XPost: alt.books.cs-lewis   
   From: bree@bree.com   
      
   On Tue, 04 Oct 2005 20:25:12 GMT, "Dan Drake"  wrote:   
      
   >On Tue, 4 Oct 2005 04:44:42 UTC, Bree  wrote:   
   /snip/   
      
   >> Might start by comparing the scriptures, see which set has the most   
   >> statements approving or commanding persecution. Then see how far up the   
   >> mainstream chain of command these statements were supported, how recently.   
   >> Compare statements of Dalai Lama to Pope over the past few centuries.   
   >   
   >The latter is just more statistics on what people do or say in this world.   
   >(Roman Catholics and Tibetan Buddhists will disagree with this opinion,   
   >but other Christians and Buddhists, the majority in each case, probably   
   >will not.)   
      
   Well, I disagree with it, and I'm neither. :-)   
      
   If you're not going to pay attention to anyone else's opinions about their   
   own religion, not even the Pope or the Dalai Lama.... Lewis didn't make up   
   MC, he wrote MC  to summarize beliefs common to all the denominations he   
   was familiar with, RC being among them.  You can't just look at MC in   
   isolation. Either Lewis was wrong about the Pope's beliefs, in which case   
   MC is nonsense; or the Pope was wrong about them, which is nonsense.   
      
   Well, I suppose you could apply the 'heresy or redundant' test ... to MC?   
   But are you quite sure Lewis isn't reading this group, lurking in   
   Purgatory, and likely to spin a hole in it?   
      
      
   >As to textual comparisons: from what I know of the New Testament, barring   
   >*perhaps* only Revelations, I don't see that we'll find enough approval of   
   >persecution to even start a count.   
      
   Would Lewis approve of dumping the Old Testament? Is there support in MC   
   for dumping it? Just the opposite, I think.   
      
      
   >From what I know of Buddhism -- much   
   >less -- I imagine that their scriptures, if they had any in the same   
   >sense, would be just the same.   
      
   They have a lot of stuff comparable to the Gospels, I think; accounts of   
   the life and teachings of Gautama, handed down from associates comparable   
   to the Apostles. More volumnious probably, as Gautama lived and preached   
   till about age 70, and there was quite an organization built to record his   
   speeches during his lifetime,  iirc.   
      
   >This is why I suggested that Siddharta   
   >himself might have left out the question entirely, as perhaps being too   
   >obvious to waste time on.   
      
   Very likely. Obvious as outdated, as perhaps the Old Testament persecutions   
   were or seemed in 30 AD?  Gautama wasn't encumbered by an Old Testament,   
   since he was more or less rebelling against the Hinduism of his time.   
      
      
   Bree   
      
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    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)