Chapter 4 second part

After Chapter 4 talks about Confucius and his words, and what he has achieved, the chapter goes on talking about the origins of many other religions. The ones I will talk about is when it brings up Buddhism and Christianity. This wont be a very long post since I have already posted another short blog prior to this.

The interesting thing is the first sentence says how neither Jesus or the Buddha had any intention of founding a new religion. I know for sure that this is vaguely true about Buddha, though he still expects people to follow his way and believe he becomes supernatural (sound contradicting to me). I remember learning when I took a eastern philosophy class that Buddha didn't intend to create a religion but in fact a philosophy, or a way of life; however, I only partly ever believed this was his true intentions. As far as Jesus goes, it is true he may have not wanted to create a new religion, but in fact he never did. I am actually in a New Testament class right now and this isn't exactly true.

If it is further broken down, Jesus actually asked his disciples when he was resurrected to spread the word to the ends of the earth. So that was his intent. If you call it another religion, well that's a matter of opinion because his words were directed to Jews and non-Jews, basically whoever was willing to listen. Christianity is actually said to have come even before his time because Moses actually, and several other prophets in the Bible, predicted of Jesus' coming. Which is evidence that Christianity (which if the roots are taken apart it meant belief in Christ) was actually started far long before his point. Also Jesus never said he had Divine status in those exact words but he did say he was the Son of God, Son of Man, the Messiah, and many other ways of explaining his status. I guess him healing people and sending out demon (which even the demons knew who he was) wasn't a big enough hint for the authors since I guess just anyone can do that these days with the touch of a finger or a call from our tongues.

So I feel that sometimes this History book can be a bit misleading or has another way of delivering the material, such as my arrangement in my first blog about the beginnings of the world. The rest said about Saint Paul sounds about right but it almost seems as if the person who wrote this history book was more concerned with the second half of the books of acts than the actual gospels found in the new testament (Mark, Matthew, & Luck) which would basically contradict some of the chapter's claims.

by Andrew Murillo
I am sorry if my blogs have been harsh, but I feel that not all sources these days are not as valued as I may have remembered them to be since no matter where you look you will always find something saying the complete opposite. Since this is a (supposedly) Catholic school, I take the Catholic approach. After all, I am Catholic and that is why I choose to come to this school.