Rule-bound religion & Spirituality

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I would appreciate some actual evidence of this. I have been playing Lotto for 40 years and never won. I am waiting. Whether God loves me or not is of little consequence without some form of explicit demonstration. I am not particularly concerned with God's psychological problems.

God, after all, must take some responsibility for the defects in His products. The horrifying misery and stupidity that stamps His manufacture throughout history down to this day requires some sort of admittance. Toyota currently is in the dock for its faults but, in fair comparison between Toyota and God it's obvious Toyota comes out ahead.

Incidentally, shouldn't this thread be in the Politics, Philosophy, Religion forum?

Thich Nhat Hanh has been mentioned.
I have been v inspired by his life-time
work.

Thich often talked of the folly
of choping and changing faith
traditions. He once said, "If one
could only go right to the roots of
ones tradition, there you will find
a contemplative network that links
not only to all religions, but to the
essense of what it means to be human."

I think this is the most beautiful
and hope filled message.

But how easy is it for us all to see
life in such a unified and un-
contemplative way, when most of our
brains are naturally anaylitical,
and keen to cut-up, and devide?

The attitude, that if one path,
or way is good, the other must be bad,
is very much an example of duilistic
thought.

I struggle with my black n white
dulistic thinking, yet feel not
governed entirely by it's cutting edge.






Thich's book "Coming Home -
Jesus and Buddha as brothers" is
wonderful.

Struggles? My greatest struggle was with theistic religion: It just about killed me. The moment I stopped believing was the moment I came back from the brink.

The moment I found Buddhism was the moment I started putting a bit more order back into my life.



No.



Through dharmic philosophy & meditation.



Well, um... yes!



There is a great deal I could tell you but we'd have to go through a side-by-side comparison of a theistic creed, its structure, its intent versus the nontheistic creed of Buddhism, with its unique structure & intent.

One thing I'd like to share is that Zen is compatible with a great many things, and the Buddhism-lite of dharmic practice is eminently portable as a system of mindfulness.

I laud Hahn's efforts on that count. Jesus & Gotama sought similar outcomes.

First and foremost: Both Buddhism and Christianity proffer salvation with compassion as one of the main vehicles toward that end.

In theism votaries find their salvation via deliverance from suffering by employing faith in God to encourage and energize the effort. A sense of abiding presence of divinity and interconnectedness drive and propel self-growth. A relinquishment of ego allows one to open to the greater realm and achieve liberation.

With Buddhism its votaries employ a faith in interconnectedness & openness to the greater realm. This synopsizes the heart of Buddhism in its concept of Emptiness. Emptiness is simply a construct that establishes that all things are empty, or void, of independent existence. In Buddhism the relinquishment of ego is structured pursuit in that a significant objective is to stop building delusions that reify the impermanent specter of Self.

In both cases the votary is doing the work. In a theistic faith the work is reinforced by a sense of divine presence. In the nontheistic work of Buddhism, a hierarchy of principles and careful practice is driven by a desire to attain liberation.

Buddhism would claim that God represents a hierarchy of principles much the same as any philosophy but with an anthropic principle (or principal as the case may be... . Buddhism rejects, however, the idea of an eternal soul because such a thing would require an independently existing thing that stands separate from causality.

That said, Buddhism sets compassion or loving kindness as the most central goal of a Buddhist, far above salvation. In fact, salvation is optional but compassion is paramount and quintessential. Attaining true compassion without seeking salvation is feasible under Buddhism (under the "You don't have to believe in all this s**t in order to use it" clause).

Dualism foists dialectics.

Nihilism & theism are two edges of the same sword. Nihilism would claim that consciousness is naught more than empty phenomena and there is no soul. In theism the idea of the self is reified while claiming there is a soul that is paramount and eternal.

In Buddhism the self is ephemeral and impermanent (it's both there & not there) where the suggestion of an eternal soul is deconstructed along with it. Rebirth (not the same as reincarnation) establishes that our sense of existence and self are based upon a constant falling and arising of events.

Buddhism would say that experience is essential and that mind (or conscious awareness) is that locus of experience that lends to a sense of self. By pursuing the process of de-selfing does one find that while all phenomena find parity in temporal and spatial contiguity, mind can be seen as lacking clear or discernible boundary as it too is dependent on phenomena (and where those phenomena are intrinsic they have a basis in extrinsic experience).

What's the sword? Experience, as in phenomenological essence, the cusp of the moment, Now. Cut "now" in half and you still have a "now." Cut that moment in half and you have the same sized "now" as before.



Yes, this kind of Buddhist analytics is how I cope with ASD.

Perhaps but one look at the PPR fora & you can see it's an impenetrable mess of angry screeds. I'd rather keep this discussion below radar here in AWM.

I apologize for being so contentious. I seemingly cannot avoid exposing the obvious.

Got any answers lately?

ruveyn

Your sharp look! Look in a different way and the earth is TEEMING with life, absolutely full of it. A volcano obliterates an island and within a decade a two, the island is covered in plants and wildlife again. I have no idea whether there is a god or not - but I do see that life on earth is easy ! Bees are NOT busy, apparently they laze around a lot of the time. Lions sleep and lounge around for most of their lives. The lilies of the field do not toil. And so on. Leave any plot of land free from human intervention for a while, and the number of species on it will increase. The planet produces sheer abundance of life.

A small minority of humans have fenced off all of the food supply and all of the resources. The protect it with armed force, so the rest of us have to do their bidding to get the essentials of our life. I think that is the root of our 'struggle to survive', not anything inherent in nature.

It is humans who carry on a 'struggle against the world' and in their own greedy minds, obsess on deprivation when surrounded by abundance. They seem hell bent on destryoying the abundance, to make the outside world map to their inner desert. The "duress of extinction" in earth right now is almost exclusively down to human activity.

Oh, sorry for going off at a tangent, criss.. Perhaps I can bring it back by saying that this is why I believe rule-bound 'spirituality' an oxymoron. That the rules too often exist to maintain the status quo of earthly human power. I would speculate that if you ask any person at random about their spiritual interest, the typical reply would be "I'm too busy getting by to worry about that stuff".

Sufism introduced me to the concept of "time and place" being of vital importance. Teachings have a "best before" date and an impact in the locality of their creation. I'm not sure of the practical relevance of some set of rituals laid down thousands of years ago by someone the other side of the world. Humans get comfort from following rituals with a bunch of others. I have a suspicion that real attainment accompanies intense discomfort.

Last edited by ManErg on 03 Mar 2010, 8:43 am, edited 1 time in total.

Be assured that when any particular form of life does not fit itself within the demands of the ecology it will not survive. There is sufficient variety at present to adapt to all conditions present but when a minor galactic occurrence such as the explosion of our Sun comes about life on this planet will most certainly find it impossible to exist.

I just mentioned about human minds dwelling on deprivations when surrounded by abundance. Thanks for a good example! Have I got time to put my washing on the line before the sun explodes?

Hey, and what of the scientists are *wrong* about that? Our view of the cosmos changes dramatically over time. Given a few billion years, I think we'll be OK.

I am talking about extreme conditions which will inevitably change the ecology violently but very gentle perturbations are a regular occurrence and cannot be ignored. A negligible sized asteroid did the dinosaurs in and they lasted for at least a hundred million years. Humans have been around for a bare two million or so and have yet to experience the full brunt of interplanetary violence. I'm sure people went out in confidence to hang out their washing recently in Haiti and Chile and a minor shiver of the Earth's crust suddenly did something strange to their environment. I wish you well in your laundry efforts but God, if He exists, seems subject to odd whims.

Yes, fair points. The inevitability of random tragedy (at least it's random from our point of view) is a big drive for people to seek some higher explanation. Many are happy with the "Mr God with his Big Gray Beard" explanation. And some aren't.

We could have an earthquake every day for the next 20 years and it would come nowhere near wiping life out. Why do people live in earthquake zones? I'd hazard a guess it's a lot to do with overpopulation, they wouldn't live there if they had a free choice. Didn't the removal of the dinosaurs clear the way for the flowering plants...hence, eventually, us!

More importantly, is the unavoidable big 'catastrophe' that awaits each and every one of us. It takes more than just avoiding earthquakes to cheat death! Whether there is a god or not, it doesn't look like the world is being run for our physical convenience.

PS As usual, it rained on my laundry.

No argument. I just wonder what wonderful life form will benefit from our removal.

I practice simple Christianity, which involves reading the Bible, studying it, knowing the context and the appropriateness of the scriptures, and putting them into practice.

Over the last 30 years, I've experienced many negative and positive aspects of "Christendom" and it was often confusing until I learned that there was a difference between human religion and God's Word.

Conventional thought tends to confuse the two, yet one can learn, upon closer inspection, that many of the world's denominations don't actually practice scriptural doctrine.

As someone with significant social deficits, as opposed to a highly social entity that involves attending worship service and stresses the importance of having fellowship with other Christians, I often wondered if I really was "good enough" to be a proper Christian.

Well, whatever weaknesses and drawbacks each person possesses, God knows and understands this, even if other people don't. If the other members of the congregation are practicing the true spirit of Christianity, then they are going to love and accept me as a member of the church no matter what, because I'm genuinely there to worship God, study the Bible, and get some spiritual support, not there to look good or primarily socialize.

If people in the church are judging me because I'm not as socially oriented as they are, then it is apparent they are struggling with some spiritual weaknesses of their own.

The doctrine itself is without flaw, no one can prove otherwise. That which people see as flawed are the results of the limitations of the human mind and the callousness of the human "heart".