Mayka, Fair enough. I've been pretty quiet on the forum recently, but felt I had to respond to DP's assertion that atheists were "gloating" over scoring higher in a questionaire on religion. As an atheist myself I couldn't let that pass. My responses were pretty much designed to goad a reaction from a glassy-eyed fundamentalist, but to DP's credit he is much more reasonable, intelligent and moderate than that (my apologys to DP for the assumption). To take the matter back to things Zen. I don't put Zen in the same category as religion, in the sense of the monotheitic traditions, because Zen doesn't rely on words or scripture and the outwardly ceremonial aspects can easily be dismissed (they're just representative of a cultural overlay, anyway). I think there's a huge difference between Jesus' exhortation to "Follow me (or else)" and Buddha's "Ba a lamp unto yourself". I'm much more in the Sam Harris camp (an atheist and a scientist) than the Dawkins/Hitchens camp. Harris sees the danger of religion mixing with politics, but doesn't dismiss the mystical/'spiritual' aspect of human experience, although he does dimiss the religious overlay that is usually put onto these experiences (in other words, peak/transcendant experiences occur in all cultures and is a universal, human experience - not divine). Having had such an experience myself, I can't dismiss them as easily as Dawkins et al. Hope that puts things back on topic : )
Mike ________________________________ From: Maria Lopez <[email protected]> To: Zen Forum <[email protected]> Sent: Thu, 7 October, 2010 3:26:17 Subject: [Zen] Note Hello all: Whatever them has always welcome in this forum. And that has made from this forum a nice one to participate on. However, it has been noticeable to me that the forum is getting less zen and more chatting and religious, politics themes. That is gaining strenght and overtaking all the essence and energy of just rare zen postings. And this is kind of sad. Discussions of all kinds plus chatting are ok but if those discussions away of zen wave overtake the forum, then what is left for the practicioners to share or even to participate on it as the posting gets swallow by all the rest non zen posting?. There are religious boards for every religion, why not to become a member there and do the posting over there?. Just a thought. Mayka
