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References: <120@snark.UUCP> <86@thirdi.UUCP> <8707@ut-sally.UUCP> <20070@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> <8727@ut-sally.UUCP> <2495@ames.arpa> <2734@hoptoad.uucp> <151@aiva.ed.ac.uk>
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Reply-To: ej150177@cisunx.UUCP (mukherji   a)
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Distribution: sci.philosophy.tech
Organization: Univ. of Pittsburgh, Comp & Info Sys
Keywords: Deity

In article <151@aiva.ed.ac.uk> jeff@uk.ac.ed.aiva (Jeff Dalton) writes:
>In article <2734@hoptoad.uucp> laura@hoptoad.UUCP (Laura Creighton) writes:
>> [...]  There were a small but very vocal number of people who were
>>convinced that Buddhism (any sort) was a religion, and required a
>>belief in a deity, and therefore was a superstition, [...]
>
>I wonder what they thought the deity was.  Presumably not the Buddha.
>
>By the way, there even seem to be interpretations of Christianity that
>do not involve belief in a deity in the usual sense: e.g., where "God"
>means the object of "ultimate concern".

I am not an expert on Buddhism, but at least in Mahayana Buddhism it
may not be very surprising for some to believe that the "deity" worshipped
was the Buddha, or at least the Bodhisattvas. In Tantric Buddhism there
are deities or at least demi-gods.

I was about to adduce the presence of jade etc. images of the Buddha
in countries such as Thailand to prove the point, when I  glanced at
the last paragrapg of Jeff's note and was reminded at the crucifixes
and Pietas I had at my R.C. [Jesuit] school in India: obviously such
evidence is far from conclusive!!

At any rate the non-deity version of Christianity probably comes from
attempts to "philosophise" the religion by grounding its religious
faith based doctrines on the pagan Greek philosophers. Clearly,
religion and philosophy, even when explicitly conbstructed to lead
to the same goal may be inconsistent : which do we take as the chara-
acterization?

Arijit Mukherji
ARIJIT@PITTVMS.bitnet