Introduction
Many people criticize Buddha because they see his actions as irresponsible.
A person wrote:
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Buddha left his wife and child and it doesn't matter if they were rich or not because he still had a duty of a husband and a father like you'll never listen someone say I want a husband/ father like Buddha. He was irresponsible in this.
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His philosophy about life and sufferings is good but his moral ground was Law of Karma (kamma and kammaphala), nirvana, enlightenment which have no scientific evidence and are kind of problematic.
Our Reply:
Dear friend,
The first lesson we need to learn is this that nothing is 100% PERFECT in this world, as no 100% perfect Allah/God present in the heavens. If we understand this basic issue, then we can solve a lot of other issues in our present world including your question about Buddha.
We openly admit that Buddha was only a human and he was far from perfect. But he felt the pain of humanity (which was caused by extreme oppressive (religious) system of his time. His intention was to find the solution. His method caused some human rights issues regarding his family members. However, it was mainly due to the circumstances of that time.
For example, such sacrifice to come to a solution are perhaps not needed today as Human rationale has already gathered a lot of "experiences" of thousands of years and we have all the rough DATA. However, this DATA was not present during the era of Buddha. So, he had to sacrifice his rights and the rights of his family members to gain that experience in human history, which was absent previously.
The world isn't perfect and progress comes slowly, through trial, error, and accumulated experience over generations. Buddha contributed enormously by shining a light on suffering and a path out of it, but he did so as a limited human in his time. We don't have to idolize him or defend every choice he made. We can appreciate the valuable parts of his teachings while honestly questioning the rest.
So, we cannot blame Buddha, as it is how our non-perfect world works. It may sometimes demand us to do such actions for betterment of humanity, which are otherwise considered not correct.
The same is true about Karma issue.
Science today explains much of ethics and consequences through psychology, sociology, neuroscience, and evolutionary biology, and these are the things Buddha and his contemporaries didn't have access to.
People of that era were unable to understand many issues of how this universe came into being and how it works. So, it was perhaps one of the best way of spreading morality in those circumstances.
Buddha lived in a pre-scientific era. He used the ideas and language available then (like karma, which was already part of Indian thought) to teach ethical living, compassion, and personal responsibility in a way that resonated deeply with people
Thus, the responsibility for these flaws lies not with Buddha himself, but with the limitations of the imperfect world he lived in.
Hassan Radwan