(Ron) China, Buddhism & abortion (was Re: Fw: TheGreatFairyAgnostic)

Joseph Crea Joseph.Crea@worldnet.att.net
Fri, 10 Apr 1998 05:07:21 +0000 (00892206441, 19980410050720.AAA29178@LOCALNAME) 

Hello again, Ron!

At 10:52 PM 4/7/98 -0400, Brian Dean wrote:

>CREA

>RED HERRING.  What the Hindus think about abortion is irrelevant 

>to the question of Chinese infanticide and its relationship to either 

>Buddhism or Taoism.  The Buddhists in China initiated the first large-

>scale orphanages in that country and their belief in the existence of 

>"heavenly" compassionate bodhisattvas had a lot to do with the 

>persistance of what would seem to be a common belief that abandoning 

>infants at Buddhist monasteries/pagodas offered the child a better 

>chance at life than the usual alternative (dropping the brat down the 

>nearest well). 

>

>I sort of surprised that you haven't converted to Hinduism.  After all,

>the Bhagavad-gita proclaims that Jehovah and Jesus are just pranks 

>played by Vishnu/Krishna, so you don't have to abandon them.  And the 

>"orthodox" Hindu view on abortion (as found in the Manu-smriti) holds 

>that every period a woman has is the blood of an innocent human life 

>snuffed out before it could begin and is proof of her (and her husband's) 

>deliberate and culpably negligent killing of a human being.  Since this 

>"out-catholics" the catholics, I'm sure you would approve.

>

>

>RON

>  Your misrepresentation of the Gita is apalling! It doesn't mention 

>Jesus or Jehovah at all. Where did you get this stuff?



CREA
     And your ignorance of the Gita is atrocious!  Obviously you've never
taken the time to read the text, with care and attention to detail, in its
entirety or you would undoubtedly be acquainted with the passage at chapter
9, verses 23-24, where it reports that Krishna said the following (In R.C.
Zaehner's translation):


  [23]  "[Yet] even those who lovingly devote themselves to other gods and
sacrifice to them, full filled with faith, do really worship ME though the
rite may differ from the norm.

  [24]  "For it is I who, of all sacrifices, am recipient and LORD, but they
do not know me as I really am, so they fall [back into the world of men]."


CREA
    This is reiterated, though in less explicit detail, in chapter 7, verses
20-23, where again Krishna is reported as saying to Arjuna:


  [20]  "[With all] wisdom swept away by [their] manifold desires, men put
their trust in other gods, relying on diverse rules-and-precepts:  for their
own nature forces them thereto.

  [21]  "Whatever form [whatever god,] a devotee with faith desires to
honour, that very faith do I confirm in him [making it] unswerving-and-secure.

  [22]  "Firm-stablished in that faith he seeks to revernce that [god] and
thence he gains his desires, though it is I who am the true dispenser.

  [23]  "But finite is the reward of such men of little wit:  whoso worships
the gods, to the gods will [surely] go, but whoso loves-and-worships ME, to
ME will come indeed."


CREA
     As for the Gita never mentioning Jehovah and Jesus, it isn't necessary,
since Krishna has (in the above cited passages) quite frankly appropriated
to himself every "god" worshipped by anyone, at any time, and in any place.
And if you were acquainted with the Gita-govinda and the Puranas, you'd know
that Krishna is portrayed as an archetypical "Trickster" figure who
accomplishes his goals through pranks, illusions and deception, since his
audience (among whom must be numbered the Jews) lacks the wit to appreciate
a straightforward presentation.


With Mettaa,

Joseph Crea
<Joseph.Crea@worldnet.att.net>