Page 157 - Islam and Buddhism

Buddhism and Materialist Western Culture

of atheism and materialist culture see that their theory is collapsing.

To prevent the rapidly growing movement towards revealed reli-
gions, they counter it by promoting pagan faiths such as Buddhism.
In other words, Buddhism—and other Far Eastern religions like it—
are spiritual reinforcements of materialism.
But why should materialist Western culture need any such rein-
forcement? English writers Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh and

Henry Lincoln have examined the development (and degeneration)
of ideas in the Western world over the past 2,000 years. In the 20th
century, they explain, the Western world has fallen into a "crisis of
meaning." In other words, the way of life imposed on Western soci-
eties by materialist philosophy has stripped people's lives of meaning
by cutting them off from their belief in God's existence and from wor-
ship of Him. These three authors put it this way:

Life became increasingly bereft of meaning, devoid of significance
— a wholly random phenomenon, lived for no particular purpose. 13
Adding to this crisis of meaning, the collapse of materialist theo-
ries on a scientific level has opened the way for a new return to re-
vealed religions, especially Islam. For this reason, the monotheistic
faiths are growing in their numbers of adherents; the number of those

who believe and practice their religion is increasing; and religious
concepts and values are assuming much more important places in so-
cial life.
Buddhism and similar pagan beliefs are eager to curtail this
movement by offering, to those confused by the crisis of meaning
brought on by the materialist culture, a false route to salvation.
Buddhism, Taoism, Hinduism and versions of it like the Hare Krishna
sect, Wicca and other New Age trends that bring together various

pagan teachings, UFO religions that busy themselves with so-called
holy messages believed to have come from space—these are all false

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