Being Pursued by the Buddha

I haven't posted anything in quite awhile even though I have attended two one-day Buddhist retreats. I have also been following the Jesus' wife discussion that has been reacting to a papyrus scrap. As I ponder the differing views of Jesus, I have wondered who created this world where the blood sacrifice of a divine person named Jesus was required. I would like to study the history of Christianity more to understand how this became the dominant view of Jesus' life. But I don't think Jesus saw himself in this way, only that the early Christians made sense of Jesus' death this way and tried to wipe out all other views on the life of Jesus with the help of the Roman Empire.

 This morning I googled "who is the God that needs atonement for sin" and thought the most honest entry just said "you just have to accept it." In some ways, it is a bit embarrassing how much work it is to defend traditional Christianity. I don't think I am being insulting when I say I respect folks that do not question this fundamental teaching. They have found a faith that works for them in this life and I don't think my way is essentially better. This is just where I am in my faith journey. Karen Armstrong is helpful here;

"I say that religion isn't about believing things. It's ethical alchemy. It's about behaving in a way that changes you, that gives you intimations of holiness and sacredness."

The title of today's entry is because I was thinking today about how I have been exposed to Buddhism in different ways my whole life and I finally "gave in." In other words, Buddhist teaching makes sense to me now and “I simply could no longer believe the orthodox version of the story” about Jesus. I looked back to see what I had written in this blog and realized I was thinking about the same thing when I made my last post in May. I just followed some of the links in that post that provide an interesting account of some points in my faith journey that I have written about since I started this blog in 2006.