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Judgy Fucker posted:I need to come up with an invocation for tonight's meeting, which I am confident I will, but thinking more generally I need to start workshopping some themes for possible worship services that fit the "interfaith" bill. "Being good stewards of the environment" is one I already have, and grace/forgiveness is another one (I'm eager to read John 8:1-11 for this one, one of my favorite New Testament passages). If anyone has any other ideas for themes, and especially if anyone knows good scripture to cite from Hindu, Buddhist, or Muslim traditions that could fit one of the topics I or someone else mentions that'd be cool as gently caress. I have a passing familiarity with all those religions and am doing some more homework on them, but the depth of scripture is pretty deep and I'd be grateful to anyone who could point me in the direction of things to cite that include some universal themes for everyone. https://www.desertlotuszen.org/bodhisattvas-vow.html (I do agree with Earwicker that the religious attitudes in scouting can be alienating, especially without qualification and respect for secular understandings of reverence as well. I was not particularly religious. Some wise words from a secular humanist would also be excellent) nice obelisk idiot fucked around with this message at 17:04 on May 18, 2023 |
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May 18, 2023 16:59
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Not a Christian, and I don't agree with Bar Ran Dun fully, but it seems obvious that the fig tree is an example of the spiritual poverty of people like the textually adjacent moneychangers. Outward flourishing draws people in, but there's nothing nourishing to be found in them, and it would be best if the outward appearance were destroyed utterly so that people are not lead down the wrong path out of ignorance. Yr boy is priming the pump for acting in an even more dramatic, outwardly destructive way out of love. In an extreme and actually very unethical example on the same theme, there's a story about the Chan master Nanchuan cutting a cat in half, because the monks were so infatuated with the cat that they literally could not demonstrate any kind of spiritual understanding at all. Their attachment to the pleasing things about the cat were, in a traditional understanding, damning them, because they continued to eat food given to them by sick and hungry people, people who desperately needed service and guidance in their lives. Guidance from people who were given the incredible opportunity to cultivate themselves as a vocation to help themselves and others, but were wasting it. Poor cat.
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May 18, 2023 19:47
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Ohtori Akio posted:It's about two faiths you do not practice, but Living Buddha, Living Christ by famous Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh is one of my favorite books and speaks directly to that common thread of faiths which suppose an underlying and accessible truth, while thankfully not attempting the syncretism you see from New Age type writing. Give it a look if you have a chance. There are some deep similarities between Sikhism and Mahayana Buddhism, despite a huge gap in culture and the whole monotheism thing. Some Sikh writers have noticed this and think that it is a matter of perspective. The emphasis in Mahayana is letting go of things to realize Buddha-nature and to work on the ability to act strenuously (but in an important sense effortlessly) in a compassionate way. The emphasis in Sikhism is on letting God in during prayer, meditation, and with all actions of daily life. If someone is deeply sincere with either, they are on a similar if not identical trajectory.
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Aug 2, 2023 21:18
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Ohtori Akio posted:I feel this deeply, but I take issue with the idea that the biggest differences are usually exposed during conflict. For example, it's incredibly important for any interfaith discussions between Christians and Jews to start from the ground that they are different religions. The book I mention starts with the fundamental differences between the two compared religions, then goes on to describe what can be found that is similar.
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Aug 2, 2023 21:28
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BIG FLUFFY DOG posted:Not if u take refuge in amitabha 
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Aug 22, 2023 19:40
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This isn't Christianity, but it is coming from a similar perspective to what you said:from the Song of the Jewel Mirror Samadhi posted:Just to depict it in literary form Which isn't to say that words or thoughts are bad. Just that we often tend to focus on those specific aspects of existence to the detriment of more fundamental things. And yeah I just googled the secret thing and yikes. I had/have some problems with OCD. You cannot just affirm yourself into not feeling bad things like they claim. Taking a long view towards happiness, helping others, and as much ease as you need? Working on having good intentions and a positive mental environment? Yes. But you can't just like slap a bandage on a splinter and call it a day, then keep on adding more bandages if a splinter hurts. You gotta get it out eventually, either in part or in whole.
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Jan 30, 2024 10:45
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e: nvm. i don't think that what i said was wrong, but it isn't smart for me to run my mouth about important stuff that I don't understand. sorry.
nice obelisk idiot fucked around with this message at 08:03 on Feb 2, 2024 |
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Feb 2, 2024 06:49
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Josef bugman posted:What do you mean by Non-theist? Ones that postulate a lack of capital G God or ones that have no belief in any gods? And regarding the latter bit: in Buddhism, there is something that is described as being a first breach in being worldly in a permanent way. If someone experiences that, they can directly see that rites, rituals and rules are at best critically important provisional means to free oneself and others from suffering. There is no substance to them that isn't already there. It's quite similar to the concept of seeing the light or being born again in Christianity, which is different from being a Born Again Christian imo.
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Feb 9, 2024 00:07
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That gets to be a super complex subject really quickly. Theravada is more like what you describe, with gods strictly being trapped in birth and death and subject to regression, due to their craving for heavenly existence. And their understanding of nirvana and the parinirvana of the Buddha makes the Buddha an object of remembrance not worship. Deities in Mahayana can range from those fully in samsara, like the ones mentioned above, to fully liberated beings. The salvific aspect of devotion to say Amitabha or Avalokitesvara is very important in a lot of Mahayana, or deity yoga in esoteric Buddhism. Some Buddhists would say that prayer is absolutely indispensable, and not just praying to get into a Pure Land or whatever. But as a process of letting go of oneself and becoming more genuine and compassionate. And of course some view all of that stuff as basically allegorical for processes of the mind.
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Feb 9, 2024 12:24
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A_Bluenoser posted:following the two great commandments "to love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy mind and with all thy soul and with all thy strength and to love thy neighbour as thyself" and now experience the final result of those priorities. In Buddhism it's more like letting go in the first case, or finding what's inherent. I think that surrendering is the ultimate act of love and acceptance, and requires basically: whatever you've got. Realizing the first may be possible to a degree without the second being fully developed, but it's half-baked. Hence the Buddha saying that noble friendship is the whole of the path in Theravada, and in the Mahayana there's passages like this: Sutra of Vimalakirti posted:When all the disciples (sravakas, those practicing for themselves) hear this teaching of inconceivable liberation, the sound of their wail will shake the universe. All bodhisattvas will joyfully accept this teaching.
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Feb 10, 2024 06:20
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Bugman: re: unconditional love. the condition of evil people is very pitiable, and in the absence of praise or blame it looks like the accumulation of a huge number of wounds. Firstly the primary wound: from a Christian perspective that would be original sin. In Buddhism it's ignorance. Love with wisdom can guide people through situations that are otherwise not navigable. At some point it becomes continuous. The idea of shutting off love due to a difficult person becomes akin to dropping one's baby because there's a breeze. It's not something that occurs to one. I'm not there at all, but there are plenty of people who are like that. Josef bugman posted:We cannot choose to be something we cannot name and do not know.
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Feb 10, 2024 11:03
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LITERALLY A BIRD posted:There has been a lot going on in the recent conversation and I am having trouble getting words adequate for what I want to express here. But while unconditional love for all of humanity is a laudable goal, when trying to provide it, I think a person needs to be careful not to confuse "difficult" with "abusive." I once had a friend who continually justified her spouse's physical and emotional abuse because if she just loved him more or better she knew the guiding power of her love would stop him from hurting her. It was not true and there are people who will take endless advantage of the people that want to believe unconditionally in unconditional love until someone is killed.
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Feb 11, 2024 01:48
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Prurient Squid posted:Hi guys,
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Feb 21, 2024 14:00
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Yes, the ones that are still subject to desire, which is all of them in early Buddhism and Theravada. They die and get reborn in typically a lower state of being. There is one exception, which are non-returners who have cut off the coarse defilements of mind. That gets way more complicated later on. I'm not super knowledgeable about the topic of gods, but you're not far off the mark vs some traditional explanations that I've heard. The deva at the head of a world-system (Brahma) essentially awakes into their position at some point during its formation. They see that they're the only ones around initially, and assume that they created and rule over everything as an extension of themselves. It's a similar concept to the Demiurge in Gnosticism, except that they didn't actually create anything. Brahma is also far more pure than most accounts of the Demiurge.
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Feb 22, 2024 17:13
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Thanks for clarifying. Apologies if what I said was insensitive- I'm sort of a universalist and think that a huge variety of religious traditions have their own validity and can be very fruitful. I'm not sure how to articulate that properly. I personally view the cosmological stuff from Buddhism as a genuine description of states of mind/being, but not necessarily in the specific configuration or understanding inherited from Vedic culture. Also as allegory that highlights pitfalls that don't lead to the real fruits of practice. And that there is something more fundamental than any of that. Speaking of religious traditions, does anyone know of any good introductory texts on Sufism?
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Feb 23, 2024 00:28
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Killingyouguy! posted:But he would also refer to Two Spirit people as "he-she's", so yeah, similar on it not being a bastion of progression, though I want to believe there wasn't the same malicious intent behind the use of it. Pellisworth posted:edit: the actual problem I see with Arminian theology is that the emphasis on personal choice makes it easy to slide into just world fallacy type stuff and prosperity gospel. If it's your personal choice to accept Jesus into your heart and become Saved and you need to build a personal relationship with Christ... well, if your life sucks and you're poor or awful things have happened to you, that must be your own fault! Because it's your choice, after all, and if you truly were Saved and accepted Jesus then bad stuff wouldn't happen to you. The emphasis on personal choice makes it easy to blame people's moral failings for bad things happening to them, and also allows you to credit someone's faith for their successes. Good, born-again Christians live moral lives and obtain wealth and happiness. If you're not moral, wealthy, and happy etc well then you must not really have opened your heart to Jesus.
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Mar 2, 2024 16:27
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The idea of Jesus implausibly being a fussy eater is pretty funny to me.
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Mar 10, 2024 21:06
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Civilized Fishbot posted:Keeping kosher means being a very fussy eater.
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Mar 10, 2024 21:48
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Azathoth posted:On a practical level, how do you know it's God controlling the outcome and not something else? I don't see how the dice or whatever is being used is divinely protected. The problem is imperfect people asking discordant questions, then interpreting them imperfectly. People are possessed rather than coins or yarrow stalks imo.
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Mar 25, 2024 19:51
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I would say that the general way to approach works like that is that they aren't grasped- it's more like a current of water washing away debris in a creek. We experience that with the body, emotions, thoughts, etc while reading the text. The mind forms connections while reading automatically if we let it. Maybe try to gently bring the breath into awareness while reading, to loosen up cognitive habits that are alienated from the rest of our experience. If that is unsettling, don't force it. If reading it isn't helpful, I would set the text aside for a while. I'm sorry to hear about your personal situation. I think that your intuition about works like that being a vehicle towards finding acceptance and happiness is accurate. I'm not super knowledgeable about Daoism, but have some exposure through East Asian Buddhism, and there's of course a lot of overlap in fundamental teachings. Ohtori Akio posted:i am not a buddhist or daoist, but this is a very blanket-applicable suggestion: religion is better under supervision and in community.
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Apr 1, 2024 22:01
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Bar Ran Dun are you super familiar with Eruigena? He seems like he's right up your alley, what with independently reinventing something that's basically Neoplatonism from reading Greek church works and all.Nessus posted:Right that’s just where my gut is so even if I appreciate a lot of Christian stuff it hits wrong So the fully human nature is in union with the fully divine throughout his life, but it's confused and hidden by the dirt of the world. It slowly becomes unveiled with painful effort, culminating in the moment in which there is not a trace of obscuration between the two. Which is when compassion meets fully with the realities of existence and what living things are like.
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Apr 3, 2024 20:15
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Personally I think that the psychoanalytic tradition has a lot to say about fascism and religion. Attachment trauma, death drive, divisions in the psychic apparatus between values and baseness- fascism offers a solution to these similarly to religion. However, it does so in a way that requires no vulnerability or healing, and in fact purges those things from its conception of life. It tries to smash the human subject down to an atom, in exactly the same way that religiously-motivated abuse does. But while there is obviously such a thing as wholesome religion, there can be no wholesome fascism. It's a light that comes from a sick star.
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Apr 3, 2024 21:22
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IT people often love taking people for rides, that much is true. And you're completely right about the lack of family-oriented stuff, that's a problem. This may be a stretch, but there may be some grant money out there for hosting support group services. Regardless of that, it's good to do, and may also look like a change in a positive direction re: financial support. And imo that's a good way to get people to organically drift into church. They're in the building, having hopefully positive meaningful personal experiences, and a nice person is hosting without evangelizing.
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Apr 9, 2024 03:16
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Prurient Squid posted:You might think that for a guy who doesn't really believe in Evil, Plotinus would be pretty lax on moral scruples. But no, quite the opposite, he's quite rigid about combatting the Evil that doesn't exist through purification and imitation of the Gods (rather than good men). I wonder how you make sense of this? I guess in The Matrix the heroes only learn to fight the system after they realise that it's an illusion to begin with. You could say hmm. I need to understand the reality of this situation... well, I'm going to deal with this through intellection. This is just particles and fields. Things existed in the past and will in the future. The same love that I have for my loved ones will continuously arise, again and again. The same pain as well. And that's good, if you can accept that fully with every fiber of your being. You could then calmly try to pull it out as quickly as possible. Most likely, you'd be more tied up with physical sensation, fears and drives, concern for loved ones, craving for good things. And you're wailing helplessly on the ground, miles from nowhere, as the poison continues to seep into you. There's a disconnect between your body, intellect, feelings, etc. there. A therapeutic process like Plotinus prescribes can help heal that. If you can't navigate the poison arrow situation skillfully, is that evil? Not really. We could also say that healing is good as shorthand, but it's beyond what we can conceive of as good with the poison clouding our judgement. Our world has narrowed down to the realities permitted by that situation. nice obelisk idiot fucked around with this message at 18:12 on Apr 10, 2024 |
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Apr 10, 2024 18:07
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Sorry, that's a little bleak. Mostly what people do as a therapeutic measure is to be around nice people and try to do good things. As opposed to say adopting an austere lifestyle inspired by neoplatonism. Social things can be profoundly healing, as the stuff we have going on good and bad is in others. And it's hard to love deeply while doing isolating things. But what works works imo.
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Apr 10, 2024 20:26
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Re Seneca: here's a quote from a remarkably intense person who felt strongly about doubt being important to religious practice.Hakuin Ekaku posted:With greatest respect and reverence, I encourage all you superior seekers in the secret depths to devote yourselves to penetrating and clarifying the self as earnestly as you would put out a fire on the top of your head. I urge you to keep boring your way through as assiduously as you would seek a lost article of incalculable worth.
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Apr 18, 2024 16:13
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Critical thinking is distinct from doubt IMO. Like for example one can doubt that one's intentions are pure, and feel it out to see what's there. Or sensing if your impressions or deconstruction of someone does not line up with their whole personhood, kind of like what A_Bluenoser was saying.
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Apr 18, 2024 17:33
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LITERALLY A BIRD posted:also loved this NOI, thank you lol e: I'm sorry, that was a little out there way of explaining what i see in him. I was a little stressed out and he's an intense person. nice obelisk idiot fucked around with this message at 03:04 on Apr 19, 2024 |
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Apr 18, 2024 17:50
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Valiantman posted:I'd also like to say that but I'm unsure if that is supported by anything in the Bible except it feeling nice and in tune with the general vibes of the matter. I should probably read the context. Like when Jesus heals the blind man and a group of Pharisees drive him away: “Surely we are not blind, are we?” Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would not have sin. But now that you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains. They think that they see, but it's really blindness. They don't want to see because of pride in their present view of things.
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Apr 22, 2024 15:55
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