Guy from former church asking me about buddhism

[SavageSotoParticipant]

Just when I think I’ll never hear from people from my old church again, I am proven wrong lol. A guy sent me a message saying that he’s noticed that I’ve been reading about buddhism and wanted me to give some brief thoughts on it so far. I’m kind of hoping it’s not an attempt to debate me, as I have debated him years ago when I first came an out-of-the-closet-heretic (actually I probably never was in the closet about it). Another issue is that he is friends with my grandparents (who do not know about my de-conversion from christianity at all), so I don’t know if he will bring it up to them or not…either way I sent the following message and I’ll let the chips fall where they may:

My thoughts are that Buddhism in general seems largely unconcerned with the afterlife and the existence or particular specifics of deities, which has been an appealing aspect to me. It’s very practical in that it is mainly focused on overcoming our attachments to worldly desires (similar to christianity) so that we might attain inner peace. The “ego” in buddhism is sort of the equivalent to “sin” in christianity, because it tries to keep you bound to delusions and things that generally don’t benefit you or temporarily fulfill you. Again there are a lot of doctrinal specifics that I haven’t waded much into and I really only am to further my understanding.
I think I identify more with Alan Watts, who’s philosophy was more of an interesting blend of Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity and Confucianism. His focus was probably more buddhism still but overall he talks a lot about overcoming the fear of death, being in tune with the “authentic” self and flowing with change instead of fighting it’s inevitability.

• This topic was modified 1 year, 4 months ago by  SavageSoto.

[David HaywardKeymaster]

That’s cool. There are some really good introductions to Buddhism available.

[Author]

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