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  hardie karges 11:08 am on October 11, 2015 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Buddhism ( 434 ), CHRISTIANITY, Middle Path ( 55 ), Pride ( 2 ), sin ( 4 )   

  Building the Perfect Religion: Buddhist Middle Path and the Pride of Sin… 

  

  In Spires In Thailand

  Now I’m not sure exactly what the Scottish rock band Franz Ferdinand had in mind when they sang about “right thoughts right words right action”, but I suspect that at least one of the blokes has some interest in Buddhism, because that little trifecta of meaning pretty much sums up the Buddhist ‘Middle Path’.

  And if avoidance of excess is one of the cornerstones of our hypothetical perfect religion—akin to the Buddhist Middle Path—then humility would have to be the second cornerstone. Note the similarity—and difference—to and from the related concept of humiliation. This is where the Middle Path comes in again. Humility, aka ‘humbleness’ is a very good thing, while humiliation is not, whether on the ends of giving or receiving…

  Pride is its opposite, of course, and well-known as one of the Christian sins, and probably one of the least-respected and most-abused. After all, what father is not proud of his son, and less deserving of it? It’s as though fathers and mothers see their sons’ and daughters’ actions and accomplishments as direct reflections on themselves, as though their offspring are hired hands with scripted roles to play. Sounds like a recipe for disaster… salt to taste… (More …)

   

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  hardie karges 11:28 am on September 6, 2015 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: America ( 59 ), capitalism ( 26 ), China ( 14 ), CHRISTIANITY   

  The Decline of Western Civilization (Part 2: Bankers, Barkers and Religion…) 

  

  Christian God

  But first my Sunday confession, Father: I’ve been called Communist and I’ve been called Jihadi. Liberals call me a Conservative. Conservatives call me a Liberal. It’s all true. I’m a contrary son-of-a-b*tch, known to act as the devil’s avocado, barely ripe, slippery when wet, but not merely for the sake of argument, I swear, but to try to reach some higher truth, later if not sooner, and for all our sakes, not just my own. When I lived in Berkeley I WAS conservative. When I lived in Mississippi I WAS liberal. Doctrines are there to be challenged, and dogma is there to be run over by karma…

  Now we all know how stupid are the tea-party wing of America’s Republican political party, but that doesn’t mean that Democrats are all geniuses (genii?). The difference between conservatives and liberals, or republicans and democrats, which basically defines the power relationships in the world, is basically the difference between the two types of people in the world: those who save their money—or resources—and those who don’t. Please note, Republicans, that I didn’t use the word ‘lazy’ and I don’t intend to, as I don’t think that is the fundamental issue. (More …)
   
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  hardie karges 9:15 am on August 30, 2015 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Buddhism ( 434 ), CHRISTIANITY   

  Buddhism 101: Life is about Suffering, and Its Cessation (NOT the Pursuit of Happiness)… 

  

  Statue of Buddha in Kandy, Sri Lanka

  First Noble (Aryan, Civilized, Precious) Truth (Reality, Faith, Fact, etc.): “Now this, bhikkhus, is the noble truth of suffering: birth is suffering, aging is suffering, illness is suffering, death is suffering; union with what is displeasing is suffering; separation from what is pleasing is suffering; not to get what one wants is suffering; in brief, the five aggregates subject to clinging are suffering.”

  In other words: Life is suffering.  If you don’t understand that, then you’ll never really understand Buddhism.  Many modern proselytizing Buddhist priests from foreign ports, and their local converts and adherents, try to downplay this fact for their shiny happy American audiences, ultimately doing a disservice to both: weakening the philosophy and misleading the Homies.  No, there is no mistranslation, nor any misunderstanding.  That’s what he said and that’s what he meant.  Our lives as Americans are a lie, shiny and happy with mouth wide open.  There’s a word for that: Christian; not Buddhist.

  Second Truth: “Now this, bhikkhus, is the noble truth of the origin of suffering: it is this craving which leads to re-becoming, accompanied by delight and lust, seeking delight here and there; that is, craving for sensual pleasures, craving for becoming, craving for dis-becoming.”

  In other words: There is a cause for this suffering—desire.  Sorry, Homies, but Buddhism is not about ‘following your passion.’  ‘Following your passion’ is verrrry Christian.  This is Buddhism.  Get over it. (More …)

   
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  hardie karges 8:19 am on August 23, 2015 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Apocalypse ( 12 ), CHRISTIANITY, End of Days   

  Religio-Politics 101: Christian Death Wish–Apocalypse Soon? 

  The difference between me and the Christian Apocalyptics is that they want the End of Days; I don’t. Michelle Bachmann (remember her?) even actively encourages it, suggesting that the Iran nuclear deal would fit that business plan perfectly—great. And most mainstream Christians aren’t much better, they some of the world’s biggest consumers, they and their suburbs and Subarus and eight-lane freeways and store-bought freedoms, life measured by toys in the attic and needles for the addict…

  Of course what we have in common is that we both see the poop hitting the ventilator soon and life as we know it coming to an unceremonious end. Once again, though, they’re expecting some kind of rapture, while I’m looking for massive social disruptions and an economic crash that will… (wait for it)… likely solve the cause of the problem—eventually. By then, of course, it’ll be too late by some people’s reckoning and we’ll never get back to where we are today—good. Today sux… (More …)

   
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  hardie karges 10:04 am on August 16, 2015 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: CHRISTIANITY, GOD ( 24 ), JESUS ( 21 ), love ( 49 )   

  Love’s ‘Crush’ as the Basis for Religion? Or maybe shamanism or ‘life-coaching’ or … wha’d’ya got? 

  

  We all know that ‘crush’ of falling in love, if not for the first time, then at least the first time in a long time, or with any one particular person, something that can go on for days, weeks, months, even years, while you try to get sorted and either get it or forget it. That’s the problem, of course, that ‘crushes’ can consume you, multiple times, and then just go away like nothing ever happened: “now you’re just somebody that I used to know”…

  I don’t think I’m being too ‘anal’ (pardon the cliché) by suggesting that this is not always the optimal basis for a relationship—sometimes maybe, but not always. The opposite extreme, of course, would be to have marriages that are not only planned, but planned by someone else! Yeow! That goes directly against modern Western thinking, obviously, though still quite popular in traditional cultures of the Asian sub-continent and elsewhere. (More …)

   
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  hardie karges 9:13 am on July 12, 2015 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Buddhism ( 434 ), CHRISTIANITY, end days, eschatology, ISLAM ( 67 )   

  Eschatology 101: The End Days, a Primer 

  

  I’ve been accused of Christian paranoia, what with my evolving interest in ‘end times’. That’s not good, not that I’m concerned about any slight to myself, which WOULD be paranoia, only that by dismissing it as Christian nonsense, chances increase that nothing will be done to prevent it. There are at least two problems with the characterization: I’m not very Christian and not very paranoid, either; pretty freakin’ rational, in fact. Fear of persecution? Not me. My doors are wide open, and I rarely meet a person that I don’t feel I could be friends with. (More …)

   
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  hardie karges 9:03 am on June 14, 2015 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Buddhism ( 434 ), CHRISTIANITY, ISIL ( 8 ), ISLAM ( 67 )   

  Religion: Founded on Fear, Fueled by Fire, Fed on Fulfillment 

  

  E Pluribus Unum…

  The nice guys over at ISIL have got it backwards. Fear may indeed be the starting point of religion, but not the end, and certainly not the means. That original fear is something like existential dread, whether in our ‘primitive’ ancestors’ realization of their own mortality, the danger from enemies or the self-conscious knowledge of our human predicament, struggling for survival.

  Regardless, that is something to be mitigated, not exploited. Organizing fighting forces on the principle of ‘kill or be killed’ with a God or a flag riding ‘shotgun’ to provide symbolic leadership and moral justification is a practice best relegated to the annals of history and the back pages of the Old Testament. (More …)

  hardie karges and whitemvibes are discussing. Toggle Comments

   
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    whitemvibes 1:44 am on June 15, 2015 Permalink | Reply

    Religion was founded on love. Love for God and love for people around you. Religious people are not all filled with images of hell or worried 24/7 about Sins.

    Religion is here to stay.

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      hardie karges 6:11 am on June 15, 2015 Permalink | Reply

      Old Testament could use a bit more love for my tastes, but I agree with your conclusion.

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  hardie karges 10:02 am on June 6, 2015 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Buddhism ( 434 ), CHRISTIANITY, ISLAM ( 67 )   

  Religio-Politics 101: The Final Stage of Life—Buddhism 

  

  Statue of Buddha in Kandy, Sri Lanka

  I figure if you’re not getting more religious as you’re getting older, then you’re doing something wrong. I thought I’d be a Buddhist monk by now, ensconced in some little corner of the globe hanging with the brotherhood and speaking Tibetan or Pali or even just Thai would be okay, doing the business of no-business, begging for alms in return for my purity and compassion, just trying to provide the world some moral compass, without desire or desiderata, without percussion or repercussions, ni meringue ni compas, life as lived in the latter days of ambition, no ambition just breath in breath out occasional fuel and oxygen fanning the flames of non-consumption…

  I suppose that those plans are on hold by now, as long as my 1954 libido has a first gear, a clutch, a power train and a love of transmission, not something you take for granted in the fourth semester of life, the will to power and all that rap, or even the will to succeed and all that jazz… (More …)

   
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  hardie karges 9:54 am on May 31, 2015 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Buddhism ( 434 ), CHRISTIANITY, ISIL ( 8 ), ISLAM ( 67 ), ISRAEL ( 6 )   

  Religio-Politics 101: Enlightenment of Religion, Endarkenment of War 

  

  ISIL wages war in the Mideast

  Surely this must be the end of days, when religious fanatics overrun entire sections of the globe—with martyrs, books and fear; opposed by corrupt governments—with lawyers, guns and money; overseen by Empires and umpires—with commentary, updates, and buzzfeed; with the fossils of forgotten ancestors funding it all, sowing seeds of hate where no flowers have grown for years, decades, or centuries; in deserts laid waste by millennia of neglect and eons of misuse. For any religion to use fear as a weapon is to do a grave disservice to all parties concerned. Fear is a weapon of war, not religion… (More …)

   
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  hardie karges 9:33 am on May 24, 2015 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Buddhism ( 434 ), CHRISTIANITY, ISLAM ( 67 ), Thailand ( 75 )   

  Religio-Politics 101: The Eluctible Modality of the Invisible 

  “Everything happens for a reason.” How many times have you heard that? Is it accurate? Is it true? Is it even valid? Meh; that probably depends, on who or what is sentence subject and who or what is object in a life sentence with no parole. Fortunately our language structure allows for a multitude of possibilities, with its general vagueness, allowing plausible deniability. But is that what you want—plausible deniability? No, you want certainty. That’s the beauty of religion, and that’s the slice of thought that statements like this come from.

  The answer is probably ‘no’, of course, that ‘everything happens for a reason’, given no reason to think that it is true, and that is, after all, the bottom line: truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth… But that is the basis of life, not religion, which relies on the power of positive thinking and retrofit of spurious logic. That’s not a bad thing, and can offer more than silly smiles on sullen Sundays, reasons to push on another day. But life is more than the agreement of subject and object, isn’t it, after all? Life is neither happy nor sad, in and of itself. Any serious Buddhist knows that… (More …)

  Esther Fabbricante is discussing. Toggle Comments

   
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    Esther Fabbricante 5:39 pm on May 24, 2015 Permalink | Reply

    I wanted to see you smile.