Brother Dhammika has such a great post today. In it, he quotes the philosopher Walter Kaufmann from 1958, imagining a dialogue between Satan and an atheist on the subject of Buddhism!
I'd never heard of Kaufmann, despite the fact that it seems we lived in the same town of Princeton, NJ, for 11 overlapping years. He was expounding on Nietzche; I was begging my mom for a skateboard. Strange we never met. Had you heard of him, or am I the only ignoramus around here? Wouldn't be the first time.
In any case, in researching a bit, I came across this in a list of Kaufmann Kwotes:
"The only theism worthy of our respect believes in God not because of the way the world is made but in spite of that. The only theism that is no less profound than the Buddha's atheism is that represented in the Bible by Job and Jeremiah."
Big stuff to talk about in a day or two. Stay tuned!
Update: Bhante hits one out of the park again today with a hysterical anecdote couched in a post about Buddhist mummies! Dig the one with the shades.
and it´s the bith day of T. URgYen
Posted by: chodon | February 18, 2009 at 03:33 PM
I always kind of liked Job's story - no sugar coating.
Posted by: Northmoon | February 18, 2009 at 04:51 PM
The first philosopher, other than the Greeks, that I read, more or less right after his books came out. His Nietzsche was my bible in my teens & his translations of Rilke and Goethe were what I relied on until I learned German at sixteen. In a way he lead me to Dharma, by way of Existentialism. The Dharma he knew was basically Theravadin Sutrayana.
Posted by: Lama Kunzang | February 22, 2009 at 05:02 PM