ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the thought of a contemporary Sri Lankan Buddhist apologist, Gunapala Dharmasiri. It begins with brief biographical information, and then explains Dharmasiri's Buddhist Critique of the Christian Concept of God and why it demonstrates exclusivism. Dharmasiri has spent the majority of his career teaching philosophy at the University of Sri Lanka, Peradeniya Campus. Dharmasiri argues that experience is always subject to interpretation, that drug experiences are often indistinguishable from so-called religious experiences, and that mystical experiences can lead to immorality and passivity just as easily as they can lead to admirable behavioral changes. Dharmasiri is interested only in reading this depiction of the Buddha as encouraging critical examination and empirical testing and as rejecting reliance on the non-rational. Dharmasiri clearly acknowledges that different dispositions may call for different religious practices or teachings: While the Mahayana path of wisdom is for those with a wisdom-oriented disposition, the path of devotion is for the feeling-oriented.
