Comments on Bodhisatva Emerges From The Earth: An Explication

Decided I didn't want to go there. Believe in the ...

2006-05-16T11:25:56.506-07:00

Decided I didn't want to go there. Believe in the sentiments, but decided it wasn't right for the venue.

I guess I just generally believe that one should engage a religion on its terms, with a willingness, or not at all. I don't see much willingness, and so I think I'd rather not have the conversation. At least not on-inflectionless-line.

And, I also understood that some of the force of my reaction (which I'm sure comes off waaayy more intensely than I feel it) came from my own subjectivity, and the fact I lost a close friend who happened to be a Buddhist for expressing exactly that thought - I told him he was making a point like a Christian, really referring to his rhetorical choices, and he flipped.

Cheese. That is all.

2006-05-16T11:17:46.863-07:00

Cheese. That is all.

JJ's inflammatory entry is missing, whaddup, fool?...

2006-05-16T10:49:10.700-07:00

JJ's inflammatory entry is missing, whaddup, fool?

Oh sweet friggin jesus (Do I need to put a winky a...

2006-05-16T10:47:28.956-07:00

Oh sweet friggin jesus (Do I need to put a winky after the ironic use of the guy's name in a religious blog?).

I mean, I know how things got to this point, and I know my own nerves have been frayed, but still.

"I'mah" "hook" "bubbah"

That's a comedy "I'mah" (the purposeful misspelling denotes comedy), a pun on the word "hook", and "bubbah" is always funny. Always.

I can see how it came across differently, especially under the circumstances, but please, a little credit?

Before I go and put out these fires via private email, the purpose of moving this discussion to this blog is not so we could continue in the exasperating fashion we had been.

Clean slate? Can we at this point?

And, if not, am I really the only pigheaded one here?

My contention is in no way that you are "like" the...

2006-05-15T18:55:29.213-07:00

My contention is in no way that you are "like" the fundamentalists; I just thought it was interesting that I, I, was in the position of displeasing both camps because I have, if anything, a decidedly Darwinian view of humanity. Thass all.

I'mah show you a mean hook if you keep comparing w...

2006-05-15T17:45:15.576-07:00

I'mah show you a mean hook if you keep comparing what I've been doing with those of fundamentalist christians, bubbah.

Interesting footnote to chew on: the Christians w...

2006-05-15T17:23:34.963-07:00

Interesting footnote to chew on: the Christians with whom I argue over in the Fray feel that my failure to adopt belief in an anthropomorphic God (if I believe in too much God for you, I surely believe in too little God for them) actually lets me off the hook in that I'm no longer accountable to the notion of sin, as defined in the Bible. Funny that no matter how much responsibility I'm taking on, someone always thinks I'm slackin'.

Because Lyam made mention of the "something to let...

2006-05-15T17:20:33.793-07:00

Because Lyam made mention of the "something to let us off the hook" bit later on in the commentary, I wonder if this is where things got conflated from the theoretical to the personal; because I was strictly speaking in the general sense here, an admitted blanket statement. I mean, can you tell me that people don't use higher power in that sense? Not you, the person reading this; not you, Lyam or Stine or Fuckwad or Miss Uz J, in your day to day life; but those teeming millions out there...Can you tell me that they don't (without the necessary and ever present exceptions to the rule)?

Oh, sure. Just as some--like our old friend "corn"--may use absolute self-determination as a way of "letting them off the hook" with regards to accountability for the effects their actions may have on others. ALL ideas are dangerous in the wrong hands . . . and most human hands are pretty wrong. The "teeming millions" are a famously problematic lot.

True questions of origin are always going to be either experiential or speculative, the former through revelation and observation, and the latter through various lines of reasoning and study. There's probably some crossover, but few of us will truly KNOW, in this lifetime, what made us, whether there's a God or a soul or any of the above. So we make our best guess and go.

That's why I think any works or practice based religion--like SGI, like Sufiism (which, BTW, even if it seeks to empower the individual, most DEFINITELY worships a single, immutable higher power)--that tends to measure intent, action, and compassion, rather than adherence to cosmology, escatology or the picayune details of a creation myth, will serve best that individual who has experienced no divine revelation.

Interesting thing about Zoroastrianism--it perfect...

2006-05-15T17:12:33.090-07:00

Interesting thing about Zoroastrianism--it perfectly reflects the belief of some gnostic sects in a dualistic universe, particularly the Manichees. I don't know a lot about it in and of itself, but I've run across the term a lot in my studies of Valentinus, Mani, Liebniz, Voltaire and de Sade.