premjan

There is some schizophrenia in Islam. On the one hand, it eschews miracles, claiming the compositional quality of the Koran as the only miracle (of course the angel gabriel did appear to muhammad, which was a miracle). In this respect Islam is much better than its two predecessor faiths which are overloaded with miracles (parting of the red sea, resurrection and so on).

The problem is that Islam is a religion and is not science, and neither is it full communism, hence there has to be some justification for why to believe the koran, if only to use that belief to kill people who don't believe. Hence there has to be a lot of apologetics.

In Hinduism, we have everything conveniently blended into mythology, hence we don't face the embarassment of having to believe that Lord Krishna could really lift a mountain with his little finger. What a blessing.

godmustbecrazy

hello vajradhara
i have heard that buddha predicted that maitreya would be born after 2500 years.is it true.if it is then the time is close!

Vajradhara

Namaste godmustbecrazy,

thank you for the post.

the "best" numbers i've heard on it were 4000 years, roughly the time of a small kalpa. though you are correct in saying that we are living in the Dharma ending age.

premjan

Buddha would clearly be an apostate and infidel in Islam since he did not speak the praise of God by any name. Rather he claimed he was beyond God. I think he would have been found by the side of the date palm tree or camel trail with his throat slit for blasphemy if he had happened by a devout Muslim community.

Answerer

Islam bans idols, Buddhism doesn't. Thats the best difference.

premjan

True, yet the inner goal of Buddhism is a bit similar: to remove the idolatry of the mind represented by its nonsense categories.

Answerer

Well, where do you remove idolatry from when there are never such thing in the first place? Just ignore it........

premjan

I think idolatry does exist: it is the tendency of our mind to focus itself upon physical objects (idols), mental categories (which are not meaningful in reality) instead of either shunya (in Buddhism) or God (in Islam, or Judaism).

Idolatry is bad because it makes some concrete object into your highest focus instead of the infinite ineffable, absolute.

Answerer

Yeah, but its a tendency that can be dealt with.

premjan

respectfully, idolatry can be dealt with, especially by a self-aware person. yet some people of lower awareness need to be shown their mistakes in this regard.