richardbenson wrote:
i respect all budhism (sp) and ALL those eastern religions. what wonderful things they are :)
While the Chinese philosophers Lao Ts'u/Laozi and his younger contemporary Kung Ts'u/Kongzi/Kongfuzi (Confucius) were contemprary with Prince Siddharta Gautama in India (though apparently actually born in what is today Nepal) and with the prophets Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Daniel, as well as Cyrus the Great, founder of the Achaemenid Persian Empire for that matter, and some preSocratic Greek philosophers (this must have been one of the Key-times) and their philosophies have a number of similarities, they developed their ideas independentl
Richard Benson, I thought you claimed to hate ALL religion and philosophy? While Taoism (and arguably Buddhism) are more philosophy than religion, would they not fall under this rather sweeping condemnation? I suppose one can respect and hate, sought of like a great and worthy opponent. May I call you that?
I am probably more Confucian in my ethics, (actually Christian in faith; incidentally the Chinese philosopher anticipated some of the ethics of Yeshua of Nazareth by approximately five centuries) if somewhat less conserative, though I believe Lao Ts'u had some very worthwhile ideas. I have a translation of the Tao De Ching, given me by a friend of my younger brother's and of my own. He is, I believe a Taoist in his philosophy, thogh interested in some of the more esoteric and obscure aspects of the JudeoChristian/Abrahamic tradition, such as the angelology and demonology from the pseudepigraphical book of Enoch, apparently an extended Midrash on Genesis 6.
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You are like children playing in the market-place saying, "We piped for you and you would not dance, we wailed a dirge for you and you would not weep."