[Buddha-l] A friendly Quaker-Buddhist debate

[andy]

> Actually, Steve, Christ crucified is only one image Catholics and Orthodox
>  venerate, but there are many others which you apparently don't know about
>  or strategically ignore.  Peace loving as you are, your disdain and
>  intolerance seems a bit out of place here.  But then again, I suppose it
>  is a sign of superior intelligence.
> 
> 
> Stan
> 

Oh my Gosh! (notice how I typed the whole thing out?) Here we go!  
Actually, when I was growing up as an involuntary Catholic, it was the sacred 
heart that probably freaked me out more.  But I often point out the complete 
subversion enacted by Christian symbolology (did I just go Dan Brown?).  To 
take the Roman instrument of criminal punishment, the crucifix, and turn it 
into a symbol of religious salvation, take some real, uh, cojones.   If Jesus 
was executed in the fifties, Christians today would be wearing tiny gold 
electric chairs instead of crosses.

[Mandatory Buddhist content:]  The point remains, however, of the sacrificial 
nature of Abrahamic religions. This is what Buddhism rejected in the Vedic 
tradition, and has an unfortunate tendency to translate into a "sacrifice your 
enemies before they sacrifice you!"  I don't think there is any such notion of 
purification by blood in Buddhism, and it is one thing that sets it apart as a 
religious tradition.  Not a sign of superior intelligence.