Why was the classical West so far behind in religious/spiritual development?

[Bosh]

And anyway, Hinduism is much different from Western pagan religions. It is much more spiritual, as the whole purpose of the religion is to come closer to God, and it has a strong code of ethics.

You really really need to do more reading about late Classical relgion before making such broad and unfounded statements. You seem to be completely unaware of the massive differences between early Greco-Roman pagan fables (like Ovid etc.) and the rich diversity and interesting developments of late Classical religion.

[Drake Tungsten]

Mahayana Buddhism is a sect for the common people and they tended to be polytheistic.

No, it isn't. Mahayana Buddhism is the type practiced by the vast majority of the world's Buddhists and spans any number of individual sects, from simple sects meant for common people to extremely complex sects meant for the elite. Educate yourself...

[Bosh]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten

Mahayana Buddhism is a sect for the common people and they tended to be polytheistic.

No, it isn't. Mahayana Buddhism is the type practiced by the vast majority of the world's Buddhists and spans any number of individual sects, from simple sects meant for common people to extremely complex sects meant for the elite. Educate yourself...

That too. Pure Lands-style popularization of Buddhism is hardly representative of the diversity of Mahayana Buddhism (especially since so many of the sects are so thoroughly influenced by Daoism).

[Joseph]

Just maybe it was to be that way so Jesus could come and save western man as a starting point, and then to save all of mankine.

[johncmcleod]

Buddha never said God existed. His message was corrupted over the centuries and the result is Mahayana Buddhism, and it is understandable they are polytheistic, considering the religion it came from.

Yet still, Mahayana Buddhism is far more advanced than Western Pagan religions.

[Bosh]

Originally posted by johncmcleod
Buddha never said God existed. His message was corrupted over the centuries and the result is Mahayana Buddhism, and it is understandable they are polytheistic, considering the religion it came from.

Yet still, Mahayana Buddhism is far more advanced than Western Pagan religions.

How so?

[johncmcleod]

The purpose of Mahayana Buddhism is to get closer to God/nirvana and to help others achieve this. They spend hours meditating and praying, it is an intensely spiritual religion. They try to live their life in accordance to moral teachings. None of this was present in any Pagan religion.

[Drake Tungsten]

Pure Lands-style popularization of Buddhism is hardly representative of the diversity of Mahayana Buddhism (especially since so many of the sects are so thoroughly influenced by Daoism).

Indeed. In Japan alone you have Tendai, Shingon, Hosso, Nichiren, Jodo, Jodo Shinshu and Zen, just to name the major sects. Some are horribly complex (Tendai, Shingon) some are Pure Land sects meant for mass consumption (Jodo, Jodo Shinshu), some are weird homegrown Buddhist sects (Nichiren) and some are profoundly influenced by Daoism (Zen). Such diversity makes any attempts to generalize about Buddhism rather difficult, particularly when one isn't very well-informed...

[Bosh]

Originally posted by johncmcleod
The purpose of Mahayana Buddhism is to get closer to God/nirvana and to help others achieve this. They spend hours meditating and praying, it is an intensely spiritual religion. They try to live their life in accordance to moral teachings. None of this was present in any Pagan religion.

Really?

to get closer to God/nirvana and to help others achieve this

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manichaeism

[quote]They spend hours meditating and praying,[/quotes]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essene

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sufi

an intensely spiritual religion

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mystery_religions

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mithraism

And then Orphean and a variety of mystery religions derived from Egyptian paganism.

They try to live their life in accordance to moral teachings.

http://www.avesta.org/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epicurean

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoic

[Al B. Sure!]

The Graeco-Romans were too concerned with Aristotlean logic. They could not comprehend a crucial idea that was very widely understood and probably originated in India and the Orient... Nothingness. Aristotle rejected any possibility of void because it did not fit within the framework of his logic.

That there was no Roman or Greek symbol for the number Zero is very telling. They had no conception of this idea that is prevalent in Eastern religions as well as more modern philosophical movements like nihilism and existentialism. Without the language to describe this idea, the Greeks and Romans had no cognition of zero/nothingness. Anyone familiar with Graeco-Roman philosophy knows there is a very prevelant belief, shared by nearly all of the philosophies, that all that exists has always existed and that something can not be created from Nothing. Without a concept of Nothing, nor even a way to express it, the Greeks and Romans had no concept of void, no concept of a before time, no concept of a nirvana...

Logic (and a limited vocabulary and number system) precluded the development of spirituality.

[Bosh]

AS: that's true of early Greek philosophy but by the time of the Roman Empire things had changed drastically and influences came in from all over the place and what you are saying no longer applies so much.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by johncmcleod
Whoa, hold on their Ned.

The only polytheistic religion in the East was Hinduism. And though the commoners worshipped all of the different Gods, the actually philosophy and metaphysics of the religion are just so much more advanced that the Western pagan religions, especially in matters of spirituality. Hinduism is about getting closer to God. The Western pagan religions were all about appeasing the Gods.

And as for Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism, none of these were polytheistic, and they were way more advanced than any western religion of the time.

You realize that at its root Hinduism is another Indo-European polytheistic religion right? It was heavily influenced by the pre-existing spiritual traditions of Dravidian India, but it is even today many things to many people, including a very Western type of polytheism with little spirituality or prospects for enlightenment.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Ned


johnc, the only IndoEuropeans in the East are the Hindus and the Cambodians. The native religions of China and Japan are not that much different than those of Africa. Grafted on to these is Buddism, which of course, origniated in India.

I think a lot of the so-called advancement that you are talking about centers therefore on Buddism.

BTW, you still don't seem to understand that the paganism of the Western Europeans is the same as Hinduism. All IndoEuropeans essentially have the same root religion and gods as they all are branches of the same tribe.

The Cambodians aren't Indo-Europeans.

[Ned]

Sik, thanks for reiterating this point to Johnc. He doesn't seem to understand that the all the IndoEuropean religions have a common root. In a related post, he was suggesting that the Western polytheistic religions of Greece and Rome came from Mesopotamia!!!

[Sikander]

Originally posted by johncmcleod
True, but the Mesopotamians had a huge impact on western civilization. By race, the Aryans were Indo-European, but India was certainly not a Western country. It had little influence on the West until far later and it is much more like the East in its thinking and religion.

India had an impact on Mesopotamia, Persia and Arabia for a long time. It wasn't a late only development. And the main reason that India has an eastern sort of mindset as you see it is that Indian culture (in Indo-China and much of Indonesia) and Indian religion (especially buddhism) were huge influences on much of East Asia and South Asia. India is the crossroads between the early civilized portions of the globe.