims know how to pleasure him. You see, you first need to do ALL that before making a judgement like that.
Afiak God’s existence is not a proven fact. For the sake of argument let’s assume he does exist. Afaik God cannot be pleasured, hurt of otherwise be influenced so how on earth would ‘pleasuring’ him be a form of morality?

Quote:

This is bound to provide limitless avenues for the moral evolution of humanity.

Tell me why? You make a statement without providing the reader any clue why you are saying this or based on what evidence you say this.

Quote:

Indeed, Islam is the only religion on the earth that exhorts man to work and strive for the betterment of oneself on earth,

This is a lie if ever I saw one. Self improvement can be found in pretty all religion, it’s probably the way of self improvement that differs or even the standards by which this is measured.

Quote:

while at the same time exhorts the individual to not ignore his duties towards the Creator, as the following hadith demonstrates, “Commit yourself to prayer and worship, as though as you will die the following day, and strive to work hard and gain wealth, as though as you will live for a thousand years.”

Sure.

Quote:

Suffering and happiness on earth is seen as two sides of the same coin, both originating from God as a test for mankind, as the Qur’an states, “Be sure We shall test you with something of fear and hunger, some loss in goods or lives or the fruits (of your toil), but give glad tidings to those who patiently persevere.”

Sure.

Quote:

In contrast to the above approach that Islam undertakes, Buddhism’s sine qua non is to put an end to the seemingly endless cycle of rebirths, of which it sees the Creation as an endless state of suffering or misery in which all human and other life endures.

So?

Quote:

However, the Buddhist rationale that misery and suffering stemming from desires seems more towards the psychological. As desire is but merely one aspect of man’s natural disposition, one will always desire for the best, but if desire is not fulfilled, one will invariably feel miserable. For that reason misery is merely a psychological phenomenon of one’s desire not being fulfilled. In this regard, we would like to refer to Ibn Rushd, or Averroes, who was quoted to have said, “True happiness for man can surely be achieved through mental and psychological health, and people cannot enjoy psychological health unless they follow ways that lead to happiness in the hereafter, and unless they believe in God and His Oneness.”

Using Ibn Rushd to judge Buddhism…

Quote:

The only meaningful duty that Buddhism espouses is that man should seek release from the world through rigorous discipline and mental effort. Evidently, the only morality that can be harmonized with this view is individualistic and world denying. Interaction with the world, however, is tolerated for as long as the goal is to achieve total freedom from the clutches of the world, from its karma, for the individual alone. A person can therefore be a polytheist or an atheist depending on how he perceives his world, as it does not affect the final outcome or goals of Buddhism. “The Muslim, therefore,” remarks Ismail Raji’ al-Faruqi, “is the diametrical opposite of the monaster, whether Buddhist or Christian, who withdraws from other persons precisely in order to work on himself, alone.” There is therefore no question why Islam is rightfully called “din al-fitrah” - the religion of the fitrah - due to its realistic stance on the innate nature of man.

That last remark is YET again built on the premise that we HAVE a creator that wishes to be pleasured. You need either to get rid of that premise or convince me of it’s validity, judging by Islamic standards (which you have clearly done) is not an objective way to compare Buddhism to Islam. That’s like using an Arabic spellchecker to spell check Persian…of course a document written in Persian will yield much more ‘errors’ than a document written in Arabic.

So if you whish to judge or compare religions objectively you need to use objective standards, not your own Islamic ones. I guess the term helicopter view is new to you?

Spinoza

Joined: 31 Dec 1969
Posts: 1214

Posted: Wed Sep 10, 2003 8:58 am Post subject:

Menj? Did you run away? AGAIN.

Varanasi

Joined: 21 Aug 2002
Posts: 470

Posted: Wed Oct 15, 2003 4:43 am Post subject: Spinoza

This article is about Spinoza. http://www.euronet.nl/~advaya/index.htm#spinoza http://www.euronet.nl/~advaya/spinoza.htm

Spinoza

Joined: 31 Dec 1969
Posts: 1214

Posted: Wed Oct 15, 2003 5:41 am Post subject: Re: Spinoza

Varanasi wrote:

This article is about Spinoza.

http://www.euronet.nl/~advaya/index.htm#spinoza

http://www.euronet.nl/~advaya/spinoza.htm

Thanks for the links. Nice reading material.

Display posts from previous:

	Faith Freedom International Forum Index -> Buddhism	All times are GMT - 8 Hours
Page 1 of 1

Jump to:

You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum