All you are doing is repeating exactly what you said before, without presenting any facts either. What do you mean by "Eastern"? Are you saying that Christianity came from China or India, etc?
Well here, let me take a quote from someone who is not just of "eastern descent", but one who was born and raised in India. Ravi Zacharias, from his book "Jesus among other gods":
"We are living in a time when sensativities are at the surface, often vented with cutting words. Philosophically, you can believe anything, so long as you do not claim it to be true. Morally, you can practice anything, so long as you do not claim it is a better way. Religiously, you can hold to anything, so long as you do not bring Jesus Christ into it. If a spiritual idea is "eastern", it is granted critical immunity; if "western" it is thoroughly criticized. Thus a journalist can walk into a church and mock it carryings on, but he or she dare not do the same if the ceremony is from the "eastern" fold. Such is the mood at the end of the twentieth century.
A mood can be a dangerous state of mind, because it can crush reason under the weight of feeling. But that is precisely what postmodernism best represents--a mood.
How doe one in a mood such as this communicate the message of Jesus Christ, in which truth and absoluteness are not only assumed, but also sustained?
Well, for starters, let us be sure that Jesus was not western. In fact some of His parables were so eastern that I think much of the west may not have entered into the rigor and humor of what He said. What has happened in the west is that His impact over the centuries has been so felt that the ethos and moral impetus of His message changed the course of western civilization. The western naturalist, in sheer arrogance, does not see this. Now, after Technological progress, wealth and enterprise have so woven themselves around the message of Jesus that popular models of Christianity appear as nothing more than self and greed at the center, with strands of Christian thought at the periphery. This adulteration has rightly merited the severe rebuke of the critic. We would do well to remember, however, what Augustine said: 'We are never to judge a Philosophy by it's abuse. That aside, the way Jesus spoke, the proverbs and stories that He told, and the very context in which he addressed issues was steeped in an eastern idiom. Let us not forget that.
But if the Western world has been guilty of adulterating His message buyond recognition, the eastern world has often forgotten that it has, by fault, left a mass of religious belief, sometimes bizarre, irresponsibly uncriticized. Take, for example, various forms of eastern worship and practice. During the writing of this book, I happened to be at several such settings. In one of these, devotees had a large number of hooks pierced into their bodies. knives were pierced through their faces and small spears through their tongues. Sights like these terrify visitors and children. One has to ask, why do the same thinkers who criticize any western forms of spirituality not take this to task?"
That's what I thought you guys were getting at. As someone of Chinese descent it seems extremely Western-centric to me for people to be calling the Middle East "Eastern" when what the OP was clearly refering to were religions which came from the East, not the Middle East. It would be like if someone asked what our favorite "Western" states were in the U.S. and someone on the East Coast insisted that Missouri is a valid answer because it's in the "Mid-West."
You've got to be kidding me. I'm waiting for "Tu Pac" to come out and start screaming "west siiiiiiiiiide". Are you turning Philosophy into a "turf war" over the word "middle"?! BTW, while you may be of "eastern descent", I must wonder while looking at your prifile if you were born and raised in the U.S. (Washington D.C.). Do you call this facts for backing up your possition. If you want, I could continue to quote the book I quoted before, by someone much more competent and accomplished than I, where he, as someone with true experience with many "eastern" religions, makes comparisons between the life and teachings of Jesus and many other "eastern" religions (Buddhism[BTW, it isn't suprising that the poll spelled it wrong, I wonder if they are of "eastern" descent?] Hinduism, etc.].
Sincerely,
SoliDeoGloria
