I am very fond of religion. I believe, God does exist.
I am born Muslim, but it doesn't make me stop to think about other beliefs.
I always wonder what are they doing in other religion? What are them? What is their ultimate achievement?
How do they see life?
So I start to go deeper in Buddhism, just to understand what it is all about. I turn my head to Chinese. As a second biggest proportion in Malaysia's population, I can't be wrong, and I think it would be much easier for me to have the picture.
I failed miserably to get the real answer when I talked to a few Chinese. They didn't seem to know what were they doing or worshipping.
Most of the Buddhist here has converted to Christianity, and started to live with Jesus. And they changed their names to English names, not Jewish (Jesus was a Jew). However, they still celebrate Chinese-associated holy days.
After doing some reading, I travel back in time to India, the origin birth-place of the belief.
I have found some interesting yet disturbing fact -- not just about the karma and reincarnation thing -- and I am pretty sure not many of us knows about this, even its devotees.
If atheism is the absence of belief in gods, then every Buddhists are, indeed, atheists.
Traditionally, even the religion was derived from Hinduism (another belief which I will discuss later), Buddhism dismisses the concept of God, it rejects oneness of God, and it never mentions about the powerfulness of the Creator. God actually, is not an essential part of the religion. God plays no role in one's life. God has no influence, and even if He does, He lives in another realm -- and He eventually cannot do anything.
The only goal of life in Buddhism is to achieve nirvana -- which I think it is easier with the help of marijuana.
Buddhism is not about either believing or not believing in God or gods. Rather, the historical founder of Buddhism, Siddhartha Buddha taught that believing in gods was not useful for those who seek to realize enlightenment.
There is also nothing in the teachings of the Buddha that suggest how to find God, the owner of the universe.
As I go on with the reading, I notice that I don't find the importance of God in any term at any place.
In other words, God is unnecessary in Buddhism theology!
Well, there are a lot of things coming to my mind since. How do they pray then? To whom are they praying? If they commit sin, to whom are they should ask forgiveness? What is sin by the way? Who is set up the standards, the moral? And the burning of incense tradition, food-giving practice, fire-crackers and all other superstitious rituals, surely are not for God, because God is not worshiped and not needed, according to the teachings!
So I come to the conclusion. I critically don't accept Buddhism is a religion anymore. It has no prominent god. It doesn't promote god. It is more to, er, the way you choose to live your existence -- a philosophy, a thought, a human-made rules to put some meaningful purpose to life, a no-god-interrelation concept -- which just like any other ism in the world, you might find more questions rather than answers when you start digging its truth.
I don't know, but as a human being, for something that unbound by divine orders, sects, and regulations, I strongly feel that Buddhism is a loose, anti-gravitational, unsound, and hollow ideology. The lack of God element in its foundation is confusing, distracting, contradicting, and conflicting, and the structure and fundamental are not solid, chaos, and indistinct -- to be regarded as a religion.
How are these personal attainment ideas captured so many hearts back then in China? And why are their monks play more kungfu when they are supposedly practicing peace?
No comments:
Post a Comment