Dmitri writes,
Hope all is well. I am reading yet another book of a convert to Catholicism. This one is written by a British professor Paul Williams who is a scholar of Buddhism. Besides the interesting personal story the book contains a few interesting arguments with a few fundamental Buddhist conceptions such as rebirth. Williams states that his return to Christianity and conversion to Catholicism was rational and in part based on the incoherence of the Buddhist concept of rebirth. There is a short chapter dedicated to this topic at the end of the book that can be read standalone. An online religious community shared a copy of Williams’ book if you would want to preview before deciding whether it is worth your time and money.
Great to hear from you, my friend. Conversions (22 entries) and deconversions fascinate me. I ‘ve read a bit of the pdf you’ve kindly sent: the book is engaging from the start. Amazon wants 79 USD which is a bit steep. I’ll read more. These days, the problem’s not lack of loot but of space. Italian frugality has paid off. And while books can burn in a fire, they are less fragile all things considered than online materials.
After what I said yesterday about the left-ward transmogrification unto insipidity of the RCC, a process that began with Vatican II (1962-1965), as Dr. Caiati documents in a comment below, it is somewhat strange that anyone should still want to swim the Tiber. Buddhism has its problems, but Christianity does not? Is Williams serious?
Buddhism, Suffering, and One Reason I am not a Buddhist
People convert and deconvert to and from the strangest things:
Son of Atheist Neo-Positivist David Stove Converts to Catholicism
Sometimes the apple falls very far from the tree.
The Stove ‘Dilemma’ and the Lewis ‘Trilemma’
Bill,
I too find these contemporary conversions to the RCC “strange,” since they raise the question of to what exactly are these persons converting. And my sense is that many of these personal journeys to Rome are motivated by (1) an attraction to the Church as it “exists on paper,” that is, to the historical dogmas and doctrines that have defined the faith over the centuries and (2) a tendency to be ignorant of, ignore, or to minimize the actual practice and pronouncements of the institution that gravely diverge from or actually contradict these written documents. In other words, they are joining an institution in the midst of a very grave crisis, decades in the making, that is in the words of Archbishop Vigano, “theological in nature, not canonical. It concerns the systematic dismantling of the perennial Tradition of the Roman Catholic Apostolic Church and the dissolution of the Depositum Fidei….” * So it is, indeed, strange to enter the institution at this time, unless, I suppose, you are content to define the Church by the content of the Catechism—itself now being tampered with–rather than by the actual actions and words of those who have led it over the last decades, and especially since 2013. It is all rather like deciding to become an American citizen on the basis of reading the Constitution of 1787 rather than on the basis of, say, the actual functioning of the nation if the rule of the Left had not been disrupted, first in 2016 and again in 2024.
Vito
*https://exsurgedomine.it/251017-christchurch-eng/
Your comparison with legal immigration to the USA is apt. Apart from the MAGA ‘restoration of the Republic’ — to give it a name — why would anyone want to become a citizen of a ‘socialist craphole’ version of our country? And then there is the paradox that if the Left gets its way, then the main reasons why people would want to come here legally and illegally will have been removed.
> Buddhism has its problems, but Christianity does not? Is Williams serious?
The impression I get reading the book is that Williams is serious but he is exhibiting the typical zeal of a fresh convert. His overall attitude is comparative — he argues, to put it bluntly, that Catholicism outweighs Buddhism on theological topics, logical coherence and on moral values too. The latter is overly focused on the internal personal mental world (Buddha’s eyes are closed most of the times, right?) with an added individualistic twist of caring about your beliefs in “non-existing” self.
I’ve re-read the rebirth appendix of the book a few times and find it convincing provided the Buddhist sources are well represented and interpreted as I have no time and knowledge to verify that on my own.
Binswanger’s conversion story is quite in the opposite direction philosophically from Williams’…
Dmitri,
I conflated a couple or three quite different questions in the OP. Q1) Should one convert from Buddhism to Christianity? Q2) Should one convert from some sect of Buddhism to some sect of Christianity, e.g., RCC? Q3) Does it make sense to convert to the RCC in its present decadent configuration under BergoLEO, to use Vito’s delightfully tendentious and polemical moniker? Does Williams give any indication of being a lefty? If so, the current corruption of the RCC with its nauseating and suicidal hostility to its own traditions (Latin mass, e.g.) might not bother him.
>>Catholicism outweighs Buddhism on theological topics<>The latter is overly focused on the internal personal mental world (Buddha’s eyes are closed most of the times, right?) with an added individualistic twist of caring about your beliefs in “non-existing” self.<<
To put it more charitably, Buddhists seek to transcend the merely personal and egoic toward the Ultimate. I was tempted to write "Ultimate Reality" except that 'reality' is from the Latin *res,* thing, and the 'state' of nibbana/Nirvana is no thing: it is No-Thing, Nothing, Nothingness — but in a 'positive' sense! It is not a nugatory nothing — ein nichtiges Nichts — in Heidegger’s sense.
There are many questions that arise at this point, questions I have addressed in numerous posts over the years.
If you swim the Tiber, you will find this: (From “The Formation of Christendom” by Christopher Dawson, 1967, Pages 198 and 199) —
“After the decline of the Carolingian Empire, Rome had fallen prey to the feuds of the Italian princes and factions, and though a great Pope like John VIII might for a few years (872-882) vindicate the independence and international authority of the Holy See, he was powerless to prevent his successors from becoming the puppet(s) of these Italian nobles. Eventually Rome fell into the hands of the family of the papal chamberlain Theophylact and his wife Theodora, who founded a dynasty which survived for sixty years. Marozia, the daughter of Theophylact, controlled Rome and the papacy from 916 to 932. In 932 she was defeated and her son, Pope John XI, was deposed by her second son, Alberic, who ruled Rome and the papacy from 932 to 954. On his death he was succeeded by his son Octavian, who himself became Pope John XII (95-964). But his power was less stable than that of his father, Alberic, and his fear of Berengar, the pretender to the crown of Italy, led him unwisely to make an appeal to Otto of Germany, as former popes had appealed to the Franks against the Lombards. Otto at once answered his appeal, but in return he demanded to be crowned Emperor (in February 962) and the recognition by the Pope to require future popes to take an oath of fidelity to him. But it was not easy to enforce this provision, and for the remainder of the tenth century there was a continual succession of Roman revolts and German acts of repression, which kept the papal succession in a state of uncertainty and disorder.”
• • • • • • • • • •
The more I find out about the institutional RCC, the less I think it has anything special in the spiritual department. The fact that it is going full bore to outlaw the latin mass shows that Lucibello is really in charge there.
We believers are left to wander for a while, but the Holy Spirit is always acting, and we will see great changes, which we can hardly now imagine.