I sometimes put on one of the teachers in my school of Buddhism to explain various texts and whatnot, and I got hit with something upside the head to day.

Ajahn Brahm was a former oxford-trained physicist who left a career in physics to become a monk. His story is intriguing by itself, but it adds weight to the description I heard today. The best way to describe his importance would be akin to a Cardinal of Australia.

He referred to the Abrahamic religions as materialist religions. It appears that Buddhism uses a slightly different definition for materialism than what I'm used to, but for sure, he was clear that any religion that believes in a single creation event is by definition materialist.

I mean I get it, Hinduism and Buddhism both have components of eternalism (just not of the self in one case.)

This reminds me quite a bit about how Nietzsche criticized Christianity as being nihilistic.

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\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"