Prince Ashitaka

Thunder posted about Buddhist Cosmology claims that rivaled that of a flat earth. I want to talk about this for a minute. In my last thread (RE: Kalama Sutta) I talked about how the Buddha said to determine truth, which is with evidence that you yourself see. Buddha never claimed his words were infallible, he told us to test each teaching and determine its truth. So therefore, it doesn't undermine Buddhism to find minor faults in the suttas. If for example, we find an error in cosmology then that in no way undermines the 4 Noble Truths, The Eightfold Path, Rebirth, or even Buddhism in general.

Because the suttas were unwritten for a couple hundred years, we must be cautious on what we attribute to the Buddha and what not. But then again, we would still have to be cautious even if we were alive in the time of the Buddha (In deciding whether or not his teachings were valid). There are many false teacher's out there, so we must look carefully and examine what is truth or not. When you read the suttas, don't take it with any more weight than anything else you read, but test it's claims to see if they are valid, if they are, then use that sutta. Because you test EVERY claim, errors don't matter, because they WILL be rooted out if you follow Buddha's advice.

The Resurrection

Well, I am not a Buddhist, but surely this is common sense. The only route to the Truth is your own route. Taking on somebody elses Truth, even if it happens to be correct, is not the same thing at all. One has to go through the process of testing that Truth yourself, whatever it is.