Since FireIce or Jason has been so insistent on closing threads on Pastor Rony in this forum for reasons they have not explained, I'll just put a read only thread for clarifying the errors of Pastor Rony videos.

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Buddhists aim to be more powerful than God

He has a misconception that Buddhist aims to become more 'powerful', which is totally besides the point. Buddhism only seeks to end suffering.


Karma is fatalistic

He mistakens that karma is predeterminism or fatalism which the Buddha clearly rejected as false views. Whereas the Buddha taught very clearly that not everything is caused solely by karma as there are many other types of conditions. You definitely can't blame on karma if you get cancer when you continue smoking - that is your current life conditions and not everything is the result of karma.

There are also ways to remedy bad karma, like repentance and dharma practice. Repentance and dharma practice can lighten one's karma. It can even lead to liberation.

A person by the name of Angulimala killed almost a thousand men, but was converted by Buddha while he was chasing the Buddha to kill him. Buddha used his psychic powers and appeared to be walking at normal speed yet Angulimala could not catch up with Buddha no matter how he ran. Angulimala shouted to Buddha to stop, and the Buddha told him, I have stopped, how about you? Angulimala was puzzled, and the Buddha explained that he had stopped, having compassion for all beings, he stood still and never brought harm to beings.

After being converted, he was not only guaranteed freed from rebirth in lower realms, but he transcended rebirth in all realms, having attained Arhatship, enlightenment, liberation, he is freed from any further uncontrolled cycles of rebirth.

The Buddha said that if it were not for having entered the path, he would have suffered terribly (like in the hell realm), but his only bad karmic consequence in that life was being shunned by people and not being able to receive much alms.

There is no rebirth

The pastor have not read of the countless cases of children who remember past lives. Which is scientifically documented. (search: Dr Ian Stevensons)

Man > Woman > Cow

It's funny how some people are mistaken that woman have lower stature in Buddhism, which has no scriptural basis. We recognise the potential of all beings for attaining Buddhahood. There is no difference of sex, race, whatever, when it comes to Buddha-Nature.

Blind leading Blind

Even if the temple head has not attained Nirvana, doesn't mean there weren't people who attained enlightenment... in fact many did even today, even some in this forum. The point is, not everyone is blind, and there are in fact those who have 'seen' and is leading the rest.

Conclusion

Basically that guy did not understand Buddhism well, was probably and unfortunately not properly guided or not guided enough, and it is unfortunate that the pastor is relying on faulty 'testimonials' and understandings of Buddhism.

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Next video


What is your counter-argument for the pastor's claim that all animals do not possess a moral compass, thus his basis for the rejection of the reincarnation theory.

I just found the video you were refering to: Pastor Rony continues criticism of non-christian religion.flv

About the tiger: a tiger will be stuck in the tiger realm for many many lifetimes before being reborn again in another realm. Could be millions of lifetimes, never know.

It does not however contradict the existence of rebirth.

Also those who think that tiger has no moral compass and is incapable of being good or loving, please watch this video: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x69...-temple_travel

There were no past lives before 5 lifetimes ago because that is all she remembers

If you had any basic knowledge of Buddhism at all, you will know that samsara is beginningless and there is no such thing as a 'first lifetime'. We all had countless past lives though it is not often the case we remember them, much less remember many of them.

She remembered just 5 lifetimes. So of course she cannot know the whole story. The number of lifetimes you can remember depends on you deeply you enter into meditation. Some people remember only 1, some 5, some hundreds, etc. It doesn't mean there is no more past lifes after that.

Some forummers in this forum remember many many more lifetimes than that. You can remember hundreds, thousands, millions of lifetimes if you enter deeply into meditation. Buddha personally remembered 91 aeons of past lives.

Buddha's said while dying that he was still searching the way, while Jesus said I am The Way

It is ridiculous he said that Buddha is still searching the way, when the Buddha is adamant in having found what he sought for - enlightenment, liberation from suffering. He then set out to show The Way to enlightenment, and many people have as a result, till this day, attained enlightenment and nirvana. He has totally ended suffering right there and then.

His actual final words were: "All conditioned things are impermanent. Strive on with diligence."

What is the difference between Rebirth in Buddhism and Reincarnation of other religions?

Continuing consciousness after death is, in most religions, a matter of revealed truth. In Buddhism, the evidence comes from the contemplative experience of people who are certainly not ordinary but who are sufficiently numerous that what they say about it is worth taking seriously into account. Indeed, such testimonies begin with those of the Buddha himself.

Nevertheless, it’s important to understand that what’s called reincarnation in Buddhism has nothing to do with the transmigration of some ‘entity’ or other. It’s not a process of metempsychosis because there is no ‘soul’. As long as one thinks in terms of entities rather than function and continuity, it’s impossible to understand the Buddhist concept of rebirth. As it’s said, ‘There is no thread passing through the beads of the necklace of rebirths.’ Over successive rebirths, what is maintained is not the identity of a ‘person’, but the conditioning of a stream of consciousness.

Additionally, Buddhism speaks of successive states of existence; in other words, everything isn’t limited to just one lifetime. We’ve experienced other states of existence before our birth in this lifetime, and we’ll experience others after death. This, of course, leads to a fundamental question: is there a nonmaterial consciousness distinct from the body? It would be virtually impossible to talk about reincarnation without first examining the relationship between body and mind. Moreover, since Buddhism denies the existence of any self that could be seen as a separate entity capable of transmigrating from one existence to another by passing from one body to another, one might well wonder what it could be that links those successive states of existence together.

One could possibly understand it better by considering it as a continuum, a stream of consciousness that continues to flow without there being any fixed or autonomous entity running through it… Rather it could be likened to a river without a boat, or to a lamp flame that lights a second lamp, which in-turn lights a third lamp, and so on and so forth; the flame at the end of the process is neither the same flame as at the outset, nor a completely different one…

(Rizenfenix)

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Originally posted by likeyou:

When one is dreaming, will one be back to the past?

No.

You need to enter into meditation, and you will remember your past lives with clarity.

Sometimes, but not always, you can remember in such clarity that you actually 're-live' the whole scene. Like you are really right there with your whole body. Sometimes it can be traumatic as Longchen told me (he remembered for example, fighting in WW1 in France). He also used to be a monk, a Tibetan lama 2 lifetimes ago. He also lived in Japan, China, and many other places. When I met him he told me in detail about many of his past lives and the consequences it had on his current life, which was actually quite interesting, but I digress.

If you can remember past lives with such clarity, you will become doubtless about your past lives, just as you cannot possibly doubt your having had a cup of tea just an hour ago.

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Originally posted by Fantagf:

Rony is indirectly hard selling his religion la. Every christian is expected to be salesman, saleswoman selling the product called chrisitianity.

To date, I received news that 2 of the people i know of gave up on christianity. hahaha

I am thankful that buddhism is not condeming others and other religion and the buddhists are not pushy, proud and quick to judge.

You're right that pastors felt the obligation to lead people to Christianity including by ways like putting down other religions.

That is precisely what my Buddhist master did when he was still a pastor. He was very active in preaching, and even wrote a book on the bible.

My Master used to be a Christian pastor who insulted Buddhism (claiming it is superstitious and demonic which is due to a gross misunderstanding of what Buddhism is) wherever he go because of the pressure by other Christian pastor friends who did the same thing.

When his university lecturer asked him to stop his blatant insult which is very unwelcome and unlikeable by people and do something more professional like researching on what Buddhism is about to write a proper thesis on the faults of Buddhism that he actually went to the libraries to find out what Buddhism is about.

After he read through the books, he converted to a Buddhist monk. He found what he wanted.

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Anyway what Pastor Rony did is probably much much more common in Christian circles, and has been so for a long time. I am in fact a little surprised that such videos only surface recently.

For me: obviously, spreading of total misunderstandings of Buddhism, and spreading intolerance such as these, have to stop.

Please keep these videos coming, this is the internet age.

We need all such videos publicized and correct them so people can be informed of the right information and not given blatant misinfo about Buddhism.