XPost: alt.philosophy.zen, alt.buddha.short.fat.guy, alt.philosophy.taoism   
   From: tanghuyen@gmail.com   
      
   On 8/25/2016 7:46 AM, Noah Sombrero wrote:   
      
   > The overextension being your suggestion that religions work to the   
   > extent that they facilitate buddhist understanding.   
      
   My bias is that Stoicism, Daoism and Buddhism   
   share a basic worldview, which is found in parts   
   of the three Religions of the Book, though in   
   lesser concentration. It is, further, that Stoicism,   
   Daoism and Buddhism advocate an impersonal,   
   natural worldview which weaves the natural and   
   supernatural, independent of any person,   
   including their putative founders. The Logos   
   (reason), Way (Dao) and Law (Dharma) that   
   respectively run the world transcend any   
   personality, however impressive (or   
   unimpressive). The three Religions of the Book   
   bind their message to persons, however lofty,   
   and nothing is above such persons, specially   
   any impersonal abstraction like the Logos, Way   
   (Dao) and Law (Dharma). My bias is that what   
   works in the three Religions of the Book is the   
   same as what works in Stoicism, Daoism and   
   Buddhism, namely the set of factors that   
   constitute mental culture in Stoicism, Daoism   
   and Buddhism.   
      
   Christianity borrows massively from Stoicism,   
   and the great Theologians like Augustine and   
   Thomas build their theology on Stoicism, but   
   cover it up with Jewish mythology for   
   respectability, to protect the innocent. In   
   recent times, the Roman Catholic Church   
   adopts Buddhist meditative technique en   
   masse. Eastern Orthodoxy has always been   
   quite subservient to Neoplatonism, which is a   
   slightly revised version of Stoicism. Both   
   major branches of Christianity, east and west,   
   worship the Pseudo-Dionysius, who was a   
   Syrian forger in the sixth century and disciple   
   of the last Neoplatonists, Proclus and   
   Damascius, ardent anti-Christian pagans. So   
   there should be much absorbtion of Stoicism   
   in Christianity, if my reconstruction is in any   
   way valid.   
      
   Tang Huyen   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)