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  1. Vishvavajra

    Is pro-gay Christianity really a tenable position?

    All I understand is that you're a legendary master of begging the question. "Marriage is between a man and a woman; therefore we can conclude that it's between a man and a woman." Why is logic a foreign language to reactionaries? True, but something tells me what you said wasn't what you meant...
  2. Vishvavajra

    Is Jesus truly God?

    What have you got aside from works that are generally understood to be pseudoepigrapha? The "scribal transcribers" explanation doesn't get around the pseudoepigraphic problem in the least. The author of 2 Peter is very keen for the reader to think he's the Peter who studied under Jesus, but that...
  3. Vishvavajra

    Struggling with western Buddhism

    I wouldn't say it's dying, but it is changing. This has happened before. Some lineages gradually die out, while others are revitalized. The Dharma dwindles in some countries while taking root in others. A lot of groups are making a concerted effort to spread the Dharma in the West because they...
  4. Vishvavajra

    Struggling with western Buddhism

    Somewhat, but the situation with the government is still iffy. It's not actively persecuted, and people are gaining an interest and even becoming monks, but the government still doesn't like for religion to be advertised openly. That means there often isn't any kind of structured way for laymen...
  5. Vishvavajra

    Is there such a thing as Goddess Monotheism?

    Those attributes are only coded masculine because of cultural traditions. That is not an objective designation. The gendering of specific traits and attributes is highly variable over time and space.
  6. Vishvavajra

    Struggling with western Buddhism

    Buddhism is strong in Taiwan generally. It's probably the only East Asian country where it's not struggling.
  7. Vishvavajra

    Struggling with western Buddhism

    I found this pdf of his Dharma talks in translation. It contains the stuff I've read previously. If the master is any indication, it seems like a very vibrant tradition that conveys the heart of Buddhadharma. Master Sheng Yen published a number of books that can be read in English, and a lot of...
  8. Vishvavajra

    Struggling with western Buddhism

    Feel free to practice with whatever school you feel works with you, Theravada included. Just be wary of fundamentalist attitudes and unsubstantiated claims to be the "pure" tradition straight from the Buddha's mouth. It's a living tradition whose scriptures aren't actually any older or more...
  9. Vishvavajra

    Abortion

    Abortion is one of those things people are bound to find distasteful, and feeling concern for sentient life is not misplaced. (I.e. the extremely rare late-term abortions wherein the fetus is still alive, as the vast majority of abortions are terminations of non-sentient embryos that haven't...
  10. Vishvavajra

    Struggling with western Buddhism

    Of course, Theravadins say that Theravada is older, purer, more authentic, etc., but it's not actually any more of those things than the Chan tradition is, nor is the Chan tradition (despite the flower sermon origin myth) any less orthodox when it comes to scriptural grounding etc. The phrase "a...
  11. Vishvavajra

    Is pro-gay Christianity really a tenable position?

    There's nothing that people do that isn't natural. Even the most depraved acts are completely natural, arising from natural impulses, however misapplied. We're not supernatural creatures. The one and only rubric for judging the morality of something like homosexuality is whether it causes...
  12. Vishvavajra

    Is Jesus truly God?

    The canonical Gospels have a late 1st century authorship, not 2nd century. There's some 40 and 50 years between the first of them and the death of Jesus, so a couple of generations have passed, and major figures such as Paul, Peter, and James are dead by that point, and the temple has been...
  13. Vishvavajra

    Is pro-gay Christianity really a tenable position?

    I used to think so. Then I read a bit deeper, and now I'm convinced Paul is often trying to get at more or less the opposite of what modern Christians tend to think he's saying. He draws on Leviticus, for example, but at the same time he insists that that sort of purity is an illusion. He gives...
  14. Vishvavajra

    Is pro-gay Christianity really a tenable position?

    You're missing the point there. Many people end up as atheists precisely because they grow up in a rigid tradition that they find incompatible with reason and modern values. If the only choices are intellectual and moral bankruptcy or ditching religion altogether, a lot of conscientious folk are...
  15. Vishvavajra

    Is pro-gay Christianity really a tenable position?

    Nobody cares about those other ones. The only purity laws that matter to people are the ones about receiving man-on-man sex. That's because a lot of Christians think receiving man-on-man sex is icky but like their bacon and shrimp and mixed-fabric clothing and being allowed outside during their...
  16. Vishvavajra

    Finding a open cloister?

    You want to become a monk? Go to the monastery and tell them you want to become a monk. They'll tell you what you need to do. You'll have to put your affairs in order, for one thing, and there are special rules and precepts to receive. Becoming a monk isn't like going on retreat; it's a...
  17. Vishvavajra

    Is Jesus truly God?

    It looks like a duck because people read their present belief structure back into the text. The orthodox formulation of the Trinity begins with Turtullian around the end of the 2nd century, beginning of the 3rd. He presents it as a new idea and has to explain it to folks. Even then it's not...
  18. Vishvavajra

    Is Jesus truly God?

    It's evidence of a growing tradition. It's not evidence of anything in particular about Jesus the man, since none of the authors of the NT had first-hand knowledge of him. Nor were they all writing independently, unaware of the works that came before. I'm not disputing Jesus as a historical...
  19. Vishvavajra

    Is pro-gay Christianity really a tenable position?

    What you're describing is the result of deep polarization. Conservatives have been beating the fundamentalist drum for long enough that people think you can't really be a part of the Christian community without believing a bunch of reactionary, homophobic rubbish. The result is that the...
  20. Vishvavajra

    Is pro-gay Christianity really a tenable position?

    What is a "pro-gay religion"? I honestly don't even have a clue what you're referring to.
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