Buddhism is not a native religion to any country. It is a religion that  adapts itself to the original religion of a people. When a nation has  many Buddhists, Buddhism  becomes superimposed on the foundational  beliefs of that country, but the foundation remains the same. Once we  understand this, we will understand why Western Buddhists have so many  ideas that did not originate from Buddhism, yet they insist they are  getting them from Buddhism. Read the rest of this entry »

(continued from previous blog…)

Although some Western intellectuals today seem unaware of it,  Christianity is the foundation of the greatness of the West. Ancient Europe was steeped in barbarism and paganism until the revelation of Judeo-Christian values. The greatest advances in Western  justice, education, prosperity, and scientific discovery are almost  unanimously connected to a Christian, whether they be a statesman,  revivalist, or scientist. Let me cite some basic evidence. Read the rest of this entry »

Over the years I have come to realize that there are two forms of Buddhism that Christians have to face. One is the aggressive, overtly anti-Christian, Western version, promoted by Western converts and their Western-educated followers. The other is the conservative, respectful, Eastern version, lived day-to-day by the Asians who grew up with Buddhism. This latter form of Buddhism is the one I have written about in my book From Buddha to Jesus: An Insider’s View of Buddhism & Christianity.

Since the book’s release, numerous responses have come from both Buddhists and Christians who interact with Buddhists, telling us how relevant the material is to them. Their comments are posted at our website for all to see: Read Reviews. As I suggest in my book, most native Buddhists are very respectful and actually like Christians. Read the rest of this entry »

On page 10 of his book Good Question Good Answer, Dhammika claims, “Buddhism… is certainly (sic) more scientific than any other religion.”

Yet it is interesting that many of the patriarchs of science were Christian: British physicist Sir Isaac Newton (father of Calculus – he loved the Bible more than physics), German astronomer Johannes Kepler, French biologist Louis Pasteur (who made great advances in health while arguing against evolution), American aviators Orville and Wilbur Wright (who changed transportation forever), and the list goes on and on.

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Let’s proceed to Dhammika’s interpretation of Christianity.

On page 4 of his book Good Question Good Answer, he writes: “In Christianity, the fish is used to symbolise Christ’s presence…” (P. 4). Used by whom? This is found nowhere in the Bible, except in one reference to Jesus calling Simon and Andrew to become “fishers of men” (Mark 1:17), which means fish is a symbol of men, not Christ.

Ethical Questions

On page 26 he asks, “If a good god [notice he capitalizes ‘Buddha’ but refuses to capitalize ‘God’  (a standard practice) which shows his disrespect to other religions] really creates each of us, it is difficult to explain why so many people are born with dreadful deformities…” What’s so “difficult” to explain about that? People suffer because of karma or sin. Heaven has no suffering because there is no sin there. Hell is eternal suffering because all karma or sin is punished there. If we had no karma or sin, we would have no suffering. This is literally Sunday School Christianity.

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Let’s proceed to Dhammika’s Western knowledge of Buddhism. Dhammika generalizes about Thai people, “Like many Thais, Cioccolanti labors under the conceit that what’s done in Thailand is Buddhism.” He calls Thais’ beliefs about Buddhism conceited despite the fact that Thailand represents the largest practicing Buddhist country in Southeast Asia – both by percentage (95%) and by population (63 million). Dhammika must have missed chapters 4 and 23 in which I explained to readers that Buddhism is a diverse religion with many fractures and divisions; Buddhists do not agree amongst themselves about their text or their leadership. Therefore “it is difficult…to make universal statements about what every single Buddhist believes” (page 35 US edition) and I “have focused on Buddhism as it is lived and practiced in the largest Theravada Buddhist country in modern times [Thailand]. I have not excluded perspectives from other countries when it was appropriate to touch on them.” (page 167) Shall a Western convert define Buddhism better than 60 million Buddhists? His form of confrontational, intolerant Buddhism is indeed foreign to Thais.

The simple fact is: no matter how much Pali and Sanskrit Dhammika learns, no matter how many hours he chants and meditates, he will never know Buddhism the way it’s lived by the average Asian who grew up with it. That is why I wrote my book From Buddha to Jesus: An Insider’s View of Buddhism & Christianity (not an academic’s, professional’s or Western view).

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