This work supports the proposition that the eradication of religion will make us live as one, and there is only one way to remove religion and that is to remove the need for it. Armed only with reason, this work will prove that due to ignorance religion is just an invention to fill a need. This work has three segments. The first explores - from the point of view of a Christian-practicing Pagan - the process on how myth became reality. It will prove that God was invented, and re-invented perpetually, for necessity and convenience. It is that need that gave the bible its religious relevance. Understood with a naked mind, the bible is far from being just a religious document but a political one. This work explores why religion and politics cannot and will not separate. Hence, unavoidably, it dipped its hands into one painful political issue - the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The second part elucidates that if the foundation is a myth it only follows that what was founded on it - Jesus - is a lie. It will give proof to the fact that the New Testament was manipulated to further vested interest. Understood with an unconditioned mind, that is, without the traditional spirituality attached to it, it will prove that Jesus is just selfishly scheming to regain his grandfather David's throne; it will also prove that Jesus is gay. The last part is my way of introducing Buddhism. It could shed light to what Western science is exiting themselves about. It answers why man will never find the Missing Link. It explains how and why advanced civilizations deteriorated to their present state. In our fight against virus causing disease we must explore all avenues to defeat it, Buddhism offers one. Buddhism is not only about science, it is also about religion; it delves into the reality of a soul. Buddhism gives us reason on why we must discriminate on account of race, or for any other reason.

The modern dialogue between Buddhism and Christianity in Japan is reaching new depths and insights and is being recognized today as a challenging and promising point of contact between two cultures. This volume is based on the premise that an understand­ing of the past is important for meaningful interaction in the present. By placing the Buddhist-Christian dialogue in historical perspective, the author provides an essential element for critical and creative reflection on today's dialogue. Thelle's historical examination begins with the arrival of Francis Xavier in 1549, which initiated the "Christian century." However, his main emphasis is on the nineteenth century, when relations between the two reli­gions moved from confrontation to conciliation. The opening of Japan in 1854 initiated a confrontation that was more than a reli­gious conflict; the meeting of the two faiths was part of an all-inclusive cultural clash. The confrontation of Buddhism and Chris­tianity is interpreted in a broad cultural and sociopolitical context and reveals how strong­ly both religions were influenced by the social and ideological upheavals in nine­teenth-century Japan. The vital issue was which religion would become the spiritual basis for the "new" Japan. Christianity, in­troduced as the spiritual backbone of West­ern power, was associated with ideas of modernization and democracy. Buddhism, regarded as part of the old culture, was in serious crisis. But the conflict was not resolved in victory and defeat. Radical changes took place within the two religions, and by the turn of the century confrontation had moved toward conciliation. The author examines the origins of emerging peaceful dialogue and uncovers the complex process by which it grew out of an atmosphere of animosity and distrust. Thelle's central themes are the connection between Christian expansion and Buddhist anti-Christian campaigns, religion and na­tionalism, Christian impact on Buddhist re­form movements, attempts at unifying the two faiths into a new religiosity, and the development of an indigenous Japanese the­ology. He throws light on cross-cultural interactions far beyond the specialized area of religion and theology. With its broad cultur­al and sociopolitical scope, this book will in­terest all students of Japanese history and culture.

Tracing Japan's religions from the Hein Period through the middle ages and into modernity, this book explores the unique establishment of Shinto, Buddhism, and Confucianism in Japan, as well as the later influence of Roman Catholicism, and the problem of Restoration--both spiritual and material--following World War II.

This is the first comprehensive coverage of socially and politically engaged Buddhism in Asia, presenting the historical development and institutional forms of engaged Buddhism in the light of traditional Buddhist conceptions of morality, interdependence, and liberation.

Joseph Kitagawa, one of the founders of the field of history of religions and an eminent scholar of the religions of Japan, published his classic book Religion in Japanese History in 1966. Since then, he has written a number of extremely influential essays that illustrate approaches to the study of Japanese religious phenomena. To date, these essays have remained scattered in various scholarly journals. This book makes available nineteen of these articles, important contributions to our understanding of Japan's intricate combination of indigenous Shinto, Confucianism, Taoism, the Yin-Yang School, Buddhism, and folk religion. In sections on prehistory, the historic development of Japanese religion, the Shinto tradition, the Buddhist tradition, and the modem phase of the Japanese religious tradition, the author develops a number of valuable methodological approaches. The volume also includes an appendix on Buddhism in America. Asserting that the study of Japanese religion is more than an umbrella term covering investigations of separate traditions, Professor Kitagawa approaches the subject from an interdisciplinary standpoint. Skillfully combining political, cultural, and social history, he depicts a Japan that seems a microcosm of the religious experience of humankind.

Buddhism is the fourth-largest religion in the world and Nichiren Shoshu/Soka Gakkai is the largest Buddhist religion in America. The purpose of Buddhism is to eradicate suffering and attain enlightenment Nichiren Shoshu to receive material benefits and find happiness. This book demonstrates the fundamental incompatibility of Buddhism and Christianity and shows the consequences particularly religious ones which lie outside the truth. This eBook was written from material which originally comprised the authors’ Master’s Thesis.

Written by leading scholars in the field, this book provides new insights, based on original research, into the full spectrum of modern Japanese political-religious activity: from the prewar uses of Shinto in shaping the modern imperial nation-state to the postwar 'new religions' that have challenged the power of the political establishment.

This essential student textbook consists of seventeen sections, all written by leading scholars in their different fields. They cover all the religious traditions of Southwest Asia, Southeast Asia, Central Asia, Tibet, and East Asia. The major traditions that are described and discussed are (from the Southwest) Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, Sikhism and Islam, and (from the East) Taoism, Confucianism and Shinto. In addition, the tradition of Bon in Tibet, the shamanistic religions of Inner Asia, and general Chinese, Korean and Japanese religion are also given full coverage. The emphasis throughout is on clear description and analysis, rather than evaluation. Ten maps are provided to add to the usefulness of this book, which has its origin in the acclaimed Encyclopedia of Religion, edited by Mircea Eliade of the University of Chicago.

Is religion an obstacle to the values of modernity? Popular and scholarly opinion says that it is. In a world gripped in a clash of civilizations, religious absolutism seems to threaten the modern virtues of tolerance, reason, and freedom. This collection of historical essays argues that this popular view--religion versus modernity--is used by the politically powerful to construct the religious as irrational and antimodern. The authors study how nationalists, state officials, missionaries, and scholars in the West and in the colonized world defined and redefined the relationship between the political and the religious --From publisher's description.