And Again...Now Pastor Rony Tan Part II

I have now watched the videos in question. The content says as much why non-Christians, especially the Buddhist would be offended with the title "Pastor Ronny Tan Blasts Buddhism" for the video.

I want to really see this video as a whole and here are my comments:

Pastor Tan's 'humour' may have robbed the message's true power with the examples he has used. No doubt, the examples are logical conclusion based on Buddhism teachings but by joking or trying to put it on a lighter side of things has instead shifted the audiences' focus on the Buddhism system of kharma, reincarnation and nirvana (in short, buddhists way of obtaining a very good life) to the 'insults' of being reincarnated to cows, cockroaches and women.

I guess the best approach I have seen or read so far is from Mr Ravi Zacharias' "The Lotus And The Cross" where there is an imagined scenario where Jesus Christ discusses Buddha's teaching with the Buddha himself.

My comments on certain parts of the videos:

1. Is chanting and chanting alone able to bring one towards Nirvana?

My view is that if my history has caused me to be human again, that means my past mistakes that has REAL actions and REAL consequences will affect my 'report card' when I die.

So how would chanting and obtaining the state of Nirvana (which means 'nothingness') being nothing it and of itself with no REAL actions and no REAL consequence able to help me to gain eternal life?

2. The sharing of the episode where the woman in question has 'confirmation' that she has 5 past lives with a tibetan monk.

What it shows that there IS a spiritual force as the Holy Spirit Himself is also a Spiritual force. But there is a good and bad spiritual force that will either lead a person towards eternal life or eternal damnation. So the onus is on the person to understand what he/she is believing.

There will be 'confirmation' for certain beliefs, the issue is the truthfulness of that belief. When you believe in something that is false and get 'confirmation', what you believe is still false unfortunately.

Put an example. I believe in Jesus Christ and in my personal life, there are 'coincidences' in my life that helps and confirms in my belief in Christ Jesus. But to be intellectually fair to myself, I have also read about people's rejection in the historicity of Jesus and the arguments for and against Christ. After I am satisfied that Christ is true, then my confirmation is established on something firm. The question remains "What confirmation does Buddhism possess?"

My own brush with arguments with Buddhism happens with a great friend from Monah Photography Club. We did argue into the night and up to a point we both are red-eyed (we are sleepy). It goes to show the amount of conviction we have with regards to our beliefs.

The outcome of that argument I realised 3 points that Buddhism do not address:

- The reality of a superior being
- The arbitrator/judge of the kharmic system. i.e. who decides who gets nirvana or not? who decides what/who someone is reincarnated into?
- where is the start of a person's life if I believe in reincarnation? who started the life in the first place?

As you can see from above, the role of a creator/judge was not addressed properly in Buddhism.

Simple questions to debunk reincarnation:

"If reincarnation is true then where is the starting point of all life?"

"How can Buddhism explain the increase in human population but yet the moral fabric of all society has broken down more over the years, judging by the amount of hate/war/disease that people on this earth has suffered. If the teachings of Buddhism is true, then the reincarnated human beings should have enough kharma to know what is right and wrong and all reborn people should know better to build better societies. Furthermore, we should then see LESS people as years go by because not all human beings are saints. But we see more people. Why?"

Fact
- As God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob has predicted, human beings will degrade because of the presence of sin
- The presence of sin means there is something that was done wrong.
- How to right the wrong? If the previous generations still has not get it right after thousands of years has passed, then what hope do we have in human endeavours?
- God is the start of all things even giving each and everyone of us a UNIQUE personality. The population growth is due to God's gift of our souls.

Buddhism has some serious questions to answer and those practising it, as in head monks, still cannot answer pertinent, basic questions about their faith in a human system.

By the way, Buddhism is a Philosophy...not a religion.