Brit Hume of "Fox News Sunday" recently ignited a firestorm of controversy when he weighed in on the Tiger Woods scandal: 

"He's said to be a Buddhist. I don't think that faith offers the kind of forgiveness and redemption that is offered by the Christian faith. So my message to Tiger would be, 'Tiger, turn to the Christian faith and you can make a total recovery and be a great example to the world."

A large portion of the secularist media joined in a chorus of protests against Hume because he dared to suggest something called objective truth and further claimed that objective truth is found only in the Christian religion. Hume, however, was accurate in his assessment. There is no redemption and forgiveness within Buddhism, because it directs one to look inwardly for enlightment, yet the Bible tells us that, "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it" (Jer 17:9)? Turning inward, therefore, will accomplish nothing other than feeding the sinful nature inherent in all of us and misleading us apart from a divine intervention.

With that said, however, many of us have probably never encountered Buddhism or any other of the eastern religions for that matter. So here are a few quick facts about the religion that 350 million people worldwide embrace.

• Buddhism was founded in Northern India by the Buddha, a royal prince named Siddhartha Gautama.

• He was born circa 563 B.C. in Lumbini which is in modern-day Nepal and died in his early 80’s c. 483.

• At the age of 29, he left his wife, children and political involvements in order to seek truth.

• It was an accepted practice at the time for some men to leave their family and lead the life of an ascetic.

• c.535 BC he attained enlightenment and assumed the title Buddha (one who has awakened).

• He concluded that life is nothing but an experience plagued by sorrow.

• He promoted The Middle Way, rejecting both extremes of the mortification of the flesh and of hedonism as paths toward the state of Nirvana.

• Nirvana means litterally, "to cease blowing" (as when a candle flame ceases to flicker) and/or extinguishing (that is, of the passions).
  
  
• He had many disciples and accumulated a large public following by the time of his death in his early 80's in 483 BC.

• Two and a half centuries later, a council of Buddhist monks collected his teachings and the oral traditions of the faith into written form, called the Tripitaka.

• This included a very large collection of commentaries and traditions; most are called Sutras (discourses).

• All of the Buddha's teachings, collectively called the dharma, deal with one basic goal - how to escape samsara.

• Samsara is the cycle of rebirths that is known more commonly as reincarnation.

• Freedom from samsara leads to nirvana, which is commonly thought of as a state of complete deliverance from pain and sorrow, a state of bliss - the Eastern equivalent of heaven.

• The goal of each Buddhist is the attainment of the state of nirvana.

• This can be done by embracing the Four Noble Truths and Following the Eight fold Noble Path.

The Four Noble Truths

• that suffering is an inherent part of existence;

• that the origin of suffering is ignorance;

• and the main symptoms of that ignorance are attachment and craving;

• that attachment and craving can be ceased; and that following the Noble Eightfold Path will lead to the cessation of attachment and craving and therefore suffering.

The Noble Eightfold Path

• right understanding
• right thought
• right speech
• right action
• right livelihood
• right effort
• right mindfulness
• and right concentration.