Buddha

2025-01-22

The Buddha Meets Bayes

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

by Neil Godfrey

ChatGPT image — don’t look too closely for sensible design

Forgive me if this is old news and I am the last to learn about it, but anyone interested in Buddhism and Bayes’ Theorem as a tool for evaluating the historical status of the Buddha in a way somewhat comparable to what Richard Carrier has done with Jesus will want to read

Kingsley, John. “A Bayesian Analysis of Early Śramaṇic Origin Stories Part I: Historicity of the Buddha.” Master of Arts, Loyola Marymount University, 2022. https://digitalcommons.lmu.edu/etd/1256/.

From the Introduction:

Because of the depth and time needed to complete a full Bayesian analysis of both the Buddha and Mahāvīra, this paper will focus mostly on the historicity of the Buddha, and offer further research suggestions for that of Mahāvīra. However, the main objective of this paper is not necessarily to prove, one way or another, that these figures did or did not exist. It is to simply provide a framework for the methodology that I think is most effective at forcing historians – and theologians – to deductively and empirically analyze the questions in their respective fields.

2010-06-02

Historical Existence Siddhartha Gautama

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

by Neil Godfrey

From an email I received recently:

Just out of curiosity, I did a quick web search on the historicity of the Buddha. Funny thing… Buddhists don’t really seem to be all that anxious about it. For them, it seems, the dharma is vastly more important than the person responsible for it. Possibly a subject for a blog entry?

One thing that truly bothers me about the accusation of hyperskepticism is the way the person making the accusation acts as if you might be hearing it for the very first time. It’s like the people who make the joke about God not making Adam and Steve. Seriously? And what’s really astounding is the way they’ll bring Julius Caesar into the fray. A guy who wrote books that we still have. A guy whose funeral mask is still extant (or at least a copy of it). A guy written about by contemporaneous historical figures. The fact that anyone would argue that Jesus has more historical cred than Gaius Julius Caesar proves that our schools have failed us.

I don’t know much about Buddhist history, but the first paragraph here reminds me of Albert Schweitzer’s call for Christianity to be grounded in a “metaphysic” that stands quite apart from the “historical Jesus”.

But so much Christian literature does stress the importance of history for Christianity. Interesting that mainstream Christianity has in the main been most opposed to Marxism, which also believes in history.

But the comparison with Buddhism is an interesting one. If Christianity really does need a correct “history” to survive as a religion, does that not make Christ’s kingdom something that is very much “of this world” after all?

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Gordon Rouse on Paul’s Letters as Second Century Writings — The Relevance of the Circumcision Question: “So a lot of this thesis seems to be Christians rejecting strict Judaism, however Christian writings seem to also play…” Jan 26, 00:04
Neil Godfrey on Paul’s Letters as Second Century Writings — The Relevance of the Circumcision Question: “Nina Livesey devotes chapter 3 to a comparison between Seneca’s and Paul’s letters: https://vridar.org/2025/01/23/pauls-letters-in-literary-philosophical-context/” Jan 25, 22:02
Paul Trejo on Paul’s Letters as Second Century Writings — The Relevance of the Circumcision Question: “Bruno Bauer also weighed in on this topic with his book, “Christus Und Die Caesaren” (1877). He showed that the…” Jan 25, 17:19
Neil Godfrey on The Folly of Bayesian Probability in “Doing History”: “I wrote two lengthy replies but then I remembered that you indicated at one time I write too much ;-)…” Jan 25, 09:03
Petr Jancar on The Folly of Bayesian Probability in “Doing History”: “I wanted to sort out Axiom 4 first, as I stated explicitly. Your reaction starting with “I’ll play the devil’s…” Jan 25, 05:15
Neil Godfrey on Paul’s Letters as Second Century Writings — The Relevance of the Circumcision Question: “Thanks for this info. I followed it up and see that Glick’s source is Rubin, ‘‘Brit Milah,’’ which is a…” Jan 25, 03:58
RParvus on Paul’s Letters as Second Century Writings — The Relevance of the Circumcision Question: “Understood. Thank you for these posts which I am following with much interest. But it just puzzles me that Livesey…” Jan 25, 01:23
Will Thomson on Paul’s Letters as Second Century Writings — The Relevance of the Circumcision Question: “Leonard B. Glick (1929-2024), who was Jewish himself, wrote a very readable book on circumcision (Marked in Your Flesh). I…” Jan 24, 23:49
Neil Godfrey on The Folly of Bayesian Probability in “Doing History”: “I’ll play the devil’s advocate for a moment and agree with everything you wrote in the above comment and accept…” Jan 24, 20:46

Tag: Buddha

2025-01-22

The Buddha Meets Bayes

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

by Neil Godfrey

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2010-06-02

Historical Existence Siddhartha Gautama

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

by Neil Godfrey

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