Any Buddhists on boxingscene?

[BodyBagz]

Yes totally.

I completely agree he was atheist. Whether there are texts stating he said that or not. The fact is he hoped to show people that God wouldn’t be the one to set them free. “No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path,” he has said.

Religion/faith = touchy subject. But sometimes it's cut and dry.

Anyway, to the Budhas here...enjoy the philosophy of life.

[billeau2]

Yes totally.

I completely agree he was atheist. Whether there are texts stating he said that or not. The fact is he hoped to show people that God wouldn’t be the one to set them free. “No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path,” he has said.

Its true that he said no one saves us but ourselves... But he was not talking about salvation. Its also true that he said God would not set us free...

However none of these statements imply that he did not believe in Gods. He lived in a world where Gods existed and rituals were performed for the Gods, Buddha never saw fit to take the position that these Gods did not exist...He did take the position you stated above... there is a big difference.

It is an important distinction. What is implied is that human kind has its own rules of engagement when entering the cosmic repartee, not that Gods, and God do not exist. Put another way: there is no statement attributable to the Buddha that says God/Gods, do not exist. Sutra and Shastrika are the words and commentary of the Buddha.

[billeau2]

Interesting read.....

Sanskrit and the Indian logicians who argued different logical, theological and metaphysical positions were absolutely brilliant. In my opinion they far surpass the Western tradition which has appropriated Philosophy vis a vis the Greeks. Ancient Greek was a language that could describe different aspects of an appearance in such detail... from that we get phenomology, the basis for much of Greek thought.

But this was mere child's play compared to Sanskrit, a language which had incredible ability to enunciate specific positions and points that are impossible to articulate in other languages. Nagarjuna was the "Barry Bonds" of Buddhist thinkers/Logicians and in his work we can derive many of the Mahayana Buddhist concepts that would come to dominate Buddhist discourse.

What people fail to realize is that there is a logical position that allows one, during a debate, not to take any position on an statement. The Buddha did not feel it necessary to take an issue on the existence of some personal projection of the Atman, whih was the Hindu concept of the eternal. To Buddha we had to see to our own detachment, therefore God was irrelevant in this pursuit and a mere distraction.

Its all there in his Sutras...