{"id":13548,"date":"2025-10-19T14:10:05","date_gmt":"2025-10-19T21:10:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/?p=13548"},"modified":"2025-10-19T18:42:02","modified_gmt":"2025-10-20T01:42:02","slug":"a-buddhist-scholar-swims-the-tiber","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2025\/10\/19\/a-buddhist-scholar-swims-the-tiber\/","title":{"rendered":"A Buddhist Scholar Swims the Tiber"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dmitri writes,<\/span><\/p>\n

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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.\u00a0Besides 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<\/a> of Williams’ book \u00a0if you would want to preview before deciding whether it is worth your time and money.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
<\/div>\n
Great to hear from you, my friend. Conversions<\/a> (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.<\/span><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

After what I said yesterday<\/a> 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?<\/span><\/div>\n

Buddhism, Suffering, and One Reason I am not a Buddhist\u00a0<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

People convert and deconvert to and from the strangest things:<\/span><\/p>\n

Harry Binswanger’s Conversion<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Son of Atheist Neo-Positivist David Stove Converts to Catholicism<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Sometimes the apple falls very far from the tree.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Stove ‘Dilemma’ and the Lewis ‘Trilemma’<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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.\u00a0Besides the interesting personal story the book contains a few interesting arguments with a few fundamental Buddhist conceptions such as rebirth. Williams states … Continue reading “A Buddhist Scholar Swims the Tiber”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[269,62,58,260],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13548","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-buddhism","category-catholic-corner","category-christian-doctrine","category-conversions"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13548","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13548"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13548\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13578,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13548\/revisions\/13578"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}