For some spiritual trajectories, Faith is completely and totally based on Love. In such things as Love, there is not a hint of any fear of punishment because at it's core is Unity, Wholeness and Oneness.
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Hindu reincarnations of the godhead
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Akita Suggagaki
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Yes, I do have faith in basic unity, wholeness and oneness. Myfearful based faith has more to do with dogmas that don't make sense.
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Jane_the_Bane
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Hindus have no trouble whatsoever interpreting Jesus as an Avatar, yes. To them, the notion that a divine entity becomes fully human (while simultaneously retaining their divinity and/or continuing to exist as a distinct god while the avatar walks the mortal plane) is not alien at all.
As a result, their world view(s) easily and readily assimilates foreign faiths into their own: just look at how easily they re-interpreted Buddha.
By the way, Hindus regard the Buddha as an avatar of Vishnu: your description above is a bit misleading in this regard.
Buddhists themselves started out as apatheists, meaning that they did not deny the existence of gods, but simply did not embrace god worship as part of their practice. The historical Buddha didn't really set out to disprove or challenge the metaphysics of the Vedic world view he grew up in. In fact, he took most of that for granted, and as a result, early Buddhism adopted many already existing elements from established faiths and just re-interpreted them in Buddhist terms. At its core, Buddhism is all about: "why do we suffer and how can we escape that vicious cycle?" Buddha's answer was pretty much unique insofar as it omitted any sort of god worship. It's all about moderation and contemplation: don't starve yourself, don't stuff yourself. Ponder existence, until you see through the errors in your perception and realize that you've been enlightened all along, just trapped in misconceptions.
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Jane_the_Bane
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Arthra
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Of course there are a variety of views in Hinduism so it would be difficult to generalize. The closest might be Viashnavite perspective and yes reincarnation would be the suggestion that Diety reincarnates such as Krishna...
In the Baha'i view God does not "incarnate" Himself but manifests Himself through Messengers and Prophets so in our view Krishna, Buddha and Christ would be Manifestations of God:
Throughout the ages, humanity’s spiritual, intellectual and moral capacities have been cultivated by the Founders of the great religions, among them Abraham, Krishna, Zoroaster, Moses, Buddha, Jesus Christ, Muhammad, and—in more recent times—the Báb and Bahá’u’lláh.
These Figures are not simply ordinary people with a greater knowledge than others. Rather they are Manifestations of God, Who have exerted an incomparable influence on the evolution of human society. While each of Them has a distinct individuality and a definite mission, the Manifestations of God all share in a single, divinely-ordained purpose—to “educate the souls of men, and refine the character of every living man…”1
Manifestations of God | What Bahá’ís Believe
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And yet, Jesus Christ said that He is THE way, THE truth and the life. No one goes to Father God except by Him. Jesus Christ is not only a manifestation of God, He IS God!
I like what C.S. Lewis says about this.
I like what C.S. Lewis says about this.
I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.
― C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
― C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
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Jane_the_Bane
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Lewis's Trilemma is such a simplistic fallacy, simply because it misses the billion other possibilities aside from the three Ls.
Take, for example, the three Ms:
Misunderstood (he said "I am the messiah", but didn't consider the messiah to be God Incarnate)
Misrepresented (people atrributed quotes like "I and the Father are One" to him after he was dead, and cooked up elaborate but more than faintly spurious/suspicious stories about his birth to retrofit his biography to supposed details of messianic prophecy)
Myth (there was no historical Jesus at all, OR the Jesus presented in the gospels bears virtually no resemblance to the historical person)
Take, for example, the three Ms:
Misunderstood (he said "I am the messiah", but didn't consider the messiah to be God Incarnate)
Misrepresented (people atrributed quotes like "I and the Father are One" to him after he was dead, and cooked up elaborate but more than faintly spurious/suspicious stories about his birth to retrofit his biography to supposed details of messianic prophecy)
Myth (there was no historical Jesus at all, OR the Jesus presented in the gospels bears virtually no resemblance to the historical person)
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Akita Suggagaki
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Jezabella
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Unfortunately, love is rarely unconditional except between mother and child. I have seen it between father and child but while there are exceptions because nothing is absolute, the most common unconditional love is the mother/child bond.
Romantic love almost always diminishes. There are exceptions, but they are few and far between. Most couples stay together for the children and for economic reasons. Except for the latter decades of the 20th century, divorce was rare.. not because they were happy but because it was a commitment they were stuck in. That is no longer the case.
So my point is, WHAT is love? I think the most important love is self-acceptance. Most people struggle with this and despite the fact narcissists appear to be in love with themselves, the truth is they cannot take criticism because they are so insecure. An unhealthy form of self-love sits within self-loathing and lack of self-acceptance.
I see religion as people's need to believe they are loved beyond how they feel about themselves. I mean, it's seductive to be told god loves you so much he will forgive you for anything you have done wrong and he will have paradise waiting for you.
I'm an atheist but I am open-minded about reincarnation. I've come across too many amazing stories to dismiss them. Reincarnation also explains why I have certain people in my life because beyond that, I have no idea why I know them.
The book "Many Lives, Many Masters" can be life changing. It is worth reading just for the heck of it.
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It's sounds like a book I'd burn after reading ...
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Ignatius the Kiwi
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No. Christ didn't incarnate himself multiple times and he is not the Gautama or an Elephant God.
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Akita Suggagaki
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Most atheists I have conversed with are also materialists and would not be open to thr idea of consciousness existing independently of the body.
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I think there's a subset of Christianity that believes in "soul
sleep", which might mean that there's no consciousness
outside of the body during that period (in that scenario).
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