[QUOTE=brburl;477891]I made no mention of God being good or bad.

Good or bad, as the Buddhist texts state:

"If God designs the life of the entire world -- the glory and the misery, the good and the evil acts, man is but an instrument of his will and God  alone is responsible." J V.238.

"He who eyes can see the sickening sight, why does not God set his creatures right? If his wide power no limits can restrain, why is his hand so rarely spread to bless? Why are his creatures all condemned to pain? Why does he not to all give happiness?  Why do fraud, lies, and ignorance prevail? Why triumphs falsehood, -truth and justice fail? I count your God unjust in making a world in which to shelter wrong." J VI.208

"If the pleasure and pain that beings feel are caused the creative act of a Supreme God [Issara-nimmana-hetu], then the Niganthas [Jains] surely must have been created by an evil Supreme God." MN II 222.

Anguttara Nikaya 3.61: "Again, monks, I [the Buddha] approached those ascetic and brahmins and said to them: 'Is it true, as they say, that you venerable ones teach and hold the view that whatever a person experiences...all that is caused by God's creation?' When they affirmed it, I said to them: 'If that is so, venerable sirs, then it is due to God's creation that people kill, steal ...[and otherwise act badly]. But those who have recourse to God's creation as the decisive factor, will lack the impulse and the effort doing this or not doing that. Since for them, really and truly, no (motive) obtains that this or that ought to be done or not be done...."[/QUOTE]

Far be it from me to argue that the Buddha asserted or assented to a positive theology, but it is worth it to note that what is argued against in the quotes provided here is only a specific kind of theology rather than an utter rejection of an absolute norm such as God.  Namely it is a theology which precludes the third and especially the fourth noble truth.  Coincidentally, I had a conversation the other day with a Christian who highlighted for me the fact that not all theological systems are of the kind refuted here.  In brief, they expressed a theology that did not accept that sin is of divine origin in argument against a person who had espoused that something they were engaged in was okay because it came from God.  Rather it seemed that sin, decay, suffering and death, in their belief is much more akin to something like the disorder that follows from rebellious departure from the divine.  The old free will issue comes in here, but they insisted on free will as an aspect of their theology, because, and I hope my paraphrase does their belief justice, God loves good and grieves evil, but when goodness is a kind of slavery there is no love and so men are free to do what they choose.  God loves the chosen good, but chosen evil is merely man's choice, his rebellion.  What results from evil is not God's punishment as much as it is the lack of his grace which cannot come except through man's acceptance of it.  Now, I'm not saying anything about the fitness of this theology, I only present it as the kind of theology that ostensibly rejects the idea that literally everything including sin and death come from God.  Perhaps a rough analogy would be the idea of nourishment.  Healthy food sustains our body and in many respects forms it, creates it, similar to the grace of God.  If we forsake food, we will suffer and ultimately die.  It is not, however the "fault" of the food that if we forsook it and died. 


in friendliness,
V.

The argument against the Christian god is that if God is omnipotent, he could prevent sin and thus prevent damnation. Since he chooses not to do so, he must not be benevolent. Or if he is sincerely benevolent, he must not be omnipotent, since he doesn't have the power to prevent sin and damnation. The argument that God is giving us freedom, which we misuse by sinning doesn't wash, since (according to Christians) God created us. Presumably, God has the wisdom to avoid sinning himself, but he chose not to give us that wisdom. By not giving us that wisdom, he put limits on our freedom. Since he chose to make us in a state of ignorance, claiming that he is giving us our freedom is hypocritical.

BTW, I don't know of any Abramaic religions that consider sin to be of divine origin. I don't believe that anyone was suggesting that.

"Abramaic" religions originated in the Middle East and have some sort of link, however weak, to Judaism, the religion of Abraham. Examples are Christianity and Islam. Bahai considers itself to be Abramaic.

Also spelled Abrahamic.

"Abraham" means, appropriately, "father of many". But I don't think the original Hebrew speakers intended it to mean "father of many religons". :)

I think His Holiness the Dalai Lama's comment on this was an over-simplification but essentially correct and proper for the leader of a religion.

Those of us who grew up with the paradigm of a "Father God" begin life with a different view of reality than those who grew up without it. This paradigm of Heavenly Father has a profound impact on how we view life regardless of our later devotion to specific religious practice. It is more difficult for such people to accurately understand and apply the Buddha Dharma than say for Taoists and others whose views are more harmonious with Buddhism.

There is also the tendency for "God worshipers" to try, with or without conscious intent, to "missionize" others. There are those who seek to transform Buddhism into a personalist religion. The Dalai Lama is responsible in part to maintain the purity of the Tibetan religion and would hence rightly want to discourage this trend.

Consider the comment here: Buddhism centers on the problem of duhkha [ie suffering], so for me, it doesn't matter to me whether or not there is a creator god. My concern is liberation from duhkha, which is not something a creator god can help me with.

This comment is completely correct from a Buddhist point of view. From my personal AllFaith belief perspective, duhkha is the result of our being out of balance with the will of God (Ek Devata). I understand Buddhism very well and while I could argue that fundamentally this is the same belief (when God is understood as the personification of Dharma or vice versa) most people who approach Buddhism from this perspective are quickly lead into areas never intended by the Buddha. The popular embrace of this understanding would completely alter the essential nature of the Buddha Dharma.

As the referenced comment says, the Buddha didn't deny the existence of gods, indeed according to the Hindu Bhagavat Purana (1.3.24) Shakyamuni was an avatar of Sri Visnu, he discounted their importance if they do exist.

Many people who grow up with the Father God paradigm are ready for this shift in consciousness to occur however as I discuss in my study "Buddhism in the West": http://www.allfaith.com/Religions/Buddh … west1.html. While such people will be at a disadvantage in some ways, I see no reason they should not convert their minds to embrace the Buddha Dharma as countless Westerners and other personalists have done. They just need to have good teachers and firm devotion and understanding of this Path as it exists.

This is also true for conversion to Taoism, Confucianism, Jainism etc.  as well as when Buddhists convert to Christianity, Islam, etc. Conversion to another religion always requires one to clear the cobwebs of prior belief systems. In the case of Westerners embracing an Eastern system, be it Buddhism, Hinduism, Sikhism or whatever, the shift in consciousness is as much West to East as anything else. In many ways we in the West have fundamentally different perspectives and paradigms. I see  this time and time again. Very few Western people really understand the Eastern Paths to Enlightenment or even what enlightenment means as conceived in those systems.

Just my thoughts,
~John of AllFaith

I don't think they bind nor are they particularly more well thought-out than the usual theodicies that counter them. In any case

So you say; however, it does a rather effective job of showing the inability of theism to explain anything.

I don't think your comment takes it for what it is but rather for what you need it to be so that it becomes inconsistent. In

I don’t need it to be anything. It is what it is, a poor tool for explaining anything.

it would not be because God knows what a person will do that they do it, but rather he simply knows it because it is a fact that they will do it.

And they do it because it is the way the world has been set in motion. Gawd, being omniscient - not bound by the constraints of past, present, and future -, knew before the first atoms collided that its creation would unfold the way it has and will.