Re: Conciliatory moves over Easter

BP Jonsson wrote, quoting myself:

> >In ancient times religion was a very nationalistic
> >thing - people worshipped the gods so that their
> >nation would be favoured over others, and the nature
> >of worship was intimately tied to culture. Into this
> >world Christianity came, and one of its basic
> >tenents was and is that religion is _not_ a question
> >of culture, that it _transcends_ culture, that no
> >culture is favoured by God.
>
> No offense, but that is true also of Buddhism -- the
> Buddha (died 544 BCE) said that the true brahman,
> the true arya  (i.e. "noble") was to be defined
> by the practice of Dharma, not by descent or race.
> Indian monks have wandered north and east spreading
> the Dharma to the non-Aryans of central and east
> Asia?
And the principles of 'Dharma', presumably, are
relatively abstract and can thus be seperated
from particular cultural expressions. Not knowing
anything about it, I'd guess that it's basically
a form of the only ultimate moral law - "Act
constructively" - right? I think everyone agrees
with this -- moral debates come about because what
is constructive depends upon what exists, and
_that's_ where religions and philosophies and
individual opinions differ.

In a nutshell, my perspective on Buddhism is this:
that the person and life of Buddha illustrates
very nicely what Christ meant by: "Blessed are
those that hunger and thirst for total
righteousness, for they will be satisfied".

My original comments, of course, were purely in
the context of describing what St Paul meant
about "being all things to all people".

> This difference in orientation is essentially
> what I meant by "pagan" vs. "revealed".  I'm
> sorry that I didn't make myself entirely clear
> on that.  I also perceive that those calling
> themselves _pagans_ today share this openness
> to people of all origins.
One thing about pagan vs Christian controversies
that really annoys me is the failure on some
peoples' part (on both sides) to acknowledge the
difference between a reconstruction and an
adaptation. All forms of modern paganism combine
aspects of ancient religion with aspects of the
20th century, therefore they are _not_
reconstructions of ancient religion but
_adaptations_, and what exists now cannot be
judged on the merits of something else that
existed 2,000 years ago. For this reason I get
annoyed both with Christians who use the Bible to
define what pagans are supposed to believe, and
with pagans who overplay the whole ancient
origins thing.

Adrian.
http://www.flinders.edu.au