PREFACE
The purpose of this book is threefold. Firstly it aims to critically examine
Christianity and thereby highlight the logical, philosophical and ethical problems in
Christian dogma. In doing this I hope to be able to provide Buddhists with facts which
they can use when Christians attempt to evangelize them. This book should make such
encounters more fair, and hopefully also make it more likely that Buddhists will remain
Buddhists. As it is, many Buddhists know little of their own religion and nothing about
Christianity - which makes it difficult for them to answer the questions Christians ask or
to rebut the claims they make.
The second aim of this book is to help any Christians who might read it to understand why
some people are not, and never will be, Christians. Hopefully, this understanding will
help them to develop an acceptance of and thereby genuine friendship with Buddhists,
rather than relating to them only as potential converts. In order to do this, I have
raised as many difficult questions as possible and not a few home truths. If it appears
sometimes that I have been hard on Christianity, I hope this will not be interpreted as
being motivated by malice. I was a Christian for many years and I still retain a fond
regard, and even admiration, for some aspects of Christianity. For me, Jesus' teachings
were an important step in my becoming a Buddhist and I think I am a better Buddhist as a
result. However when Christians claim, as many do with such insistence, that their
religion alone is true, then they must be prepared to answer doubts which others might
express about their religion.
The third aim of this book is to awaken in Buddhists a deeper appreciation for their
own religion. In some Asian countries Buddhism is thought of an out-of-date superstition
while Christianity is seen as a religion which has all the answers. As these countries
become more Westernized, Christianity with its "modern" image begins to look
increasingly attractive. I think this book will amply demonstrate that Buddhism is able to
ask questions of Christianity which it has great difficulties in answering, and at the
same time to offer explanations to life's puzzles which make Christian explanations look
rather puerile.
Some Buddhists may object to a book like this, believing that such a gentle and
tolerant religion as Buddhism should refrain from criticizing other religions. This is
certainly not what the Buddha himself taught. In the Mahaparinibbana Sutta he said that
his disciples should be able to "Teach the Dhamma, declare it, establish it, expound
it, analyse it, make it clear, and be able by means of the Dhamma to refute false
teachings that have arisen." Subjecting a point of view to careful scrutiny and
criticism has an important part to play in helping to winnow truth from falsehood, so that
we can be in a better position to choose between "the two and sixty contending
sects." Criticism of another religion only becomes inappropriate when it is based on
a deliberate misrepresentation of that religion, or when it descends into an exercise in
ridicule and name-calling. I hope I have avoided doing this.
I would like to thank Moses Chan and Paul Teo, two devout Christians and good friends,
for the hours of stimulating discussions we had on some of the matters covered in this
book. We agree to disagree but remain friends.
A.L. De Silva
Note: The original version of this book is available in WinWord
and text formats at the BuddhaNet
web site, http://www.buddhanet.net .
Copy of the book is also available at the web site of the Buddhist Society of Queensland,
http://www.uq.net.au/slsoc/budsoc.html
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