The Buddha is a Catholic saint!

Thread Author Yeshua
Published onJun 25, 2011

Discussion Starter Jun 25, 2011

#1
Edited: Jun 25, 2011

Gautama Buddha is venerated as a deity or as a prophet in other religions. Some Hindu texts say that the Buddha was an avatar of the god Vishnu.

The Buddha is regarded as a prophet by the Ahmadiyyas and is of course a Manifestation of God in the Bahá'í faith. Some early Chinese Taoist-Buddhists thought the Buddha to be a reincarnation of Lao Tzu.

But did anyone know that Buddha Shakyamuni is actually a Catholic saint?

What is less known, particularly among Christians is that the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches integrated the Buddha into their faith through the legend St. Josaphat. The Buddha became a Christian saint, and even received a feast-day, 27 November. The name Josaphat has been derived from Bodhisattva, one whose being is illumination. So it turns out that the Sakyamuni Buddha is in fact an official Catholic saint.

Before Nostra Aetate told us that, "the Catholic Church rejects nothing that is true and holy" in non-Christian religions, the Catholic Church was living this out by keeping the feast of St Josaphat on its calendar. The Church recognized the holiness of Siddhartha. The holiness contained by his life and teachings attracted attention and made the Church honor and respect him for centuries in the persona of Josaphat, and they allowed the Church to continue to honor and respect him with his own feast day on the calendar him after it was made known that Josaphat was in reality the Buddha.

The story is thought to have been composed by Saint John of Damascus in the 6th century AD. It also appears, in abridged form, in the Golden Legend of Jacobus de Voragine. St. John was born around 676 A.D. and died sometime between 754 A.D and 757 A.D. He wrote a series of works defending the then still-young Christian faith. The Arabs, who then ruled most of the world, were very secure about Islam (seeing it as extension of Christianity); the Caliph gave St. John a free hand. One of the good father's books was a religious romance — the first Western one — called Barlaam and Joasaph.

I fed 5 major religions into an AI engine. Here is the 'winner.'

By Jay Atkins, Op-ed Contributor Monday, April 20, 2026

iStock/Chor muang

I recently did something that will likely make both my Christian and atheist friends a little uncomfortable: I asked a popular AI engine to evaluate the world’s major belief systems and tell me which one makes the most rational sense.

To be clear, I didn’t prompt it to favor Christianity. I didn’t ask leading questions or try to stack the deck. I asked it to analyze the heavyweights — Atheism, Buddhism, Islam, Hinduism, and Christianity — using a simple two-step framework: First, which worldview best explains reality, and second, which one does so while requiring the fewest unsupported assumptions? In other words, tell me which one has the highest explanatory power with the lowest evidentiary burden.

As a professing Christian for more than 40 years, what I got back should not have surprised me, yet it did. AI, in seconds, reached the same conclusion I’ve been working towards for decades: Christianity offers the most reasonable overall explanation of reality with the fewest leaps of faith.

Pause and let that settle in. AI ranked Christianity as the most reasonable view of the world.

The analysis I asked AI to do was not complicated, but it was comprehensive. I asked it to evaluate each worldview against the same basic questions:

1. Why does anything exist at all?
2. Why is the universe ordered and intelligible?
3. Why do humans possess consciousness and reason?
4. Are moral truths real or are they just social constructs?
5. Does human life have meaning or purpose?
6. Do the historical and fact claims of each belief system hold up?

I framed the analysis this way, not to pick a winner for rhetorical effect but to see which belief system actually holds together under the pure, rational scrutiny of a machine. When the analysis was done, here’s what happened.

Atheism scored well on simplicity. It doesn’t require belief in miracles or divine revelation. But that simplicity comes at a cost. It struggles to explain the biggest questions: why does the universe exist at all, why is it governed by rational laws, how does consciousness arise from mere matter, and why do we experience moral obligations as something real and binding? In many cases, it simply labels these things as either illusory or as “brute facts” and moves on, but it does not answer them.

Buddhism performed better as a practical system. It offers profound insight into human suffering and provides a quasi-workable path toward inner peace, but it largely sidesteps the deeper metaphysical questions. It gives advice on how to cope with reality, but not what reality ultimately is.

Hinduism fared about as well as Buddhism. It offers a sweeping explanation of reality with concepts like ultimate unity, karma, and reincarnation that attempt to account for both the material and spiritual world. That gives it significant explanatory depth, but with a big tradeoff. The system relies on a complex web of metaphysical claims that can’t be verified or falsified, creating a very high evidentiary burden relative to other worldviews.

Islam held together fairly well. It offers a strong account of God, morality, and purpose, which is understandable given its Abrahamic roots. But it runs into serious historical tension when it comes to the historicity of its claims about divine revelation to Muhammad, Jesus’ crucifixion, and correction of earlier traditions. Islam’s brand of retrospective revision carries a very heavy evidentiary burden that it simply can’t carry.

Tulsi Gabbard, First Hindu Elected To Congress, Will Swear In On Bhagavad Gita, 'Sacred' Hindu Text

Posted: 11/19/2012 3:02 pm EST Updated: 11/19/2012 3:02 pm EST





When Tulsi Gabbard, a Hawaii resident who made history this month at the first Hindu elected to Congress, attends her swearing in ceremony in January, she's poised to mark another first in American politics: Gabbard will take her oath over the Bhagavad Gita, a sacred Hindu text.

While no religious ceremony is legally required for those elected to Congress and the Senate, many choose to take oaths of office over Christian and Jewish texts, and Minnesota Rep. Keith Ellison, a Muslim, took his oath over a Quran. But Gabbard's use of a non-Abrahamic text will be unique and is symbolic of the growing religious diversity of Congress.

“For the Hindu Americans it is a historic moment ... It is a matter of pride that finally someone not only from our own faith, but someone who is a practicing Hindu, will be sworn in the Congress on one of our most sacred books," said Anju Bhargava, founder of Hindu American Seva Charities and a former member of the White House's Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships.

"It is my hope is that this swearing in will be another learning opportunity for our country about Hindus and Gita. Another step towards bringing the knowledge and values of Gita even more prominently to the American political landscape so that it becomes part of the everyday vocabulary in applying the moral principles in our political arena," said Bhargava, whose organization works to promote Hindu participation in civic life.

The Bhagavad Gita, which is often referred to as the Gita, is one of several Hindu texts, but Gabbard has said it's her primary sacred text. It is comprised of 700 verses and 18 chapters of the famed Mahabharata epic and is told in the form of a dialogue between Arjuna, a warrior-prince, and Krishna (God), in which they discuss his role and philosophical concepts in the Sanatana Dharma (Universal Order), which is popularly known as Hinduism.

In interviews, Gabbard has pointed to two verses of the Gita as being particularly important to her. Both are from chapter two, which is called "Sankhya yoga," and which discusses the soul. The chapter is often seen as a summary of the Gita's spiritual instruction. Gabbard's first favorite part, from verse 17, defines the soul as "that which pervades the entire body you should know to be indestructible. No one is able to destroy that imperishable soul." The other, from verse 23, expands on the idea: "The soul can never be cut into pieces by any weapon, nor can he be burned by fire, nor moistened by water, nor withered by the wind."

Although there are other older Hindu scriptures, such as the Vedas, the Gita is seen as representing "essence of all Vedas," said Siva Subramanian, a Washington, D.C.-area resident and member of the Council on Hindu Temples of the USA.


"It is also important for the USA that it will eventually have the representation from all the religions, and Tulsi taking the oath on the Gita is another step in that direction," Subramanian said.

Gabbard, 31, was born in American Samoa and raised by a Catholic father and a Hindu mother. She moved to Hawaii when she was two years old and joined the Hawaii state legislature in 2002 at age 21. She served in the Hawaii National Guard the next year and, in 2004, went to Baghdad to be a medical operations specialist. In 2008, she was deployed to Kuwait to work with the nation's counterterrorism trainees.

Gabbard chose to embrace the Hindu faith after her mother started practicing it when Gabbard was a teen. The congresswoman-elect, whose first name refers to a tree that's sacred to Hindus, follows the Vaishnava branch of Hinduism, which focuses on the Supreme Lord Vishnu and his 10 main incarnations.

Largely made up of Indian-Americans, the Hindu population in the United States is between 600,000 and 2.3 million. Unlike most Hindus, Gabbard is not of Indian heritage. Her father is Samoan and her mother is a convert to Hinduism.

Gabbard could not be reached for comment by The Huffington Post prior to publication, but in a statement released after her victory, she expressed hope that her election would help encourage other Hindu-Americans to proudly embrace their religion.

"On my last trip to the mainland, I met a man who told me that his teenage daughter felt embarrassed about her faith, but after meeting me, she's no longer feeling that way," said Gabbard, who will represent Hawaii's 2nd Congressional District. "He was so happy that my being elected to Congress would give hope to hundreds and thousands of young Hindus in America, that they can be open about their faith."

Gabbard will be taking the House seat of Hawaii's Mazie Hirono, a Buddhist who beat former Gov. Linda Lingle (R) in the Senate race, making Hirono the first Buddhist in the U.S. Senate. When Hirono was sworn into office in January 2007, she did not take an oath, but made an affirmation. The option comes from Article 6 of the Constitution, which says that "Senators and Representatives ... shall be bound by oath or affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required."

The affirmation option "was a religious liberty measure that was provided to Quakers and Mennonites, who were the two main religious minorities at the time of the Constitution's writing. They did not take oaths out of religious convictions," said Eric Rassbach, deputy general counsel at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, a legal advocacy group.

Hirono and Gabbard will join a mostly Christian but increasingly diverse Congress. A recent Pew Forum analysis showed that the 530 seats in the 113th Congress will include 299 Protestants, 161 Catholics, 32 Jews and 15 Mormons, among other faiths.

The first Muslim to join the House or Senate, Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), was first elected in 2006 and reelected for a fourth term on Nov. 6. In 2008, Rep. Andre Carson (D-Ind.) became the second Muslim elected to Congress. In 2008, Rep. Hark Johnson (D-Ga.), another Buddhist, also joined Congress, making him and Hirono the first Buddhists to be elected to Congress. The only atheist in the current Congress, Rep. Pete Stark ( D-Calif.), lost his seat on Nov. 6. But Democrat Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, who has said she prefers a "secular approach," will join the new Congress.

More than a century and a half ago, smaller religious groups made headway into congressional seats for the first time. Lewis Charles Levin of the American Party was the first Jew elected to Congress in 1845, and represented Pennsylvania in the House. The first Mormon was John Milton Bernhisel, who joined Congress in 1851 to represent Utah. The only Sikh congressman, California Democrat Dalip Singh Saund, was elected to three terms beginning in 1957.


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Asian Americans and Religion: Pew Study Highlights Hindu, Buddhist Diversity

Khyati Y. JoshiProfessor of Education, Fairleigh Dickinson University


Posted: 07/19/2012 7:05 am

In a report on Asian America and religion published today, the Pew Research Center offers new data that illuminate the complexity and richness of our pluralistic democracy. Pew's national survey is providing one of the first detailed glimpses into how Hinduism is practiced in the United States.

While temples representing many strains of Hinduism have sprung up across the U.S. since 1965, the Pew report offers the first data on where American Hindus locate themselves on the broad and diverse field of Hindu belief. More than half (53 percent) identify as simply "Hindu," but of the other half, about twice as many (19 percent) identify with the Vaishnava tradition of Hinduism as with Shaivite Hinduism (10 percent). Smaller percentages identify with the Hare Krishna tradition (3 percent) or with Vedanta philosophy (2 percent).

The Pew report also indicates how Hinduism is lived in the U.S. -- how it plays out in the daily lives of individuals. This chance to go beyond encyclopedia definitions and scriptural analysis is priceless to a social scientist like me. The Pew report tells us that nearly half (48 percent) of Hindus engage in daily prayer, and another third (32 percent) pray weekly or monthly. More than three quarters (78 percent) keep a puja (altar or shrine) in their home. A similar number (73 percent) believe in yoga as a spiritual practice, and more than four in 10 meditate daily (44 percent) or fast during holy times (41 percent).

To make the most of the Pew report, we need to bear in mind how the framing and phrasing of the survey can affect not only the data but also the conclusions some readers could draw from it. For example, Pew writes that "Asian Americans tend to be less religious," supporting this conclusion by noting that "fewer Asian Americans say religion is very important in their lives" (39 percent of U.S. Asians vs. 58 percent of all U.S. adults), and Asian Americans are less likely to say they pray on a daily basis. Pew also notes that just one-fifth (19 percent) of Asian American Hindus say they attend a house of worship regularly.

These measures apply a lens of Christian normativity -- treating biblical practices like weekly organized worship as the model for what constitutes "religious" behavior. As a result, they are inadequate indicators of religion's role, particularly among Hindus (who comprised 10 percent of the survey population) and Buddhists (14 percent). Applying them can leave us with a skewed understanding of how non-Christians live and practice their faiths.

For example, consider the large majority of Hindus who have an in-home puja, where devotional activities can be carried out without being "affiliated" with a mandir (Hindu temple) or attending group worship. Researchers who measure religious engagement in Christian normative terms will inevitably under-estimate the religiosity of Hindus: Hinduism doesn't have a weekly Sabbath like the Abrahamic faiths, and Hindus are as likely to worship at home or visit a temple to do darshan (the act of seeing and being seen by God), which they may not identify as attending a "service."

Likewise, Pew found fewer Hindus (17 percent) than any other religious group felt "living a very religious life" was "one of the most important things in life." But the number of Asian Americans who prioritized "being a good parent" (67 percent) and "having a successful marriage" (42 percent) outpaced the general public substantially. For Hindus, these are religious principles. Hindus recognize the concept of dharma -- the obligation one has to family and community at various stages of life. In India, where most of Pew's Hindu research participants grew up, one speaks not of religion or religiosity, but of dharma. Being a good parent and spouse are among the quintessential dharmic duties of a Hindu; to prioritize them is to "live a very religious life."

To best understand a report like Pew's, we need to understand the lens through which the data are collected, and how religious activity is seen and understood. For example, nearly a third (30 percent) of the Hindus Pew surveyed say they sometimes attend services of "different religions." That does not necessarily mean that they are worshiping outside Hinduism. Hinduism is no more monolithic or unified than any other religion. Vaishnavites and Shaivites may see each other's houses of worship as a "different religion." Also, Hindus of one type may attend another's mandir simply because it is the only geographically convenient temple.

Pew found 73 percent of Hindus and 76 percent of Buddhists surveyed "celebrate Christmas." As Pew notes, "holiday celebrations can ... entail religious, secular or a mix of both practices." But even assuming that for most Hindu Americans, "celebrating Christmas" is more about trees and gifts than the Baby Jesus, this is a striking figure. The framers of the Constitution could not have imagined America's religious diversity today, but they would surely rejoice to see different religious groups celebrating with one another.

These data also provides a window on the American diversity of faiths by illuminating some of the distinctions among non-Christian faiths. Whereas Jewish Americans probably don't "celebrate Christmas" at a similar rate, this isn't because Jews are more sensitive or "stronger" in their faith or because Hindus are weaker in theirs or are "assimilating." Rather, it's about a theological distinction between the two. For a Jew, "celebrating Christmas" could imply accepting the Christian idea that Jesus was the Messiah sent to fulfill the prophecies in the Tanakh (Hebrew sacred texts). By contrast, the Christmas story does not contradict any similarly central tenet of Hinduism or Buddhism. In the absence of a need for theological exclusivity, Hindus can indeed "celebrate Christmas" without negating their own beliefs.

Pew concludes that Asian American religions are being transformed in the United States. Of course, they are. The development of American Hinduism is being influenced by the dominant culture and shaped by the experiences of young Hindus raised in a Christian milieu. And Asian American religions are also transforming the United States.

In order to advance religious pluralism, the normative nature of Christianity must be acknowledged. We need to stop judging or understanding our neighbors' faiths based only on what we understand as "religion."

Perhaps someday, the number of American Christians "celebrating Diwali" (a holiday celebrated not only by 95 percent of American Hindus, but also by 45 percent of non-Hindu Indian Americans) will match the number of Hindus "celebrating Christmas."

In the meantime, let us relish these new data, while recognizing that avoiding Christian normativity in social science research can help us better meet and discover America's other religions on their own terms.

Khyati Y. Joshi was an external advisor to the Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion and Public Life. She is a professor of education at Fairleigh Dickinson University and the author of the book 'New Roots in America's Sacred Ground: Religion, Race, and Ethnicity in Indian America.'


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UK report: Dalai Lama fears poison plot by fake believers

Alex Domanski / Reuters
Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama greets a woman in Germany in August.

By Gil Aegerter, msnbc.com

The Dalai Lama says he fears that Chinese agents might send fake devotees to poison him, the Sunday Telegraph reports.

According to the UK newspaper, the Tibetan Buddhist leader said he had received reports from inside Tibet warning that Chinese agents had trained Tibetan women to administer the poison. The Dalai Lama said the women supposedly would have poison in their hair or head scarves and when he touched them to give a blessing, it would be passed to him.

He said that his aides couldn't confirm there was such a plot but that on advice of Indian security officials he was living with increased security in his temple grounds in Dharamsala in the Himalayan foothills, according to the Sunday Telegraph.

The report did not specify if the supposed Chinese agents were from China's government or some other group.

The report comes at a time of heightened tension between Tibetans and Chinese authorities.

Tenzin Gyatso, 76, is the 14th Dalai Lama. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989. He recently won the $1.7 million Templeton Prize for his work linking science and wider questions of faith and religion -- and plans to give the money away when it's awarded on Monday in London.

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Brit Hume To Tiger Woods: Forget Buddhism -- Come On Over To Christianity If You Want 'Forgiveness' And 'Redemption' (VIDEO)

Jillian Rayfield January 4, 2010, 8:41AM

Yesterday, Fox News' Brit Hume weighed in on the Tiger Woods sex scandal, offering Tiger some practical advice for obtaining "forgiveness" for his indiscretions: Hume said that Tiger, who Hume identified as a Buddhist, should "turn to the Christian faith" so he can get the "kind of forgiveness and redemption" needed to make "a total recovery and be a great example to the world."

Hume said:

The extent to which he can recover seems to me depends on his faith. He is said to be a Buddhist. I don't think that faith offers the kind of forgiveness and redemption that is offered by the Christian faith. So My message to Tiger would be, "Tiger, turn to the Christian faith and you can make a total recovery and be a great example to the world.

"Here's the full clip:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szVYlDSb7nMhttp://

Reactions to Hume's comments have been unsurprisingly shocked, with The Atlantic's Andrew Sullivan commenting that "the pure sectarianism of this comment - its adoption of the once-secular stage of political journalism to insert a call for apostasy - is striking."

The Washington Monthly's Steve Benen was also appalled:

It's hard to even know where to start with something like this. How many high-profile Christians have had damaging sex scandals of late? Why is Buddhism deemed inadequate for those with family problems? Why is a senior political analyst for a so-called "news" network proselytizing, on the air, during one of the network's "news" programs?The folks on Morning Joe took a more jovial tone about the comments, with Mika Brzezinski snarking: "So find a religion that forgives you for your idiotic behavior. Change your religion and you'll be OK!"

Andy Serwer piped in: "It's also interesting that Brit Hume is an expert on Buddhism,. I mean that surprises me."

Mika had the final word: "I think honestly we should just keep our opinions to ourselves."

Source: http://tpmlivewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/01/brit-hume-to-tiger-woods-forget-buddhism----come-on-over-to-christianity-if-you-want-forgiveness-and.php?ref=mp

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