Am I a Christian? Q & A Part II

A few folks have asked some questions or responded to my posts privately. I wanted to address their questions or comments

If both the Buddha Sakyamuni and Jesus are dead, why follow either?

That is fairly easily addressed as I sit here in an airport listening to Beethoven. In addition to Beethoven, there are works by Verdi, Back, Mozart, Miles Davis, John Coltrane and John Lennon, all of whom are dead, departed, gone, passed away, pushing up the daisies. They are no more. They have ceased to exist. They have thrown off this mortal coil. (How far can I stretch this so it resembles the dead parrot routine from Monty Python?). The point is that these artists, as well as Shakespeare, Hemmingway, Twain, O’Keefe and hundreds of others still speak to us. They address basic truths common to humanity in any age.


Jesus and the Buddha are just as profound as these artists – indeed more so. When Jesus preaches the Sermon on the Mount, his words are not confined to the Roman period in Galilee. His words come down through the millennia and speak to us today. When the Buddha preaches the Four Noble Truths and the Eight Fold Path, his audience goes well beyond the few aesthetics who first heard his words in 2500 BCE. Simply rejecting the divinity of Jesus does not mean that he had no insight or that he was not enlightened.