JC spoke thus:
I don't completely disagree, but if I was asked to justify this statement I could have a little difficulty.jcsuperstar wrote:its not just the 8fp but also the 4 truths that require faith, i mean sure there is suffering, that we can all see but why is there suffering? its quite obvious that many have looked at this problem of suffering and come up with different reasons so why should one automaticly assume the buddha was right? we have to have faith that he was right about the cause of suffering, then we again have to have faith that it can in fact end, that he wasnt just unloading a bunch of BS on us and then at that stage we have to have faith that his path will work and that he wasnt just faking it... buddhism actually takes a lot of faith if you really think about it. it just doesnt ask us to have blind faith like other religions do.
I mean, basically I have accepted the proposition: "Develop sila, read dhamma, meditate, etc, and you'll eventually be liberated". And I can certainly see progress, but there is no logical way of proving that that it will lead to liberation.
Equally, a Christian might accept the proposition: "Live morally, go to church, read the Bible, meditate, etc, and you'll go to heaven". And by doing that he/she would probably also notice quite a lot of progress, since he/she would be developing many of the same things that a Buddhist would, though the meditation and "view" would be different. [And in fact, a Buddhist would say that if a Christian developed the loving-kindness values that (sensible) Christians aspire to, then he/she probably would be reborn in "heaven".
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/auth ... ay_24.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; Tolerance and Diversity by Bhikkhu Bodhi]
So, for the sake of argument, how would you argue that my "faith" is less "blind" than the faith of my Christian counterpart?
Metta
Mike