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 14 Jul 2006 @ 11:04, by bapty. Religion
Just look around you at all the people and imagine what is going on inside each head. Each person, as a detached physical and mental entity, may be very different in opinion and activity but all are conducting, to some degree, a private and perhaps totally secret but essentially similar struggle in the mind. More >
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 21 Jun 2006 @ 11:07, by jazzolog. Religion
Friend, hope for the truth while you are alive.
Jump into experience while you are alive!
What you call "salvation" belongs to the time before death.
If you don't break your ropes while you are alive, do you think ghosts will do it after?
---Kabir
Actually there is no real teaching at all for you to chew on. But not believing in yourself, you pick up your baggage and go around to other people's houses looking for Zen, looking for Tao, looking for mysteries, looking for awakenings, looking for Buddhas, looking for masters, looking for teachers. You think this a searching for the ultimate and you make this into your religion. But this is like running blindly. The more you run, the farther away you are. You just tire yourself, to what benefit in the end?
---Foyan
A human being is a part of the whole called by us "the universe," a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separate from the rest---a kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and affection of a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of understanding and compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its being.
---Albert Einstein
Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori is the first woman to lead the Episcopal Church.
Photo by Michael Houghton for The New York Times
There are many peculiar terms in the Episcopal Church. "Episcopal" is one of them. The word in Latin means "bishop," which hardly differentiates this church from anything known as Anglican throughout the rest of the world. Its members want their own identity in the United States, so we use Episcopal instead of Anglican. Apparently that's only the first of many annoyances we cause.
The physical organization of the church resembles the Catholic, from which it broke so King Henry could keep trying out wives until he found one to suit him. (Not much spiritual inspiration there.) Other Protestant denominations have bishops and such, who are leaders elected in some way or other. In the Episcopal Church there are 2 houses, like Congress: the House of Bishops I suppose is like the Senate, smaller and with more clout; the House of Deputies is similar to the House of Representatives.
The "president" of the whole Anglican Community is known as the Archbishop, and as anybody can become a priest and a bishop anybody could get elected Archbishop too. Well...until now, any MAN could be Archbishop. And to be more specific, any clearly practicing heterosexual man. A priest needn't be married but it's better, if he's going to have some kind of sexual partner living with him, that it be a woman. You know, help with church auxiliaries and picnics, choir practice, Sunday school...that kind of "womanly" thing. I suppose our Catholic friends laugh up their sleeves at how complicated all this has become for us. We have nuns too. More >
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17 Jun 2006 @ 13:47, by swanny. Religion
THOUGHTS ON THE ASCENSION
June 10, 2006
Canada
What I find so mysterious about Christ is His reputed ascension into a cloud on The Mount of Olives 40 days after Easter. I am puzzled how anyone could ascend in body into a cloud? Seems a bit Star Treks' to me.... Yet reports suggest it happened yet the only real proof of it is the lack of proof.
Well speculation doth run rampant on such things... yet something "must" have happened otherwise how could Christianity have endured these 2000 years hence....
So what remains? What remains is the message and messages of Christ:
"Pay It Forward
Do unto others as Christ did to others
Heal the sick
Give to the poor
Feed the hungry
Encourage the hopeless
Forgive the sinners
Intercede for others
Love thine neighbor and enemy
Make a joyful noise unto the Lord
Be a Light
Bless the little children
The Beatitudes
Be Humble
Be True
The Lords Prayer
Know Joy more abundantly!
Educate or teach the unlearned
Lead by Example"
Jesus 0 BC
To think one man one Rabbi "knew" and said all that and more.... Where the heck did he learn it. On Earth? From who? Something divine must have been.
Yet maybe there was this moral ascension that was more important than any literal physical ascension, yet then what was the causality of it? What causes a man or society to ascend morally in a kind of quantum leap? Is that important? More >
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 29 May 2006 @ 00:49, by tenerife. Religion
OIL PAINTING TRINITY More >
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 9 Feb 2006 @ 21:41, by ming. Religion
Sandmonkey lives in Cairo. He thought those Mohammed cartoons looked kind of familiar. He looked through the old newspapers in his house, and, lo and behold, he found that they had all been published in a major Egyptial newspaper way back in October last year, during Ramadan. And, no, there were zero protests against that. The editor wasn't fired, no angry crowds on the street, and nobody put the Egyptian embassy on fire anywhere.
Great find! Nobody had said anything about that before. That ought to demonstrate a few things. But what exactly? These people don't get upset before they're told to be? It isn't really the cartoons that upset them, but what they're told that they mean? It certainly shows that the story is partially bogus. More >
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 7 Feb 2006 @ 17:54, by ming. Religion
For those coming here for the Mohammed cartoon controversy, my two posts where the action is are here and here. More than 8000 people came by yesterday, and, as somebody commented, it looks a bit like WWIII, but there's also some useful dialogue going on in-between the abusive name-calling.
Wikipedia has an excellent page with lots of information, history and references on the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy. Clearly being updated daily. The best place to get an overview. More >
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1 Feb 2006 @ 21:16, by vaxen. Religion
A brilliant statement by Khalid Mish'al
We will not sell our people or principles for foreign aid
Palestinians voted for Hamas because of our refusal to give up their rights. But we are ready to make a just peace
Khalid Mish'al
Tuesday January 31, 2006
The Guardian More >
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 30 Jan 2006 @ 23:59, by ming. Religion
I didn't think I would get to see that. Muslims burning Danish flags in the street. OK, maybe because Denmark joined Bush's ill-conceived invasion of Iraq. But that isn't it at all. We're talking about cartoons. Yahoo News BEIRUT, Lebanon - The controversy over Danish caricatures of Prophet Muhammad escalated Monday as gunmen seized an EU office in Gaza and Muslims appealed for a trade boycott of Danish products. Denmark called for its citizens in the Middle East to exercise vigilance.
Denmark-based Arla Foods, which has been the target of a widespread boycott in the Middle East, reported that two of its employees in Saudi Arabia were beaten by angry customers. Aid groups, meanwhile, pulled workers out of Gaza, citing the threat of hostilities.
The 12 drawings — published in a Danish paper in September and in a Norwegian paper this month — included an image of the prophet wearing a turban shaped as a bomb with a burning fuse. Islamic tradition bars any depiction of the prophet, even respectful ones, out of concern that such images could lead to idolatry.
Danish government officials have expressed regret over the furor but have refused to get involved, citing freedom of expression. The Jyllands-Posten newspaper has refused to apologize for publishing the drawings and has said it did not mean to insult Islam. OK, maybe it wasn't the greatest idea in the world to ask some cartoonists for pictures of the Prophet Mohammed. But, hey, Denmark is a free country where nobody will get away with taking themselves too seriously. So, if you want to make a funny, irreverant or insulting picture of the Pope, Queen Elizabeth, Jesus, Elvis, George Bush ... or Mohammed, then... so what. Might be funny, might not be.
But a lot of muslims apparently feel that their god gets gravely insulted by Danish cartoons of his prophet with a funny hat on. Which, however much I'd like to respect a diversity of beliefs, I can't really find a way of looking at it that doesn't make me question the sanity of whole lot of people.
I think that what these folks maybe don't understand is that Denmark is a country where the government doesn't control the press. Maybe that's a novel idea. Yes, if the prime minister had made fun of Mohammed, that would have been very dumb, and he should probably apologize, for the sake of good diplomacy. But there's no way he can give an official apology for a cartoon in a newspaper, and he shouldn't. So, now Saudi Arabia has recalled their ambassador, Libia is closing its embassy, Egypt is refusing a loan they otherwise were eager to get, and Danish products are being boycotted. More >
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3 Jan 2006 @ 18:13, by robertal. Religion
Examine any part of culture ancient or modern, from anywhere in the world and you will almost certainly find a self proclaimed priesthood existing hand in hand with ruling elites and displaying all the pretensions of their political masters; expecting deference, power and ‘tribute’ for the ‘mystery’ they claim to understand on ‘our’ behalf.
That great wheel of history, the final of all judges, has already consigned numerous examples of religion to its own dusbin of oblivion, and may be turning once again to deliver its verdict on the monotheistic claims which exist today, and even human nature itself! More >
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5 Dec 2005 @ 10:17, by vaxen. Religion
Hello:
Looking over your application, it is apparent that you are a
Rons Org person. While I am all for anyone getting up the bridge
however they can, I do not agree that CBR was any sort of source
other than squirrel.
And as you list RO as references, and levels, I do not want
you posting to a standard tech group some of your altered tech
viewpoints.
Therefore, your membership has been disapproved.
All the best:
tom More >
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