XPost: alt.books.cs-lewis   
   From: dd@dandrake.com   
      
   On Sun, 2 Oct 2005 14:20:06 UTC, Siwel Naph    
   wrote:   
      
   > But... would anyone be AS apprehensive about going thru wardrobe two,   
   > into the land where everyone practised "Mere Buddhism"? Would anyone be   
   > apprehensive at ALL? (Maybe this is my realtive ignorance of Buddhism   
   > speaking here.)   
      
   Is Mere Buddhism silent on whether you should oppress women (as Tibetans   
   and various ofther Buddhists do)?  Or suppress heretical new sects of   
   Buddhism (check the history of Japan in the centuries before they saw   
   their first Christian)?  I don't know.  I rather think that Gautama "Mere"   
   Buddha was silent on these details -- too obvious, perhaps?   
      
   I think that Mere Hinduism teaches that a person suffering from bad things   
   including bad "luck" is experiencing the results of bad karma acquired in   
   a previous existence; but it dostn't seem to tell how you should react: by   
   shunning the person so as not to interfere with the workings of karma; or   
   by helping the person, it being your karma in to be in a position to help,   
   and Bad Karma to ignore suffering.  Both approaches definitely exist among   
   real Hindus, but I don't know which is Mere, or whether both are.   
      
   It's seriously hard to say whether one religion's Mere-ness is better than   
   another. Well, easy to say, but hard to know.  Mere Christianity appeals   
   to me because it's from the same cultural background that I am. (There's a   
   reversal of cause and effect! My own Godless background is, of course,   
   deeply rooted in Christian tradition.)  If I as thoroughly understood   
   another Mere-ism as I do this one, I might well find it equally appealing.   
    Beyond doubt Lewis considered love and forgiveness to be essential (not   
   very very important, but *of the essence*) parts of Mere Chrisitanity; I   
   honestly don't know abut the others.   
      
   "Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity,   
   mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were, all, my business."   
   --Marley's ghost   
      
      
      
   BTW thanks for injecting a good discussion topic here. Maybe it will have   
   some reviving effect.   
      
   --   
   Dan Drake   
   dd@dandrake.com   
   http://www.dandrake.com/   
   porlockjr.blogspot.com   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)