Originally posted by jjjg
Agreed, C.Moore. There is all the evidence that Christianity dispersed to Northern India but none that Buddhism made its way to the greek and Palestine.
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03028b.htm
This was interesting to read in your link you gave:
Buddha did not go to the extremes of fanaticism that characterized so many of the Brahmin ascetics. He chose the middle path of moderate asceticism which he compared to a lute, which gives forth the proper tones only when the strings are neither too tight nor too slack. Each member was allowed but one set of garments, of yellowish colour and of cheap quality. These, together with his sleeping mat, razor, needle, water-strainer, and alms bowl, constituted the sum of his earthly possessions. His single meal, which had to be taken before noon, consisted chiefly of bread, rice, and curry, which he gathered daily in his alms-bowl by begging. Water or rice-milk was his customary drink, wine and other intoxicants being rigorously forbidden, even as medicine. Meat, fish, and delicacies were rarely eaten except in sickness or when the monk dined by invitation with some patron. The use of perfumes, flowers, ointments, and participation in worldly amusements fell also into the class of things prohibited. In theory, the moral code of Buddhism was little more than a copy of that of Brahminism. Like the latter, it extended to thoughts and desires, no less than to words and deeds. Unchastity in all its forms, drunkenness, lying, stealing, envy, pride, harshness are fittingly condemned. But what, perhaps, brings Buddhism most strikingly in contact with Christianity is its spirit of gentleness and forgiveness of injuries. To cultivate benevolence towards men of all classes, to avoid anger and physical violence, to be patient under insult, to return good for evil—all this was inculated in Buddhism and helped to make it one of the gentlest of religions. To such an extent was this carried that the Buddhist monk, like the Brahmin ascetic, had to avoid with the greatest care the destruction of any form of animal life.
I also had to go here to see what was copied again:_
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02730a.htm
what was older Buddhism?
http://www.mahasiusa.org/theravada.htm
or
Hinduism?
http://yahooligans.yahoo.com/content/ask_earl/page?d=20020913
maybe Hindu copied things from Buddhism and was carried down into the Jewish religion and Christianity.:think:
