Lam: We have a saying here when someone brings up a complicated subject that would take a long time to resolve, "you have opened a can of worms." I will let others try and deal with their own interests , but let me at least reply to a few things you brought up. To put it like this, seriously but only half seriously, I am trapped by my own commitment to my own form of fundamentalism. That is, for me all valid scriptures should be taken to heart --as more than "well meaning but built on a foundation of sand" books Therefore the problem is finding defensible ways to reconcile these sacred texts. Defensible ways. Nothing can be shoddy by way of reasoning. I need to find not only theoretical ways to do this, but practical ways. The Bible is central but this also says that the other holy books are like the New Testament # 2, the NT # 3, the NT # 4, and so forth, just as valid. Maybe in some cases other scriptures are more like the Apocrypha, sometimes questionable but still important. Not an easy problem. But I can't think of a more worthwhile problem. Yet there is an element of truth to your viewpoint., that sacred books are never better than approximations to spiritual reality. The Tao Te Ching isn't a law book but a guide to experience that each of us needs to go through on our own, otherwise you miss the point altogether. But why question the Law altogether ? In Buddhism the Law is central to everything else. The symbol of Buddhism is the Wheel of the Law. Dharma, universal law, is at the heart of Buddhism. This is not "law" in the official sense of courts of justice, but there is a relationship. The object of civil law, at least as I see it, is to find universals of productive human conduct and identify them and use them to teach good behavior, or as Buddhists say, Right Conduct and Right Mindfulness. Life sometimes is poetry but more usually it is prose. ----------------------------------- About literal readings of the Bible, this has always been the norm. What happened in the 19th century was the start of a special kind of literal interpretation. This view usually is anti-modern Until then you could be literalist and modern. Actually you still can be, but there now is a whole movement which says that you need to regard modernism and many modern outlooks as wrong or even wicked Christian faith is very diverse. At least it is in the USA. There is an old joke from 200 years ago that can be dusted off for our time and made new by simply changing the nouns and making in apply to most groups, not just two. After listening to a Calvinist minister give a sermon, an Arminian Christian went up to him and said, "your God is my devil." ------------------------------ Is the Bible anti-science ? For some Christians, yes, this is the case. But for others it is not the case at all. Take the book of Wisdom of Solomon in the Apocrypha, chapter 19-- "For as the notes of a lute can make various tunes with different names though each retains its pitch, so the elements combined among themselves in different ways as can be accurately inferred from the observation of what happened [ in history ]. Land animals took to the water and things that swim migrated to dry land......." The concluding part of this passage is highly dubious, about presumed chemical oddities, but it is valid to stop where I have in this quote. And what we have here is an early version of Darwin. It includes the value of observation before reaching conclusions. For the time it was written, maybe 150 BC, maybe earlier, it was as scientific as anything could get. ------------------ There is much more which could be said in reply , but these are some comments that may have value to you Billy In a message dated 12/14/2009 8:35:05 A.M. Pacific Standard Time, [email protected] writes:
On Mon, Dec 14, 2009 at 5:47 PM, <[email protected]_ (mailto:[email protected]) > wrote: There is great good in 90% of all religions. I try to make the good in other religions my good, also. I get the idea you share this view. To me, sacred text are merely human records of wisdom, which by themselves are very useless. Even though I based my faith on the model of Taoism, the book also taught me not to be obsess with labels, and therefore itself too. Imagine the bible is written in C++, and there is no computer to run it. Therefore, I seldom take scriptures seriously. I am particularly concern when Christians (though it can be any other faiths) takes their books too seriously. Although it probably isn't a "Christian behavior", but a normal human reaction when a core belief is put on the line. I believe religion is a sign-point pointing at a world made to perfection, but that pointer is itself imperfect. I recently came across a Kabbalist material explaining that it was the imperfection of human that gave birth to the concept of 'religion'. It is also highlight the need to look into the mystic perspective of the bible in other to grasp the true wisdom behind it. In other words, not to take words too seriously. I once spoke to a Christian friend who went back to her religion and start believing in God again. She said she was taught to keep faith simple. At first I wondered about the wisdom behind this attitude, only to realize later that she simply mean to take the bible literally without a question. I remember reading somewhere that, literal interpretation of bible actually began rather recently (as late as the nineteen century). If anyone can verify that, and if that is true, then where did the thousand plus years of mysticism went? Ironically, we all know too well about the fact that bible literally contradicts with modern science and even among its' own verses, there seem to be an endless need to 'put the verses in context'. Even though this literalism doesn't cause as much bloodshed as in Islam, the literalism itself and the cult-like attitude they promote is the same. I am concern about the Literal error in the Bible, as much as Mr Billy is concern about that in Islam. This is my view. Hope to hear what you have to say. _______________________________________________ Centroids mailing list: [email protected] http://radicalcentrism.com/mailman/listinfo/centroids_radicalcentrism.com Archives at http://radicalcentrism.org/pipermail/centroids_radicalcentrism.com/
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