Opening the text

Ancient Faiths And Modern: A Dissertation upon Worships, Legends and Divinities in Central and Western Asia, Europe, and Elsewhere, Before the Christian Era. Showing Their Relations to Religious Customs as They Now Exist.Inman, Thomas

Religion

Ancient Faiths And Modern: A Dissertation upon Worships, Legends and Divinities in Central and Western Asia, Europe, and Elsewhere, Before the Christian Era. Showing Their Relations to Religious Customs as They Now Exist.

Name: Ancient Faiths And Modern: A Dissertation upon Worships, Legends and Divinities in Central and Western Asia, Europe, and Elsewhere, Before the Christian Era. Showing Their Relations to Religious Customs as They Now Exist.
Author: Inman, Thomas

Inman, Thomas

Religions

For example, let us assume that two savage tribes, having gods
of different names and shapes, go to war on the bidding of their
priests--one is conquered and the other is victorious. The one
attributes his reverse to the anger of his own deity, not to the power
of the god of his enemy. The other imagines that he owes success to the
influence of his protector and his superiority over his foe's fetish.
A civilized on-looker, who believes that all the deities are devils and
powerless, attributes victory and defeat to perfectly natural causes,
e.g., superiority in weapons, tactics, numbers, or strength. It is
clear that neither the deductions of the first nor second men are right;
neither has read the mind of his fetish. So it is with the half educated
theologians of our own day, who think and talk as glibly of God and
Satan, as if they were personal acquaintances, who make no secret either
of their deeds or their motives of action.

Once more we return to the Dhammapada and find,

248. "O, man, know this, that the unrestrained are in a bad state; take
care that greediness and vice do not bring thee to grief for a long
time." We do not here seek to find any parallel passage in the
bible, but we turn to history, remote and collateral, and compare the
priesthood of Buddha with that of Jesus. Does travel tell us of any set
of teachers more self-denying than the individuals who devote themselves
as religious Buddhists? Can history, on the other hand, tell us of any
hierarchy more greedy and vicious than the Christian priesthood in the
middle ages, and down to a comparatively recent period? We will not
accuse them of vice, but even now is there in the whole world a more
grasping set of men than those who have received what they term "holy
orders" from the descendants of Jesus or of Peter? I trow not. If,
therefore, a doctrine is to be known by its fruits, in one respect at
least Buddhism is superior to that which we call Christianity, by which
term I do not mean the exceptional practice of a few, but the general
habits of the majority of the bishops, priests, &c., of Christendom.
Once more let us contrast the doctrine of Buddha with the practice of
Christians. He says--

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

Opening the text

Religion

Ancient Faiths And Modern: A Dissertation upon Worships, Legends and Divinities in Central and Western Asia, Europe, and Elsewhere, Before the Christian Era. Showing Their Relations to Religious Customs as They Now Exist.

Inman, Thomas

Religions

For example, let us assume that two savage tribes, having gods
of different names and shapes, go to war on the bidding of their
priests--one is conquered and the other is victorious. The one
attributes his reverse to the anger of his own deity, not to the power
of the god of his enemy. The other imagines that he owes success to the
influence of his protector and his superiority over his foe's fetish.
A civilized on-looker, who believes that all the deities are devils and
powerless, attributes victory and defeat to perfectly natural causes,
e.g., superiority in weapons, tactics, numbers, or strength. It is
clear that neither the deductions of the first nor second men are right;
neither has read the mind of his fetish. So it is with the half educated
theologians of our own day, who think and talk as glibly of God and
Satan, as if they were personal acquaintances, who make no secret either
of their deeds or their motives of action.

Once more we return to the Dhammapada and find,

248. "O, man, know this, that the unrestrained are in a bad state; take
care that greediness and vice do not bring thee to grief for a long
time." We do not here seek to find any parallel passage in the
bible, but we turn to history, remote and collateral, and compare the
priesthood of Buddha with that of Jesus. Does travel tell us of any set
of teachers more self-denying than the individuals who devote themselves
as religious Buddhists? Can history, on the other hand, tell us of any
hierarchy more greedy and vicious than the Christian priesthood in the
middle ages, and down to a comparatively recent period? We will not
accuse them of vice, but even now is there in the whole world a more
grasping set of men than those who have received what they term "holy
orders" from the descendants of Jesus or of Peter? I trow not. If,
therefore, a doctrine is to be known by its fruits, in one respect at
least Buddhism is superior to that which we call Christianity, by which
term I do not mean the exceptional practice of a few, but the general
habits of the majority of the bishops, priests, &c., of Christendom.
Once more let us contrast the doctrine of Buddha with the practice of
Christians. He says--

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

Ancient Faiths And Modern: A Dissertation upon Worships, Legends and Divinities in Central and Western Asia, Europe, and Elsewhere, Before the Christian Era. Showing Their Relations to Religious Customs as They Now Exist.

Ancient Faiths And Modern: A Dissertation upon Worships, Legends and Divinities in Central and Western Asia, Europe, and Elsewhere, Before the Christian Era. Showing Their Relations to Religious Customs as They Now Exist.

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