If Reincarnation is real, was Buddha the reincarnated Jesus?

Originally posted by plague
No Krishna is not an incarnation of Vishnu. This is a latter day belief that some "Hindus" think.

Latter days by your definition meaning for thousands of years and some by your definition meaning the vast majority.

If you read the Vedic scriptures they will tell you that Krishna is the supreme personality of godhead and that Vishnu is only an expansion of this personality.

I have read them and it clearly states Krishna is an avatar of Vishnu. Vishnu is not an aspect of Krishna. Krishna was only an avatar and later became part of the Hindu godhead. But to be honest, I'm not remotely concerned about the theology of Hinduism. I only studied it so I could be better equipped in the defense of Christianity against skeptic and cross-religion criticism. Although I'm standing by what I say, the fact is I don't care who is the main god of Hinduism. My point is I don't believe Jesus was simply one of many avatars.

Now you have pointed out to me my biggest beef with the so called modern day "Christians". Not understanding scripture. Now that leads me to the Emanuel/Jesus/vegetarian debate. You can not....ok one more time ...YOU CAN NOT take the bible at face value. You cannot read it line for line or scripture for scripture. You can not take out the Old test and still use the New Test.

Hon, the Bible is practically my passion and I know exactly what it says. I even quoted scripture to show you that your Immanuel-Jesus theory is flat out wrong and so is your belief that Jesus taught vegetarianism. The popularity of vegetarianism is even a prophecy for the end times and the diet is preached against. Please don't tell me what my own Bible says and doesn't say when I can look it up and disprove you in less than 30 seconds. And I am not trying to be mean- not at all. I find this discussion fascinating but the information is there in black and white and it goes against everything you are trying to say.

I pointed out the prophesie in the old and you showed me where I seem to be wrong because you are not reading scripture as authorised."

I know what you are referring to and see how it is easily misunderstood but allow me to correct this right now:

THE PROPHECY: "Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son and will call him Immanuel." Isaiah 7:14
THE FULFILLMENT: "She will give birth to a son and you are to give him the name Jesus because he will save his people from their sins. All this took place to fulfill what the Lord said through the prophet: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call Him Immanuel which means 'God with us.'" Matthew 1:21-23

Many critics even twist these verses to show Jesus was not the Messiah because His name was never technically Immanuel. Oops! So are Christians wrong in thinking Jesus was the promised one since His name was not literally Immanuel? Or was His name once Immanuel but later changed to Jesus as you believe?

Our second questions is answered a few verses down: "...she gave birth to a son. And he [Joseph] gave him the name Jesus." Matthew 1:25

But what about our Immanuel problem? Was this a false prophecy? No! Read the context of Isaiah 7 and 8. The original Hebrew, the culture during the times of antiquity, as well as the context makes it pretty clear the "God with us" was a prophecy that referred to the spiritual Messianic role. He would be God among us, in flesh, and the people would understand this concept.

If you notice Matthew glides right over this supposed problem. Why? Because in the culture of the time, He knew precisely what this was supposed to mean. 2,000 years after Matthew and 2,700 years after Isaiah, we are creating a modern problem because we don't understand their concept that was widely understood to the dualism of spiritual/symbolic and physical/literal.

Matthew, a former Jew by religion and absolute Jew by race alludes to this knowledge.

I can also show you many passages where Jesus is teaching about vegetarianism.

I'd love to see these. You would not be able to reconcile this with Him eating the Passover meal (consisting of lamb- OOPS!) and the feeding of the multitudes with bread and... FISH. OOPS! Then of course the verses in the epistles where Jesus declared all foods clean and in Timothy where vegetarianism and a restricted diet was chastised. OOPS!

As for his Apostles... they were not on Jesuss level and did not appear to adhere to his teachings. This is rampant through the New Testament. They were weak and that is why...

No man could have been on Jesus' level. But yes, it does shows the weakness of the apostles in their own human fallibility and even their skepticism and fear at times. That is until the resurrection. If we can believe the writings of the early church fathers, then we know that eleven of the twelve disciples (after Judas' replacement by Barnabas), with John being the exception, all died martyr's deaths. Why such a turn around from weak men to bold teachers? Oh, I know. Because they had finally been convicted of their beliefs through evidence and their "Doubting Thomas" disposition and uncertainty dissipated.

Ashley D,
Hinduism my friend is not thousands of years old. The Vedic tradition on the other hand is 100s of thousands of years old but is not Hinduism. Like I said before The Vedic society started to decay due to the passing Yugas and at one point went from recognizing one supreme lord (Krishna) and many demi- gods to recognizing the demigods as supreme gods and creators. Krishna is the Supreme original creator and maintainer he then expands his energy to become Balarama/Baledeva. He once again expands his potencie to become Karanodakasayi Vishnu which expands his energy to become Garbhodakasayi Vishnu who then expands into Ksirodakasayi Vishnu who lays sleeping on the casual ocean and from his navel come Lord Brahma or the first created being of the universe. Brahma after going through many hundreds of years of penance finally gets to see The supreme creator and father of the universe face to face. he then begins to creat the univers we inhabit. He describes this in the Brahma Samhita and he refers to the supreme lord as Krishna. In the Puranas Vishnu is approached by 108 great Sages who say they all want to have association with you Vishnu. Vishnu tells them neither he nor them are ready for that but that he shall return at a later age as his original form and quality and they shall be his wifes. Krishna then returns just at the end of the 3rd Yuga with the sages who are now incarnated as 108 Gopis who become his wifes. I would like to know what Vedic Shastra you have read that has told you that Krishna is Vishnus incarnation?

Again I am not saying Jesus was an avatar he was an Acarya there is a huge difference. And if you ever get a chance to read the gnostic text of Jesus then you would see that Jesus's teachings are much more Vedic in essence then what you find in the bible.

As for the vegetarian. Well since as a christian you are bound by the Law lets start with the Law giver.....God.

Genisis 94-5
"But flesh with the life there of , which is the blood there of shall ye not eat. And surely your blood of your lives will I require at the hand of every beast will I require it".

Isaih 66:3
"He that killeth an ox is as if he sleuth a man".

Leviticus 3:17
"It shall be a perpetual statute for your generations throughout all your dwellings that ye eat niether fat nor blood" and no Kosher doesnt exist because there is no way to get every bit of blood out of your meat.

Mathew 3:4
" and the same John had his rainment of camel hair and a girdle around his loins and his nourishment was locust beans and honey"

now my favs.

Isaiah 7:15
"butter and honey shall he eat that he may know to refuse the evil and choose the good"
now in Luke 24:41-43
"And while they believed not for joy and wondered he said onto them have ye any eatable. And they offered him a piece of a broiled fish and a honeycomb, and he took IT (singular meaning one) and did eat before them.

once again you must use the prophesy with the passage. butter and honey shall he eat and when offered honey and fish he only took of one.

These are just a few, but im curious to where we are condemned for not eating meat?

Originally posted by plague
Hinduism my friend is not thousands of years old. The Vedic tradition on the other hand is 100s of thousands of years old but is not Hinduism.

1) It most certainly is a few thousand years old. One of many sources. This link also briefly mentions Vishnu as a chief god of Hinduism and not Krishna. Seriously, nobody in the world would love to believe Hinduism isn't thousands of years old more than me. If this were true, I could simply tell anyone who claims Christianity is a plagiarism of Hinduism that this is impossible because Christianity (which does happen to be thousands of years old) precedes Hinduism. Alas! I cannot use this argument because it simply isn't true.

2) I cannot possibly believe the Vedic tradition is hundreds of thousands of years old. Especially since writing is about 6,000 years old. Do you believe they were passed on by oral tradition before being penned? This would make a lot more sense and justify the theological breakdown you state. However, I don't even believe the existence of life on earth is that old, nevertheless writing or oral tradition.

And that's all I'm going to worry about for now because like I said, I'm just not that interested in Hindu theology. No offense but it's not what I believe so I have no interest in defending it! But if you really want to keep talking about, let me know and I will rejoin the discussion.

But onto the subject I love...

Genisis 94-5
"But flesh with the life there of , which is the blood there of shall ye not eat. And surely your blood of your lives will I require at the hand of every beast will I require it".

First of all, take the context into consideration. Just a few verses above God says "Everything that lives and moves will be food for you. Just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything." Oops! God is saying it's permissible to eat meat. Then comes the verse you provide. This means do not eat a live animal or an animal that still has its blood in it. This requires an understanding of antiquity. Many pagans ate living animals and drank the blood out of living and recently dead animals as part of their rituals. God was saying this pagan tradition was not allowed.

Isaih 66:3
"He that killeth an ox is as if he sleuth a man".

Again, look at the context. This isn't even referring to eating meat. It talks about the condition of the heart of man who lives in sin but worships God at the same time. Like in modern times what we refer to as "Sunday morning Christians." They show up on Sunday morning to pay lip service to God but then Monday-Saturday they live as heathens. This verse is the same thing- it refers to the man who participates in temple rituals then goes right back out and sins again.

Leviticus 3:17
"It shall be a perpetual statute for your generations throughout all your dwellings that ye eat niether fat nor blood" and no Kosher doesnt exist because there is no way to get every bit of blood out of your meat.

Cross reference this with Leviticus 17:11. The context of this is talking about the fellowship offering. Also, because blood was a sin atonement, it was never to be consumed. Not to mention, like we note above, this was a common pagan practice that God forbid.

Also, don't forget all the verses that mention meals where meat is indeed required to be eaten. This alone shows enough evidence the Bible does not endorse vegetarianism.

Mathew 3:4
" and the same John had his rainment of camel hair and a girdle around his loins and his nourishment was locust beans and honey"

First of all, I'm not sure how locusts would technically be vegetarian food in the strictest sense but that is beside the point. This was not a dietary law for anyone- it was simply a description of John the Baptist's lifestyle.

Isaiah 7:15
"butter and honey shall he eat that he may know to refuse the evil and choose the good"

Read the entire context. This is not a law to eat butter (curds in some translations) and honey or a veiled reference to vegetarianism. It is a metaphor for abundance vs. desolation. Just like oil and wine often represents wealth, milk and honey often represents abundance. When we read the entire chapter we see that the "milk and honey" (abundance) is destroyed and only thorn and thistles (desolation) remain. This is referring to the Assyrian invasion about to take place where the abundance Jewish land will be desolated (and also how the Jews will be desolated spiritually when they reject the future Messiah).

now in Luke 24:41-43
"And while they believed not for joy and wondered he said onto them have ye any eatable. And they offered him a piece of a broiled fish and a honeycomb, and he took IT (singular meaning one) and did eat before them.

I must be missing something because I read: "They gave him a piece of broiled fish and he took it and ate it in their presence." See: HERE (NIV) and HERE (NASB) for the two most accurate English translations. I think you are reading from the KJV which is fine, of course, but even the KJV specifically mentions Jesus asking for meat to eat. See: HERE. I think you are concerning yourself too much with semantics and not taking the entire context of the Bible.

These are just a few, but im curious to where we are condemned for not eating meat?

I Timothy 4. Most of the chapter talks about the false teachers who say we should abstain from certain foods (meat included) because all things were declared permissible to eat.

So how is any of this remotely important? Just another chink in the armor of the "Jesus was preaching another philosophy" claim. I'm not even about to go through and quote all the dozens of references that show Biblical figures eating meat so this will have to do.

[edit on 1/2/2008 by AshleyD]

Ashley,
I dont have alot of time tonight so ill be brief but will elaborate more tomorrow. First to understand where Im coming from you cant use sources that are clearly using the standard information that we have recieved from the British. When they arrived in India they found what they thought was a thirld world country, and decided what a great place to set up shop. So just as they did to every other 3rd world country they invaded they tried to assimilate them to being christian. The word Hindu is not an Indian name but a misspronouciation of the Indus River. The British thought the Indians were saying Hindus river. Then with out trying to understand the Indians religion (which honestly had deteriated from recognizing 1 supreme god to recognizing the demi gods as many..this is due to the ignorance of Kali yuga) they began to combine it with christianity and decided that all of there written records of history were false and therefore making everything null in void. This is where all of the Hinduism sprouted from. The British deciding they were hindu and missinterpeting there religion and coustoms. I ask you to take a look at
the Vedic encyclopedia (i think its vedas.com not shure just google it) it will better explain to you from the real Vedic stand point. It will also explain to you the difference between Krishna and Vishnu and why Krishna should be considered the original personality.