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The two Christian saints who are the Buddha

250 points by surprisetalk 8d ago

manjuc 7d ago
[flagged]
thinkindie 8d ago
whoever came up with this website name is definitely not Italian, as you would rather say "Signor Galilei".
- vasco 8d ago
  > Why Galileo? > Galileo is my actual, real life middle name! “Signore Galilei” is supposed to mean “Mr. Galilei” in the native Italian of Galileo Galilei, considered by many to be the father of modern science. I try to bring a Galilean spirit of curiosity to every post and video I make. An Italian-speaking viewer of mine has informed me that “Signore” should grammatically become “Signor” when it is used with a specific person’s last name rather than as a general term of address, so “Signore Galilei” really means something more like “Mister! Galilei!” instead. I guess that’s still okay with me. From the about page
- jean- 8d ago
  Indeed, "Signore Galilei" makes one think "Galilei ladies" -- sisters, perhaps.
- deleted 8d ago
  [deleted]
- luckydata 8d ago
  I'm Italian, I thought using the full word instead of eliding the last "e" was an archaic florentine habit that the author used, didn't think much of it tbh.
cjs_ac 8d ago
Related: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Thomas_Christians https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Thomas_Christians
QuesnayJr 8d ago
This is pedantic, but isn't only Josaphat the Buddha?
nephihaha 8d ago
St. Jehosophat is one of them. Neither of them are currently recognised.
- giraffe_lady 8d ago
  Catholics don't formally recognize them but most or maybe all orthodox christian churches do.
- IAmBroom 7d ago
  Their status is curious (along with clearly fictional saints like St. Brigid, the former Irish Goddess of Fire). Canonization is mostly considered to be under the remit of Papal Infallibility, which means it cannot be revoked. If the Pope gets drunk on sacramental wine and saints Pikachu the Pokeman character, Pikachu (somehow) enters heaven. Doubt that, and you commit heresy. But that's not absolutely, totally decided RC law - just a majority opinion. AFAICT. What absolutely has happened is that saints without plausible historical backing have had their feast days revoked, and (sometimes but not always) have been removed from the lists of saints the Church encourages Catholics to pray to. (St. Christopher is now believed to be allegorical, but prayer to "him" is still encouraged nonetheless.) Basically, they've been demoted, like the uncle that is technically still a blood relation, but doesn't get the invite to Thanksgiving dinner. Now please pass the Turkiye.
  - nephihaha 7d ago
    Brìde is a funny one. It is just about possible that there was a real Brìde who was an abbess, or several in fact, but she was so heavily blended with the pagan deity that she is virtually indistinguishable in some respects. We have a lot of places named after her in Scotland. West and East Kilbride, Lhanbryde and various churches and centres named after her.
3m4r 8d ago
The Therapeutae sect is another good example of this phenomenon, although because it touches the root of several Abrahamic traditions so thoroughly, scholars and others are much less likely to declare an authoritative relation between between early Buddhism and the Therapeutae. However, anyone who has more than a passing familiarity with the history of early Buddhism, the Therapeutae, and the religious developments of the 1st century BCE/1st century CE can't ignore how improbable the independent development of the latter's practices are, and how influential they became to various groups in the Middle East that later claimed they arrived at them independently.
- anon291 8d ago
  Christian and Buddhist monastic traditions are so uncannily similar it's difficult to really think they developed without influence. That's my opinion. Even the Europeans who first set foot in Asia during the age of discovery thought they were being played tricks on, so I don't think it's that wild an idea
  - 3m4r 8d ago
    The problem isn't really the wildness of the idea (or its direct implications). The problem is that there is almost 2,000 years of culture and the metaphysical beliefs of well-more than half of the human population predicated upon their beliefs being entirely unique and an off-shoot of Judaism and not a fundamentally different syncretic import from the east. Earlier today, I was listening to Evangelical Christian Radio while doing errands (my phone is broken and I live deep in Red America) and the pastor, Alistair Begg, was making the argument that the synoptic gospels are totally unique in what they are. The format is unprecedented. They're not biographies. They're not systematic theology. It's just a direct witness to Jesus Christ. And so on. Therefore, they're historically valid and true, etc. But if you have read the Pali Canon or other collections of sutras and agamas, it's almost blindingly obvious that the structure of the pericopic episodes found in the synoptic gospels aren't really unique at all. As a random example: From Majjhima Nikaya 55 (trans. Thanissaro): I have heard that on one occasion the Blessed One was staying near Rājagaha, in Jīvaka Komārabhacca’s mango grove. Then Jīvaka Komārabhacca went to the Blessed One and, on arrival, having bowed down to him, sat to one side. As he was sitting there he said to the Blessed One, “Lord, I have heard it said that ‘They slaughter animals for the sake of Gotama the contemplative. Gotama the contemplative knowingly eats the meat prepared for his sake in dependence on that action.’ Those who say, ‘They slaughter animals for the sake of Gotama the contemplative. Gotama the contemplative knowingly eats the meat prepared for his sake in dependence on that action’: Are they speaking in line with what the Blessed One has said, are they not slandering the Blessed One with what is unfactual, and are they speaking in line with the Dhamma so that no one whose thinking is in line with the Dhamma would have grounds for criticizing them?” Compared to say, Mark 7 (trans. NIV): The Pharisees and some of the teachers of the law who had come from Jerusalem gathered around Jesus and saw some of his disciples eating food with hands that were defiled, that is, unwashed. (The Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they give their hands a ceremonial washing, holding to the tradition of the elders. When they come from the marketplace they do not eat unless they wash. And they observe many other traditions, such as the washing of cups, pitchers and kettles. So the Pharisees and teachers of the law asked Jesus, “Why don’t your disciples live according to the tradition of the elders instead of eating their food with defiled hands?” And so on and so forth. The parallels don't end there, but I've probably gone on long enough of a rant. And this wouldn't even be the first time something like that happened in the Greek world. Pyrrho very likely did something very similar. Plus, the phenomena has modern equivalents as well. Look at how many mindfulness courses and therapy interventions in the West just file the serial numbers off of Buddhism (e.g. CBT, ACT). So yeah. The pieces are all there, but literally be damned by others if you put them together.
ruffrey 8d ago
Some history, as this stuff is interesting to me. The two referenced saints predated formal canonization. They were approved in the 16th century. The Roman Catholic Church removed these two saints in the 20th century. There is some confusion because there is another Saint Josaphat (Kuntsevych), and another Saint Barlaam (the martyr, 4th century).
xutopia 8d ago
This reminds me so much of the Raglan hero archetype rank: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rank–Raglan_hero_archetype https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rank–Raglan_hero_archetype So many stories, many people believe are true and build whole religions around, are really just repeated stories with many details changed to fit the local culture and traditions. It's crazy so many of the world's politics and problems stem from what might actually just be the same story said in a different way... or even of a fan fiction on top of existing fiction.
- twic 8d ago
  Can I interest you in Jesus also being Emperor Andronikos I? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_chronology_(Fomenko) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_chronology_(Fomenko)
- darepublic 8d ago
  Politics and problems don't stem from the story. The story is an after the fact rationalization
- bmacho 8d ago
  > Classicist Thomas J. Sienkewicz analyzed additional heroes using Raglan's pattern, including Mithridates VI of Pontus (22 points), Krishna (21 points), Jesus (18 points), Mohammad (17 points), Beowulf (15 points), Buddha (15 points), Czar Nicholas II (14 points), Samson (13 points), Sunjata, the Lion-King of Ancient Mali (11 points), Achilles (10 points), and Harry Potter (8 points).
- nchmy 7d ago
  I had never heard of raglan, but started commenting about how this relates to Joseph Campbell's work. Turns out that the wiki article heavily compares raglan and Campbell. I look forward to looking into this all some more. One note - and this could just be nitpicking rather than making any correction. I mostly agree, but the "details changed" part implies that there was actual connection between the societies and one borrowed/modified the other's stories. That surely happened sometimes. But, there's plenty of evidence of very similar stories springing up in completely disconnected parts of the world. The explanation is that they come from something innate to the human experience. Also, just because they're "stories" doesn't mean they don't have profound insight and value. Joseph Campbell did tremendous work in presenting all of this. He had deep reverence for it all, not just despite, but likely because of, the deep similarities across the world. But he was very clear about the fact that everyone's fighting over what to call bread. They miss the point entirely. But so do atheist-type people who write it all off based on literal, logical readings - they miss the metaphor, and therefore the value. He would say things like "atheists would sit down at a restaurant, look at the menu, then start eating the menu" - mistaking the symbol for the reference. Or seeing a road sign "welcome to city" and thinking "ah, here we are". Everyone - "believers", atheists and anywhere in between - has a tremendous amount to learn and gain if they can learn to read it all as great literature, poetry etc...
wiradikusuma 8d ago
"Christianity in particular has a history of absorbing other religions’ traditions" -- Tangentially related: I'm a Catholic, so I don't know much about other "distros", but the Roman Catholic Church has a long, pragmatic history of absorbing local traditions in Indonesia. It's interesting dynamic. Catholic Church is notoriously top-down and hierarchical, yet local parishes can feel entirely distinct. It's not uncommon to see traditional Javanese processions integrated right into the mass. Like skin/mod in a game.
- ajross 8d ago
  I really don't think that that use of "in particular" is correct or notable? Cross culture motion of mythology and storytelling is the rule with humanity, not the exception. Really it's only in the last/final generation of religions, where they started writing them down in canon/scripture/testaments/writs/dogmas/whatever, that you started to see unique stories get associated with specific religions. Before that? It's all mush. Aphrodite descends pretty clearly from the same line as Astarte/Ishtar/Innana (maybe Isis too), etc... People steal good stories. People get conquered and then confused by retelling the stories their new overlords tell. Again and again.
  - mightyham 8d ago
    "In particular" could also be interpreted here as just signaling the main subject of the article, not necessarily making any sort of claim to comparative amount of syncretism.
    - ajross 8d ago
      Editor snobbery digression: that would be poor writing. The job of signaling the main subject of the article belongs to the headline and lede, and "Christian saints" is right there. No, that phrase is just filler. And IMHO it's basically wrong. Certainly if the author want to show that Christianity is more likely than other religions to import ideas, the article has a lot more work to do than point out one myth. Literally everyone does this.
ck2 8d ago
the fun-fact about any religion is since they are all completely made up, if you don't like the rules you can just make your own rules or religion however in certain countries this gets you executed or imprisoned
- gwbas1c 8d ago
  Religion is very closely tied to social support structures: You can only "make one up" if the people who you are close with go along with you.
  - ck2 8d ago
    you have a point but it doesn't take many I live in an area surrounded by cults but also there are plenty of solitary practitioners of Wicca and Buddhism and then you have the dozen of forms of christianity where every church just put their own spin on things people are weird, religion just makes it even more so I don't have a problem as long as they keep it to themselves but that rarely is the case
  - heresie-dabord 8d ago
    > Religion is very closely tied to power structures Fixed it for you, Sir.
    - vivekd 8d ago
      in all cases? Really. That seems more like a trusim that people often blindly repeat than something that's actually supported by facts. I can see how Islam being designed as a state religion can be tied to power structures. Perhaps there is an argument that Hinduism supported feudal social structures. Other than that, the idea that religion is closely tied to power structures seems to be questionable and weakly supported. Was shamanic belief tied to the power of chiefs in ancient tribes? I don't think so. Buddha was a prince but it seems tenuous to say that buddhist monks somehow supported royal power in the East. I could go on. . .
    - gwbas1c 7d ago
      People form religions, the power gets abused, they form new ones, the power gets abused, rinse, lather, repeat. I consider myself lucky to live in a time and place where I'm not forced to participate or financially support a religion. --- Now, if you don't want to sound like a random person on the internet talking about something they don't understand, a good book to look at is "Caught in the Pulpit: Leaving Belief Behind". (Co-authored by Daniel C. Dennett, one of the "big four" atheists and Linda LaScola.) The book is based around interviews with clergy who've become atheist. It exposes the different kinds of social and power structures that exist within common religions. I distinctly remember reading about a Hasidic clergy member who has a secret atheist club in his community, but they all love their community so much that they would never leave. I also distinctly remember an Episcopalian minister who's "trapped" in a conservative church where the elderly parishioners still believe, even though he doesn't, nor does official church doctrine require him to. The book humanizes the power structure to the point where you realize it exists because of social momentum and peoples' desire for a social support system. https://www.amazon.com/Caught-Pulpit-Leaving-Belief-Behind/dp/1634310209 https://www.amazon.com/Caught-Pulpit-Leaving-Belief-Behind/d...
mohamedkoubaa 8d ago
I came across an interesting article once that claimed that Buddha was reconstituted into a mythical St. George
- nephihaha 8d ago
  St. George is likely based on Michael, but I imagine the logic would be that the dragon was some kind of convoluted version of the King of the Nagas.
bitsage 8d ago
It’s quite ironic how the assimilationist nature of high church Christianity has ended up becoming what early Christianity was in opposition to. Early Christians were non-conformist, to the point of execution, and were sometimes even seen as anti-social. A thousand years later, Christians are incorporating obscure tales from the East. I think this is another argument for a separation of Church and state. It allows people to challenge when religious teaching goes awry without fear of persecution.
- tgv 8d ago
  Idk. The establishing act of Christianity supposedly consists of Paul (?) saying that newcomers don't have to follow the strict rules from the Old Testament.
  - graemep 8d ago
    Argument between Paul and others that Paul won.
- graemep 8d ago
  I disagree. What changed was that the Roman Empire stopped persecuting Christians. There are still places where Christians are non-conformist to the point of execution. Christianity is often in conflict with governments. One example is the criticism of Thatcher by Church of England bishops.
- Exoristos 8d ago
  You're using quite a broad brush with "non-conformist," so I'll assume you're referring to Roman Christian martyrdom. The perception of Christians in that era was more or less that they were being coerced to libel Christ and suppress his memory, who moreover had the vital Answer for humankind; and to dissolve their brotherhoods as conspiratorial organizations, including by incriminating friends and family and (in time, certainly by Diocletian) to libel their ancestors. This is quite different from the modern, essentially Reformation, view of them, which is that they were ideologues with an obstinate disinclination to lose the argument. Another misconception is that they were under continuous persecution, when in fact Roman enforcement was more like a limited number of notorious showdowns well spread out over time and terrain; however, this one is not just a modern view but was also promoted by fairly early hagiographers[0]. Finally, resisting even per the rationale I've described was quite controversial, and not all Christians refused to capitulate, even after it had become an established religious concept and practice. For example, see the Donatist controversy in re traditores[1]. 0. https://classics.cornell.edu/news/roman-historian-views-early-martyr-narratives-living-texts https://classics.cornell.edu/news/roman-historian-views-earl... 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donatism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donatism
Guestmodinfo 8d ago
Get your facts correct. Buddha was more than 600 BC focus on the word "Before" while Christians and the Christian saints came after Christ. Don't be an intellectual hodgepodge
- amelius 8d ago
  > Get your facts correct. Would you call them "facts"?
  - Guestmodinfo 8d ago
    Christ and Christianity is well documented in all the kingdoms where it was persecuted and then the subsequent kingdoms had record of those records because one thing about kingdoms is that they don't throw away previous king's records because land records and administrative decrees are stored. Also Christians and Buddhist religions have the tradition of holding conferences that are well documented and happen after every few centuries. As an Indian I have read about records of the Buddist conferences held by various kings since after Buddha. Do I think Buddha is God. No. But he was pretty influential and impactful. The Christian conferences are also there where major theology points are discussed and confusions clarified. The records of thoe conferences exist
    - neonstatic 8d ago
      > Do I think Buddha is God. No. Neither did the Buddha
    - BirAdam 8d ago
      Buddhists and Catholics also hold interfaith dialogues.
- azernik 8d ago
  Did you read the article, or just the headline?
  - Guestmodinfo 8d ago
rimeice 8d ago
I find it incredible how many people have died in the name of minor variations in their monotheistic beliefs that are all based on the same foundational stories and yet here is a one of those foundational stories that has totally non-theistic source. I struggle with the hypocrisy of religion sometimes.
- Lio 8d ago
  There's many a true word said in jest. Like this passage from Red Dwarf: > Mr and Mrs Rimmer were very religious, taking the Bible scriptures at face value. The Hoppists were primarily concerned with a particular verse from the New Testament. St. Paul's first epistle to the Corinthians, chapter 13, verse 13 had been misprinted in a certain edition of the Bible. In their version, the verse read "And now these three remain: Faith, Hop and Charity. But the greatest of these is Hop". > The Hoppists took this literally and insisted that their followers spent every seventh day hopping. They would hop to church, hop through the service and then hop home again. The Rimmers even served their Sunday lunch whilst hopping, causing them to wear protective clothing to avoid burning themselves. This is obviously a joke but there's load of examples of people getting hung up on seemly minor details like that. E.g. The Umbilicus Adami discussion. If the bible is literal and God made Adam then Adam didn't have a mother. So that leads to the question, did he have a belly button? If he didn't have a belly button was he human? It sounds ridiculously trivial but people have died over that, which is itself even sillier.
- bartread 8d ago
  > I struggle with the hypocrisy of religion sometimes That doesn’t really make sense to me. Do you mean the hypocrisy of people who follow those religions? I tend to think that blaming outside forces for bad behaviour by people lets them off the hook a bit too easily - in particular it lets leaders off the hook far too easily - and disincentivises change because “I do X because Y makes me” rather than “I do X because I choose to”, which is the truth. Religions might contain good teachings and bad teachings but, ultimately, people choose how they behave and so it’s the people who show hypocrisy.
  - rimeice 8d ago
donohoe 8d ago
I love how the article is “isn’t that neat?” and never touches upon any self-awareness that perhaps many religions are nothing more than stories.
- doublerabbit 8d ago
  > many religions are nothing more than stories. All religions are nothing more than stories. If science doesn't prove this, then all proclaimed religions are cults.
- thewebguyd 8d ago
  They are just stories, but narrative stories work really well for human brains when it comes to psychological transformation. I like to think of religions as psychological technology. One doesn’t have to believe the stories are real for them to still have power. One can engage with the fantastic map of the mind that Buddhism provides without literally believing a being achieved “enlightenment” under a tree. Likewise, in the Christian tradition, the desert fathers through Hesychasm realized much of the same stuff as Buddha, and one does not need to accept the dogma as true to make use of the technology. Humans are myth-makers, and our brains have a neat ability to use myth to enact real change. Ricoeur dubbed something similar as the second naïveté, re-engaging with faiths after a period of rigorous critical doubt, seeing them for what they actually are, stories that provide a technology for the inner working of the human mind.
  - tempaccountabcd 8d ago
    [dead]
thataccount 8d ago
Ya know, the Divine sometimes works in mysterious ways. While it is possible these two fellas were a ripped-off Buddha story, it is also possible that they were actual people who lead these lives so that people who were Buddhists had some examples of how to adapt their previous Buddhist tendencies to Christian ones if they had an experience that caused conversion. Is there evidence to suggest they were not real people, or at the least, a large absence of evidence?
- IAmBroom 8d ago
  Religious stories about the Buddha were readily and literally coopted into Christian lore by early Church writers. Unless you presume the Buddhist stories were themselves historically accurate - which would start down a road of "both Buddhism and Christianity are true" - it's hard to imagine that these were coincidentally also stories about real figures.
  - thataccount 8d ago
    >Religious stories about the Buddha were readily and literally coopted into Christian lore by early Church writers. That's just another assertion of "They copied it!" Where is the evidence that this is so beyond an inference that they were copied? >Unless you presume the Buddhist stories were themselves historically accurate - which would start down a road of "both Buddhism and Christianity are true" - it's hard to imagine that these were coincidentally also stories about real figures. Life is suffering, and the Messiah took all human suffering on himself? I'm not sure these are mutually exclusive.
    - adamjb 8d ago
      We have records of versions of the story being repeated as it travelled from South Asia to the Mediterranean and the name slowly changing from bodhisattva -> bodisav -> Būdhasaf -> Iodasaph -> Ioasaph -> Josaphat
      - thataccount 7d ago
riffraff 8d ago
The article doesn't touch on why this is an actual saint rather than a minor local cult like Saint Guinefort[0], the saint dog[1]. The reason, AFAIK, is that the early church didn't have a process for canonization, it was just all local cults. By the time they decided to establish a proper process (proof of miracles, witnesses, devil's advocate etc) many local churches had their own saints, and they decided to basically accept all the ones already in use and only start enforcing rules for the new ones. So the idea that "there's a holy man in the east who did this and that" resulted in "eh, sure, let's write down Saint Jehoshaphat too". Christianity-as-trivia is a lot of fun. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Guinefort https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Guinefort [1] not to be confused with Saint Christopher, the dog-headed saint https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Christopher#/media/File:Saint_christopher_cynocephalus.gif https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Christopher#/media/File:...
- sealthedeal 8d ago
  I didn't realize that, super cool.
srcreigh 8d ago
The OCA (Orthodox Church of America) has a hagiography page regarding them. https://www.oca.org/saints/lives/2014/11/19/100292-saints-barlaam-the-monk-and-prince-ioasaph-of-india https://www.oca.org/saints/lives/2014/11/19/100292-saints-ba...
jheriko 8d ago
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deleted 8d ago
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gsky 8d ago
Churches are the worst thing i have ever seen. They demand people to pray instead of going to hospital as a result a lot of people died where I live. They demand a cut even from a loan. Pathetic people praying on innocent people
- elwell 8d ago
  Sounds more like the "scribes and Pharisees" that Jesus preached against: "They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on people's shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move them with their finger. They do all their deeds to be seen by others. ...they love the place of honor at feasts and the best seats in the synagogues and greetings in the marketplaces and being called rabbi by others. But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all brothers. And call no man your father on earth, for you have one Father, who is in heaven." -- in Matthew 23 Don't throw out the baby with the bathwater, and don't throw out the Christ with the 'christians'.
  - gsky 7d ago
    He was born to a virgin and you expect us to believe that fairy tale.
    - elwell 7d ago
      Not without reason. I believe it, in view of the entire context.
geye1234 8d ago
I get the author's not trying to write a watertight syllogism, but the point he's trying to make (his last sentence) doesn't follow from the obvious fact that beliefs can influence each other. Christianity and worldviews typically associated with the 'east' (as I've seen them discussed here and elsewhere) disagree in both their view of the 'building blocks' of reality, and in their 'big picture' view. They disagree on base questions like if there is really a "you", or whether change is real, or whether the material world is real, or whether multiplicity is real, or whether the truth of A implies the falsehood of not-A, and so on. (I've heard all of the above answered in the negative here.) And they disagree on 'big picture' things like the goal of human existence, the nature of the Absolute, what it is to live a good life, whether evil is the result of illusion or is (in addition to this) a defect in the will and caused ultimately by an indescribably malevolent being, whether a human being can reach a 'blessed' state by his own power, etc. So the differences are vast and essential, on both the macro and micro levels. The fact that some beliefs and practices influence other beliefs and practices doesn't change this. (The emergence of the "18 year old who just read Dawkins for the first time and thinks science disproves sky-daddy lolz" atheists on this thread is also most unfortunate.)
- asdff 8d ago
  >what it is to live a good life That has to be the universal one, no? I feel like basic moral principles, at least directed towards the in group, are pretty universal. I'd argue they are more base than even humans and are shared with certain intelligent animals.
  - geye1234 8d ago
    I think this is true up to a point. But you find chasmic differences as well. Polygamy is an obvious example, or lying to non-brethren (absolutely forbidden by Christianity, permitted I believe by other religions), or the caste system (unthinkable in Islam or Christianity, a base part of reality in Hinduism), etc. You find a very different attitude to wealth in many varieties of Protestantism compared to the Catholic Church. Also, as I said, whether a human being can reach a 'blessed state' by his own efforts, which I believe most eastern religions posit, and Christianity denies. Human sacrifice is an obvious example of a disagreement with very practical consequences for conduct. It was, as is well known, widely practised in parts of the Americas until the sixteenth century. Today in the west, you find people disagreeing very passionately over 'culture war' issues, which is surely a disagreement about what the good life is. And the people who say the culture wars don't matter are positing another view of the good life, different from them both. Etc.
aristofun 8d ago
Every serious religion worth considering is different and distinct in its fundamental core claims, even if there is a significant influence and overlap on other levels. No amount of pseudo-philocophical and quasi-historical research can change this basic fact. Naive attempt of some buddhists to reduce (in their eyes of course its the highest compliment) other religion figures to mere "buddha" label is nothing but silly, laymen kitchen theology. It is disrespectful to both buddhism and other religion.
joshcsimmons 8d ago
Heresy.

250 points by surprisetalk 8d ago

manjuc 7d ago

[flagged]

thinkindie 8d ago

whoever came up with this website name is definitely not Italian, as you would rather say "Signor Galilei".

vasco 8d ago
> Why Galileo? > Galileo is my actual, real life middle name! “Signore Galilei” is supposed to mean “Mr. Galilei” in the native Italian of Galileo Galilei, considered by many to be the father of modern science. I try to bring a Galilean spirit of curiosity to every post and video I make. An Italian-speaking viewer of mine has informed me that “Signore” should grammatically become “Signor” when it is used with a specific person’s last name rather than as a general term of address, so “Signore Galilei” really means something more like “Mister! Galilei!” instead. I guess that’s still okay with me. From the about page
jean- 8d ago
Indeed, "Signore Galilei" makes one think "Galilei ladies" -- sisters, perhaps.
deleted 8d ago
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luckydata 8d ago
I'm Italian, I thought using the full word instead of eliding the last "e" was an archaic florentine habit that the author used, didn't think much of it tbh.

cjs_ac 8d ago

Related: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Thomas_Christians https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Thomas_Christians

QuesnayJr 8d ago

This is pedantic, but isn't only Josaphat the Buddha?

nephihaha 8d ago

St. Jehosophat is one of them. Neither of them are currently recognised.

giraffe_lady 8d ago
Catholics don't formally recognize them but most or maybe all orthodox christian churches do.
IAmBroom 7d ago
Their status is curious (along with clearly fictional saints like St. Brigid, the former Irish Goddess of Fire). Canonization is mostly considered to be under the remit of Papal Infallibility, which means it cannot be revoked. If the Pope gets drunk on sacramental wine and saints Pikachu the Pokeman character, Pikachu (somehow) enters heaven. Doubt that, and you commit heresy. But that's not absolutely, totally decided RC law - just a majority opinion. AFAICT. What absolutely has happened is that saints without plausible historical backing have had their feast days revoked, and (sometimes but not always) have been removed from the lists of saints the Church encourages Catholics to pray to. (St. Christopher is now believed to be allegorical, but prayer to "him" is still encouraged nonetheless.) Basically, they've been demoted, like the uncle that is technically still a blood relation, but doesn't get the invite to Thanksgiving dinner. Now please pass the Turkiye.
- nephihaha 7d ago
  Brìde is a funny one. It is just about possible that there was a real Brìde who was an abbess, or several in fact, but she was so heavily blended with the pagan deity that she is virtually indistinguishable in some respects. We have a lot of places named after her in Scotland. West and East Kilbride, Lhanbryde and various churches and centres named after her.

3m4r 8d ago

The Therapeutae sect is another good example of this phenomenon, although because it touches the root of several Abrahamic traditions so thoroughly, scholars and others are much less likely to declare an authoritative relation between between early Buddhism and the Therapeutae. However, anyone who has more than a passing familiarity with the history of early Buddhism, the Therapeutae, and the religious developments of the 1st century BCE/1st century CE can't ignore how improbable the independent development of the latter's practices are, and how influential they became to various groups in the Middle East that later claimed they arrived at them independently.

anon291 8d ago
Christian and Buddhist monastic traditions are so uncannily similar it's difficult to really think they developed without influence. That's my opinion. Even the Europeans who first set foot in Asia during the age of discovery thought they were being played tricks on, so I don't think it's that wild an idea
- 3m4r 8d ago
  The problem isn't really the wildness of the idea (or its direct implications). The problem is that there is almost 2,000 years of culture and the metaphysical beliefs of well-more than half of the human population predicated upon their beliefs being entirely unique and an off-shoot of Judaism and not a fundamentally different syncretic import from the east. Earlier today, I was listening to Evangelical Christian Radio while doing errands (my phone is broken and I live deep in Red America) and the pastor, Alistair Begg, was making the argument that the synoptic gospels are totally unique in what they are. The format is unprecedented. They're not biographies. They're not systematic theology. It's just a direct witness to Jesus Christ. And so on. Therefore, they're historically valid and true, etc. But if you have read the Pali Canon or other collections of sutras and agamas, it's almost blindingly obvious that the structure of the pericopic episodes found in the synoptic gospels aren't really unique at all. As a random example: From Majjhima Nikaya 55 (trans. Thanissaro): I have heard that on one occasion the Blessed One was staying near Rājagaha, in Jīvaka Komārabhacca’s mango grove. Then Jīvaka Komārabhacca went to the Blessed One and, on arrival, having bowed down to him, sat to one side. As he was sitting there he said to the Blessed One, “Lord, I have heard it said that ‘They slaughter animals for the sake of Gotama the contemplative. Gotama the contemplative knowingly eats the meat prepared for his sake in dependence on that action.’ Those who say, ‘They slaughter animals for the sake of Gotama the contemplative. Gotama the contemplative knowingly eats the meat prepared for his sake in dependence on that action’: Are they speaking in line with what the Blessed One has said, are they not slandering the Blessed One with what is unfactual, and are they speaking in line with the Dhamma so that no one whose thinking is in line with the Dhamma would have grounds for criticizing them?” Compared to say, Mark 7 (trans. NIV): The Pharisees and some of the teachers of the law who had come from Jerusalem gathered around Jesus and saw some of his disciples eating food with hands that were defiled, that is, unwashed. (The Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they give their hands a ceremonial washing, holding to the tradition of the elders. When they come from the marketplace they do not eat unless they wash. And they observe many other traditions, such as the washing of cups, pitchers and kettles. So the Pharisees and teachers of the law asked Jesus, “Why don’t your disciples live according to the tradition of the elders instead of eating their food with defiled hands?” And so on and so forth. The parallels don't end there, but I've probably gone on long enough of a rant. And this wouldn't even be the first time something like that happened in the Greek world. Pyrrho very likely did something very similar. Plus, the phenomena has modern equivalents as well. Look at how many mindfulness courses and therapy interventions in the West just file the serial numbers off of Buddhism (e.g. CBT, ACT). So yeah. The pieces are all there, but literally be damned by others if you put them together.

ruffrey 8d ago

Some history, as this stuff is interesting to me. The two referenced saints predated formal canonization. They were approved in the 16th century. The Roman Catholic Church removed these two saints in the 20th century. There is some confusion because there is another Saint Josaphat (Kuntsevych), and another Saint Barlaam (the martyr, 4th century).

xutopia 8d ago

This reminds me so much of the Raglan hero archetype rank: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rank–Raglan_hero_archetype https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rank–Raglan_hero_archetype So many stories, many people believe are true and build whole religions around, are really just repeated stories with many details changed to fit the local culture and traditions. It's crazy so many of the world's politics and problems stem from what might actually just be the same story said in a different way... or even of a fan fiction on top of existing fiction.

twic 8d ago
Can I interest you in Jesus also being Emperor Andronikos I? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_chronology_(Fomenko) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_chronology_(Fomenko)
darepublic 8d ago
Politics and problems don't stem from the story. The story is an after the fact rationalization
bmacho 8d ago
> Classicist Thomas J. Sienkewicz analyzed additional heroes using Raglan's pattern, including Mithridates VI of Pontus (22 points), Krishna (21 points), Jesus (18 points), Mohammad (17 points), Beowulf (15 points), Buddha (15 points), Czar Nicholas II (14 points), Samson (13 points), Sunjata, the Lion-King of Ancient Mali (11 points), Achilles (10 points), and Harry Potter (8 points).
nchmy 7d ago
I had never heard of raglan, but started commenting about how this relates to Joseph Campbell's work. Turns out that the wiki article heavily compares raglan and Campbell. I look forward to looking into this all some more. One note - and this could just be nitpicking rather than making any correction. I mostly agree, but the "details changed" part implies that there was actual connection between the societies and one borrowed/modified the other's stories. That surely happened sometimes. But, there's plenty of evidence of very similar stories springing up in completely disconnected parts of the world. The explanation is that they come from something innate to the human experience. Also, just because they're "stories" doesn't mean they don't have profound insight and value. Joseph Campbell did tremendous work in presenting all of this. He had deep reverence for it all, not just despite, but likely because of, the deep similarities across the world. But he was very clear about the fact that everyone's fighting over what to call bread. They miss the point entirely. But so do atheist-type people who write it all off based on literal, logical readings - they miss the metaphor, and therefore the value. He would say things like "atheists would sit down at a restaurant, look at the menu, then start eating the menu" - mistaking the symbol for the reference. Or seeing a road sign "welcome to city" and thinking "ah, here we are". Everyone - "believers", atheists and anywhere in between - has a tremendous amount to learn and gain if they can learn to read it all as great literature, poetry etc...

wiradikusuma 8d ago

"Christianity in particular has a history of absorbing other religions’ traditions" -- Tangentially related: I'm a Catholic, so I don't know much about other "distros", but the Roman Catholic Church has a long, pragmatic history of absorbing local traditions in Indonesia. It's interesting dynamic. Catholic Church is notoriously top-down and hierarchical, yet local parishes can feel entirely distinct. It's not uncommon to see traditional Javanese processions integrated right into the mass. Like skin/mod in a game.

ajross 8d ago
I really don't think that that use of "in particular" is correct or notable? Cross culture motion of mythology and storytelling is the rule with humanity, not the exception. Really it's only in the last/final generation of religions, where they started writing them down in canon/scripture/testaments/writs/dogmas/whatever, that you started to see unique stories get associated with specific religions. Before that? It's all mush. Aphrodite descends pretty clearly from the same line as Astarte/Ishtar/Innana (maybe Isis too), etc... People steal good stories. People get conquered and then confused by retelling the stories their new overlords tell. Again and again.
- mightyham 8d ago
  "In particular" could also be interpreted here as just signaling the main subject of the article, not necessarily making any sort of claim to comparative amount of syncretism.
  - ajross 8d ago
    Editor snobbery digression: that would be poor writing. The job of signaling the main subject of the article belongs to the headline and lede, and "Christian saints" is right there. No, that phrase is just filler. And IMHO it's basically wrong. Certainly if the author want to show that Christianity is more likely than other religions to import ideas, the article has a lot more work to do than point out one myth. Literally everyone does this.

ck2 8d ago

the fun-fact about any religion is since they are all completely made up, if you don't like the rules you can just make your own rules or religion however in certain countries this gets you executed or imprisoned

gwbas1c 8d ago
Religion is very closely tied to social support structures: You can only "make one up" if the people who you are close with go along with you.
- ck2 8d ago
  you have a point but it doesn't take many I live in an area surrounded by cults but also there are plenty of solitary practitioners of Wicca and Buddhism and then you have the dozen of forms of christianity where every church just put their own spin on things people are weird, religion just makes it even more so I don't have a problem as long as they keep it to themselves but that rarely is the case
- heresie-dabord 8d ago
  > Religion is very closely tied to power structures Fixed it for you, Sir.
  - vivekd 8d ago
    in all cases? Really. That seems more like a trusim that people often blindly repeat than something that's actually supported by facts. I can see how Islam being designed as a state religion can be tied to power structures. Perhaps there is an argument that Hinduism supported feudal social structures. Other than that, the idea that religion is closely tied to power structures seems to be questionable and weakly supported. Was shamanic belief tied to the power of chiefs in ancient tribes? I don't think so. Buddha was a prince but it seems tenuous to say that buddhist monks somehow supported royal power in the East. I could go on. . .
  - gwbas1c 7d ago
    People form religions, the power gets abused, they form new ones, the power gets abused, rinse, lather, repeat. I consider myself lucky to live in a time and place where I'm not forced to participate or financially support a religion. --- Now, if you don't want to sound like a random person on the internet talking about something they don't understand, a good book to look at is "Caught in the Pulpit: Leaving Belief Behind". (Co-authored by Daniel C. Dennett, one of the "big four" atheists and Linda LaScola.) The book is based around interviews with clergy who've become atheist. It exposes the different kinds of social and power structures that exist within common religions. I distinctly remember reading about a Hasidic clergy member who has a secret atheist club in his community, but they all love their community so much that they would never leave. I also distinctly remember an Episcopalian minister who's "trapped" in a conservative church where the elderly parishioners still believe, even though he doesn't, nor does official church doctrine require him to. The book humanizes the power structure to the point where you realize it exists because of social momentum and peoples' desire for a social support system. https://www.amazon.com/Caught-Pulpit-Leaving-Belief-Behind/dp/1634310209 https://www.amazon.com/Caught-Pulpit-Leaving-Belief-Behind/d...

mohamedkoubaa 8d ago

I came across an interesting article once that claimed that Buddha was reconstituted into a mythical St. George

nephihaha 8d ago
St. George is likely based on Michael, but I imagine the logic would be that the dragon was some kind of convoluted version of the King of the Nagas.

bitsage 8d ago

It’s quite ironic how the assimilationist nature of high church Christianity has ended up becoming what early Christianity was in opposition to. Early Christians were non-conformist, to the point of execution, and were sometimes even seen as anti-social. A thousand years later, Christians are incorporating obscure tales from the East. I think this is another argument for a separation of Church and state. It allows people to challenge when religious teaching goes awry without fear of persecution.

tgv 8d ago
Idk. The establishing act of Christianity supposedly consists of Paul (?) saying that newcomers don't have to follow the strict rules from the Old Testament.
- graemep 8d ago
  Argument between Paul and others that Paul won.
graemep 8d ago
I disagree. What changed was that the Roman Empire stopped persecuting Christians. There are still places where Christians are non-conformist to the point of execution. Christianity is often in conflict with governments. One example is the criticism of Thatcher by Church of England bishops.
Exoristos 8d ago
You're using quite a broad brush with "non-conformist," so I'll assume you're referring to Roman Christian martyrdom. The perception of Christians in that era was more or less that they were being coerced to libel Christ and suppress his memory, who moreover had the vital Answer for humankind; and to dissolve their brotherhoods as conspiratorial organizations, including by incriminating friends and family and (in time, certainly by Diocletian) to libel their ancestors. This is quite different from the modern, essentially Reformation, view of them, which is that they were ideologues with an obstinate disinclination to lose the argument. Another misconception is that they were under continuous persecution, when in fact Roman enforcement was more like a limited number of notorious showdowns well spread out over time and terrain; however, this one is not just a modern view but was also promoted by fairly early hagiographers[0]. Finally, resisting even per the rationale I've described was quite controversial, and not all Christians refused to capitulate, even after it had become an established religious concept and practice. For example, see the Donatist controversy in re traditores[1]. 0. https://classics.cornell.edu/news/roman-historian-views-early-martyr-narratives-living-texts https://classics.cornell.edu/news/roman-historian-views-earl... 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donatism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donatism

Guestmodinfo 8d ago

Get your facts correct. Buddha was more than 600 BC focus on the word "Before" while Christians and the Christian saints came after Christ. Don't be an intellectual hodgepodge

amelius 8d ago
> Get your facts correct. Would you call them "facts"?
- Guestmodinfo 8d ago
  Christ and Christianity is well documented in all the kingdoms where it was persecuted and then the subsequent kingdoms had record of those records because one thing about kingdoms is that they don't throw away previous king's records because land records and administrative decrees are stored. Also Christians and Buddhist religions have the tradition of holding conferences that are well documented and happen after every few centuries. As an Indian I have read about records of the Buddist conferences held by various kings since after Buddha. Do I think Buddha is God. No. But he was pretty influential and impactful. The Christian conferences are also there where major theology points are discussed and confusions clarified. The records of thoe conferences exist
  - neonstatic 8d ago
    > Do I think Buddha is God. No. Neither did the Buddha
  - BirAdam 8d ago
    Buddhists and Catholics also hold interfaith dialogues.
azernik 8d ago
Did you read the article, or just the headline?
- Guestmodinfo 8d ago

rimeice 8d ago

I find it incredible how many people have died in the name of minor variations in their monotheistic beliefs that are all based on the same foundational stories and yet here is a one of those foundational stories that has totally non-theistic source. I struggle with the hypocrisy of religion sometimes.

Lio 8d ago
There's many a true word said in jest. Like this passage from Red Dwarf: > Mr and Mrs Rimmer were very religious, taking the Bible scriptures at face value. The Hoppists were primarily concerned with a particular verse from the New Testament. St. Paul's first epistle to the Corinthians, chapter 13, verse 13 had been misprinted in a certain edition of the Bible. In their version, the verse read "And now these three remain: Faith, Hop and Charity. But the greatest of these is Hop". > The Hoppists took this literally and insisted that their followers spent every seventh day hopping. They would hop to church, hop through the service and then hop home again. The Rimmers even served their Sunday lunch whilst hopping, causing them to wear protective clothing to avoid burning themselves. This is obviously a joke but there's load of examples of people getting hung up on seemly minor details like that. E.g. The Umbilicus Adami discussion. If the bible is literal and God made Adam then Adam didn't have a mother. So that leads to the question, did he have a belly button? If he didn't have a belly button was he human? It sounds ridiculously trivial but people have died over that, which is itself even sillier.
bartread 8d ago
> I struggle with the hypocrisy of religion sometimes That doesn’t really make sense to me. Do you mean the hypocrisy of people who follow those religions? I tend to think that blaming outside forces for bad behaviour by people lets them off the hook a bit too easily - in particular it lets leaders off the hook far too easily - and disincentivises change because “I do X because Y makes me” rather than “I do X because I choose to”, which is the truth. Religions might contain good teachings and bad teachings but, ultimately, people choose how they behave and so it’s the people who show hypocrisy.
- rimeice 8d ago

donohoe 8d ago

I love how the article is “isn’t that neat?” and never touches upon any self-awareness that perhaps many religions are nothing more than stories.

doublerabbit 8d ago
> many religions are nothing more than stories. All religions are nothing more than stories. If science doesn't prove this, then all proclaimed religions are cults.
thewebguyd 8d ago
They are just stories, but narrative stories work really well for human brains when it comes to psychological transformation. I like to think of religions as psychological technology. One doesn’t have to believe the stories are real for them to still have power. One can engage with the fantastic map of the mind that Buddhism provides without literally believing a being achieved “enlightenment” under a tree. Likewise, in the Christian tradition, the desert fathers through Hesychasm realized much of the same stuff as Buddha, and one does not need to accept the dogma as true to make use of the technology. Humans are myth-makers, and our brains have a neat ability to use myth to enact real change. Ricoeur dubbed something similar as the second naïveté, re-engaging with faiths after a period of rigorous critical doubt, seeing them for what they actually are, stories that provide a technology for the inner working of the human mind.
- tempaccountabcd 8d ago
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thataccount 8d ago

Ya know, the Divine sometimes works in mysterious ways. While it is possible these two fellas were a ripped-off Buddha story, it is also possible that they were actual people who lead these lives so that people who were Buddhists had some examples of how to adapt their previous Buddhist tendencies to Christian ones if they had an experience that caused conversion. Is there evidence to suggest they were not real people, or at the least, a large absence of evidence?

IAmBroom 8d ago
Religious stories about the Buddha were readily and literally coopted into Christian lore by early Church writers. Unless you presume the Buddhist stories were themselves historically accurate - which would start down a road of "both Buddhism and Christianity are true" - it's hard to imagine that these were coincidentally also stories about real figures.
- thataccount 8d ago
  >Religious stories about the Buddha were readily and literally coopted into Christian lore by early Church writers. That's just another assertion of "They copied it!" Where is the evidence that this is so beyond an inference that they were copied? >Unless you presume the Buddhist stories were themselves historically accurate - which would start down a road of "both Buddhism and Christianity are true" - it's hard to imagine that these were coincidentally also stories about real figures. Life is suffering, and the Messiah took all human suffering on himself? I'm not sure these are mutually exclusive.
  - adamjb 8d ago
    We have records of versions of the story being repeated as it travelled from South Asia to the Mediterranean and the name slowly changing from bodhisattva -> bodisav -> Būdhasaf -> Iodasaph -> Ioasaph -> Josaphat
    - thataccount 7d ago

riffraff 8d ago

The article doesn't touch on why this is an actual saint rather than a minor local cult like Saint Guinefort[0], the saint dog[1]. The reason, AFAIK, is that the early church didn't have a process for canonization, it was just all local cults. By the time they decided to establish a proper process (proof of miracles, witnesses, devil's advocate etc) many local churches had their own saints, and they decided to basically accept all the ones already in use and only start enforcing rules for the new ones. So the idea that "there's a holy man in the east who did this and that" resulted in "eh, sure, let's write down Saint Jehoshaphat too". Christianity-as-trivia is a lot of fun. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Guinefort https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Guinefort [1] not to be confused with Saint Christopher, the dog-headed saint https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Christopher#/media/File:Saint_christopher_cynocephalus.gif https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Christopher#/media/File:...

sealthedeal 8d ago
I didn't realize that, super cool.

srcreigh 8d ago

The OCA (Orthodox Church of America) has a hagiography page regarding them. https://www.oca.org/saints/lives/2014/11/19/100292-saints-barlaam-the-monk-and-prince-ioasaph-of-india https://www.oca.org/saints/lives/2014/11/19/100292-saints-ba...

jheriko 8d ago

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deleted 8d ago

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gsky 8d ago

Churches are the worst thing i have ever seen. They demand people to pray instead of going to hospital as a result a lot of people died where I live. They demand a cut even from a loan. Pathetic people praying on innocent people

elwell 8d ago
Sounds more like the "scribes and Pharisees" that Jesus preached against: "They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on people's shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move them with their finger. They do all their deeds to be seen by others. ...they love the place of honor at feasts and the best seats in the synagogues and greetings in the marketplaces and being called rabbi by others. But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all brothers. And call no man your father on earth, for you have one Father, who is in heaven." -- in Matthew 23 Don't throw out the baby with the bathwater, and don't throw out the Christ with the 'christians'.
- gsky 7d ago
  He was born to a virgin and you expect us to believe that fairy tale.
  - elwell 7d ago
    Not without reason. I believe it, in view of the entire context.

geye1234 8d ago

I get the author's not trying to write a watertight syllogism, but the point he's trying to make (his last sentence) doesn't follow from the obvious fact that beliefs can influence each other. Christianity and worldviews typically associated with the 'east' (as I've seen them discussed here and elsewhere) disagree in both their view of the 'building blocks' of reality, and in their 'big picture' view. They disagree on base questions like if there is really a "you", or whether change is real, or whether the material world is real, or whether multiplicity is real, or whether the truth of A implies the falsehood of not-A, and so on. (I've heard all of the above answered in the negative here.) And they disagree on 'big picture' things like the goal of human existence, the nature of the Absolute, what it is to live a good life, whether evil is the result of illusion or is (in addition to this) a defect in the will and caused ultimately by an indescribably malevolent being, whether a human being can reach a 'blessed' state by his own power, etc. So the differences are vast and essential, on both the macro and micro levels. The fact that some beliefs and practices influence other beliefs and practices doesn't change this. (The emergence of the "18 year old who just read Dawkins for the first time and thinks science disproves sky-daddy lolz" atheists on this thread is also most unfortunate.)

asdff 8d ago
>what it is to live a good life That has to be the universal one, no? I feel like basic moral principles, at least directed towards the in group, are pretty universal. I'd argue they are more base than even humans and are shared with certain intelligent animals.
- geye1234 8d ago
  I think this is true up to a point. But you find chasmic differences as well. Polygamy is an obvious example, or lying to non-brethren (absolutely forbidden by Christianity, permitted I believe by other religions), or the caste system (unthinkable in Islam or Christianity, a base part of reality in Hinduism), etc. You find a very different attitude to wealth in many varieties of Protestantism compared to the Catholic Church. Also, as I said, whether a human being can reach a 'blessed state' by his own efforts, which I believe most eastern religions posit, and Christianity denies. Human sacrifice is an obvious example of a disagreement with very practical consequences for conduct. It was, as is well known, widely practised in parts of the Americas until the sixteenth century. Today in the west, you find people disagreeing very passionately over 'culture war' issues, which is surely a disagreement about what the good life is. And the people who say the culture wars don't matter are positing another view of the good life, different from them both. Etc.

aristofun 8d ago

Every serious religion worth considering is different and distinct in its fundamental core claims, even if there is a significant influence and overlap on other levels. No amount of pseudo-philocophical and quasi-historical research can change this basic fact. Naive attempt of some buddhists to reduce (in their eyes of course its the highest compliment) other religion figures to mere "buddha" label is nothing but silly, laymen kitchen theology. It is disrespectful to both buddhism and other religion.

joshcsimmons 8d ago

Heresy.