Buddhism and Christianity in the Future of the World… 

Christianity was perhaps better to develop a raw wild unruly world. But Buddhism is better to sustain it. All of which avoids the issue of whether we will survive or not. But, isn’t it better to have developed the world and lost, than never to have developed it at all? Hmmm, I’m not sure, because it seems that we could have developed mentally, and consciously, without ever filling the landfills with so much kitchen appliance junk that our lives are full of, whether we ever perfect the perfect counter-top blender or not. Remember them? 

But, one thing is for sure: if our civilization collapses, future archeologists will certainly have fun trying to figure it all out, assuming that the historical narrative is fundamental to that civilization, so, it, too, will also likely be lost. Only time will tell, because war is so fundamental to civilization, that to lay down arms, in an effort to reconcile our differences, would be seen as treason to many a competing contender to world dominance. Such is our world and our lives.  

With the recognition that northern India and modern Europe are genetically related, it must have been interesting to sit around gatherings on the northern steppes when they all spoke a common language, but with apparently different opinions. Because northern Indian philosophy has offered a distinct alternative to the European analytical quest since time immemorial, and that is the milieu from which Buddhism arises, debates with the Brahminists and the Jains.  

But the Platonists and Pythagoreans had their own issues, never the twain to meet, until Alexander sought the Gymnosophists there in India and the East and West renewed their long conversation left behind on the northern steppes. Now here we sit, trying to make sense of it all, human diversity trying to respond to natural laws, which can only be surmised and rarely proven in the first place or the second instance, and so the only satisfaction lies in trying—or not, if you’re a renunciant.