whispering grass

Sunday

 
"How much suffering and fear, and
How many harmful things are in existence?
If all arises from clinging to the "I",
What should I do with this great demon?"



Shantideva


Comments:
Just back from Titan. The moons of Jupiter are particularly lovely this time of year.
 
my word, how disturbing.and well said.
 
not much to do, except put 'others' before it.
 
but why would you put others before god?
 
BSJ-rom>>>rhetorical question. god, nature, man all are tao. all are one. you cannot place anything before or after the unknown, the indescribable, the random. only man, who clutches desperately at the crutches of organised faith and thereby misses the point entirely, would want to shackle 'god' to his odd logic.
so to answer your question, how?
 
If you are god you are not one with nature.

Most of those who still breathe are god. Ironically they will breathe no more.

Ahh the joys of the epiphany, the righteous condescension towards the masses. Organised faith is popular culture. But we must be set apart. We must be punk. But by being punk, hippy, spiritual we just create our own popular culture that the masses flock to, leaving the true believers alone to condescendingly look down upon the sorry masses.
 
bsj-rom>>>the world is a big place and you, and i will certainly back you in this, are welcome to your own individual beliefs. may your god be with you.
x
 
I don't suppose expanding the "I" into the "we" would help.
 
Yet, despite being such a big place, there seems to be very little difference of belief (especially if we decide to make a few simplifying assumptions, as we so often see in my own field of engineering - physicists and chemists and mathematicians all do it too, so why not philosophers? I digress...)

There is of course the view that all is one. Very Buddhist. I can see how it works, but I don't agree that it is a "correct" philosophy universally. (Why I disagree is a discussion for another day.)

I see the world and its people either putting before themselves a god (as I have done and am trying to do), setting themselves up as a god (as I end up doing, more often than not) or having no god (I think that is how I sometimes feel when depressed).
 
bsj-rom>>>i truly do not think there is a right way. all have variants of the truth but some have things that i am deepy troubled by. christians i like. bit simple but good souls. far too male oriented for my liking and the pope (office) is a homophobic, sexist wanker.
islam. same faith as christianity (or near as damn it and again far too homophobic and sexist for me.

i much prefer a life style to a religous faith. less riddled with useless dogma and tired old ritual.
still, having said all that, the world is sadly short on tolerance and i think, me for sure, could do with a bit more.

PS. do you know the man known as jesus christs real name? (my sunday school teachers - mum is a salvationist) taught me so i wouldn't be offended when people went 'for christ sakes OR Jezzzzus'.

bet you don't know.
 
Dangling the carrot - offering me enlightenment: the real name of Jesus Christ.

This isn't going to be Dan Brownesque, is it? Please don't let me down...

I'm curious, are you scared of religion, of extremists bombings, of people actually living out what they believe?

It's another strange paradox. The idea versus the action.

I've commented once before, it is easier to respect hitler for his actions than for his ideas. But that breeds so many problems. We have to tolerate free thinking even when we disagree with it - as I'm sure you do with my comments, but it is that free thinking that leads to actions that we cannot tolerate.

Yet 1984 is so bloody scary.
 
bsj-rom>>>not intending to dangle anything. if anything the reverse. i find great comfort in knowing that the man known as jesus really did live.
jesus comes from the greek jesu, you will see that name in many old hymn books, and that jesu is greek for the hebrew yoshua. it is widely believed by christian scholars that his full name was yoshua benjamin yoseph.

as for free thinking i am all for it and lets face it you CANNOT stop anyone thinking what they will.
 
ps. yes. i am very scared of right wing anything but especially with regard to monotheists. look at bush for example.
 
yoshua benjamin yoseph, hey. Jesus bar Joseph.

Would you say that Bush is like a cornered snake?

It's all very reactionary - always a response to terrorism (fighting terror with terror). How should we deal with extremists who believe that you should either submit to their beliefs or be killed (mind you, I am aware that Muslim extremists have a nasty habit of bombing those from the same religion but different denomination)?
 
yes, a bit like catolics bombing, shooting, maiming protestants
 
Yep, it's precisely the same thing - only thing is, the IRA have either been out of the news a bit of late, or I'm so used to hearing about such terror, that I'm immune.

A bit scary, the thought of being immune to terror. It's a removal of my own humanity. I don't like it.
 
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