Living Buddha, Living Christ

[maed]

I've done this before, with Fight Club and Dante's Inferno, so I figured I'd do it again

Comments

[vegenas]

ROFL, They were TOLD.

[jabbberwocky]

I look forward to the next chapter of that book- I can't seem to find it in my local or university library. And considering all the shelves of books dedicated to philosophy, you'd THINK they'd have it.

Anyway, what to say? I need to read the next chapter to see exactly where he's going with this. I do agree with the words he quotes at the opening:

"Until there is peace between religions, there can be no peace in the world." People kill and are killed because they cling too tightly to their own beliefs and ideologies. When we believe that ours is the only faith that contains the truth, violence and suffering will surely be the result.How true this is. People with a religion MUST make a move to understand other religions. As Christians (or any other religion), we can't shut ourselves off from the world without knowing it and the ideologies within it...what difference can you make if you are naive? Christ taught that we shouldn't be judgemental and people have got to hold to that if they truly want to show compassion and encourage

[athenemiranda]

I tend to suspect those who won't even consider studying other viewpoints of insecurity about their own - and certainly I think that it's neccessary simply because if you don't explore your ideas, how can you know you're on the path that's right for you? Anyhow, I like this one - will read your other passages from it. The 'fruit salad' thing is something I've long practiced but never been certain of the validity of - Taoism seems to hold that it's perfectly permissable to mix two traditions so long as you master them individually first, but that raises the question of what 'mastery' is, and I think that it'd destroy the sweet tapestry of it all in any case. I like mingling such things and using bits from one to reinforce bits from another - and once you've memorised a mystic system like tarot or basic qabalism, it can get to be so much a part of your mental structure that you use it to do your homework. But it's all something I do because I like to do it, because it works for me, rather than something I hold as a universal

[astral_bass]

I've been boredly reading through my older journal posts.

I find that last line cute. :p

[athenemiranda]

...Girls are funny. :)

[nednefarious]

Just some random comments

[athenemiranda]

Not meaning to state the obvious, but that's an atheist perspective. The social benefits of shared religion and Doing The Right Thing can indeed be great, but I think you can appreciate that it's a different question entirely for people who persue religion for the sake of finding universal truth, glorifying a higher being, aquiring spiritual power or whathaveyou. It is decidedly multifacetted and it's all a matter of choosing which facet - social or personal or spiritual or whatever - matters to you most. (If all you want is spiritual power, I could introduce you to a few demonologists I know. Messy, dangerous practice but it does do the job, if you're willing to pay