Also good point about Theravada, though for the record I stated this artcile was a Mahayana-only one early on.

Cheers mate!

This is the whole problem with comparing religions. People who are not Buddhist have recently been criticised for speaking about what they don’t know. And yet, in response, many Buddhists have made broad sweeping statements about Christianity that are just as ignoranty and do just as much to create division rather than friendship. I honestly think it is better if people stopped comparing and contrasting religions and stopped trying to score points off each other.

As for the idea that “Hell is frequently seen as a terminal existence, and Buddhism doesn’t subscribe to this view”, I would kind of agree except (1) Buddhist hell might not be eternal, but it can last many millions of billions of kalpas – which would pretty much feel eternal if you were going through it! (2) Though in Mahayanan Buddhism everyone will eventually get to Buddhahood, in Theravada this isn’t necessarily so. I’ve often asked this question to Therevadan monks and have been often told that, indeed, there is no gaurantee of Nirvana – meaning that hell, or least some form of samsara, is eternal for many.

Anyway, like I say, trying to compare and contrast and ‘call out’ other religions and schools of thought is never very helpful in my opinion and so I’ll stop there and just say again how much (except for the one sentence taking a dig at Christianity) I enjoyed your article. It’s a lovely, clear piece of writing with excellent gounding and quotes. Thank you again so much.

Marcus

Marcus: Your comments are well-taken, though it wasn’t meant to be mean-spirited, just calling out what is the mainstream belief in that faith. Hell is frequently seen as a terminal existence, and Buddhism doesn’t subscribe to this view. The gospel of Judas, like other such texts, is a gnostic text and isn’t a mainstream text, so few people would know of it. It’s a fair point in that there are liberal Christian views as well as conservative ones, but such critics of Buddhism are generally not of the liberal strain, and are not interested in Gnostic views in any case. :-/

Stephen: A very thought-provoking point. It’s classic Kegon thinking in that Buddhism can’t exist without its critics and ignorance of Buddhism. One is contained in the other, etc, etc, hence it’s only right to feel some gratitude.

Yes, a wonderful article! Thank you so much! Apart from the dig at Christianity half way through (which comes across as a bit mean spirited to be honest) this is a really superb post that addresses an important issue and is based on the whole broad range of Buddhist thought. Wonderful stuff – it deserves to be widely read.

Thank you so much, and with palms together,

Marcus

PS – for more on the whole question of Judas, a good place to start would be here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel_of_Judas

Thank you for the advice. I agree the confusion is a problem. I should go back and correct that. Because I say 念仏 anyway, I usually don’t get confused, but it’s hard to explain in English as you can see.

Take care!

kether1985: Welcome to the JLR and thanks for the information.

tigeryogiji: Ha ha ha, sorry for the confusion. As for Tiger’s maternal ancestry, I should’ve fact-checked first. DOH! I guess he can take the first part of the advice and discard the rest. Ah well.

arunlikhati: Thanks much for the encouragement. Inaccuracies are nothing new to the Intertubes, so I just want to set the record straight. If, having obtained correct information about Buddhism, people still want to criticize, then they are certainly welcome to. Also, I don’t like talking ex cathedra myself since I am just a lay follower, so it’s good to make cite sources where possible.