Yet Another Reason...

"He who loves 50 people has 50 woes; he who loves no one has no woes."

You call this ethical inspiration? Give me a suffering God any day to loveless extinction.

Why Christianity is better than Buddhism

photo by Hartfried Schmid

I was wondering awhile back about why Christianity is better than Buddhism, and I ran across this helpful bit (brackets are mine):

But some at least of the disciples of the great Gautama [aka Siddhartha] interpret his ideal, so far as I can understand them, as one of absolute liberation from all desire or effort or anything that human beings commonly call hope. In that sense, the philosophy would only mean the abandonment of arms [weapons] because it would mean the abandonment of almost everything. It would not discourage war any more than it would discourage work. It would not discourage work any more than it would discourage pleasure. It would certainly tell the warrior that disappointment awaited him when he became the conqueror, and that his war was not worth winning. But it would also presumably tell the lover that his love was not worth winning; and that the rose would wither like the laurel. It would presumably tell the poet that his poem was not worth writing; which may (in certain cases needless to name) be indeed the case. But it can hardly be called an inspiring philosophy for the production of good poems any more than bad. It may be that these persons are wrong about what is threatened by Buddhism. It may also be that the other persons are wrong about what was promised by Christianity. But I hope we have heard the last of the muddled discontent of worldly people, who curse the Church for not saving the world that did not want to be saved, and are ready to call in any other theory against it - even the wild theory by which the world would be destroyed.

-Exerpt from Buddhism and Christianity

By G.K. Chesterton

Illustrated London News March 2, 1929

Memorial Day Weekend - 2005

The girls are back from Memphis - they had a blast. Most of them said their favorite part of the vaction was swimming - they're all sunburned except Molly.

My weekend went well - I cleaned, trimmed the lawn, saw "Revenge of the Sith" (as did they, down in Memphis), made sack lunches for the homeless - at Robert's Park Methodist Church, and visited a liberian refugee family we help out a bit (Evelyn has a three-week old named (somewhat strangely) Evelyn).

The refugee family seems to be doing alright. All but one of the children who should be, are in school, both parents are working, there is food on the table and they are safe. Much better than being in Liberia, I imagine.

Yoda is my favorite Star Wars character...I think he's Buddist (ok, I know he's a Jedi, but in real life, I think he's Buddist).