Tagged: religion Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts

  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 11:22 am on December 14, 2014 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , , religion   

    Awesomenessificationizing in a World w/o Him 

    “Awesome”: the word defines our lazy consumer/consumed age, selfies self-centered, Christmas especially, speaking volumes while explaining nothing, an idle exclamation and simultaneous proclamation of all things hubristic, ourselves extrapolated outward for viewing and public worship—self-worship—the worst kind, “awesome” not to be confused with “awful” its evil twin, same word really, merely inflected with opposing sentiment, neither of them even in the same emotional league as that original feeling of awe that inspired it, and which inspires millions, that feeling of smallness in witnessing grandiosity…

    So how did the same word, and same original feel, come to mean two such opposite things? That’s what it is to be human, dahling, language—and thoughts—mutating at the speed of sound in direct proportion to the distance from the source, so much like biological Evolution that it’s hard to see them as anything other or different, as often declared by scientific minds specializing in such fields with (pedi)grees much higher than my own…

    We humans are a rather imperfect lot, at best blessed, at worst cursed, in reality most likely somewhere in between, the recipe for fulfillment in direct proportion to intent, a sliding scale of satisfaction, hard to accomplish anything without really intending it, or retrofitting the logic, intent being the key, left in this slow cool world to fend for ourselves or die trying… (More …)

     
    • Kc's avatar

      Kc 1:55 pm on December 14, 2014 Permalink | Reply

      awesome, iconic and literally, words that stick in under and around my craw. do people not read the dictionary anymore?

  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 11:27 am on November 2, 2014 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , religion   

    Buddhism 101: ‘Letting Go’, and all that jazz 

    One of the Buddha quotes currently making frequent rounds on Facebook these days goes something like (I’m paraphrasing, since my Pali is a little rusty anyway): ‘…the important thing in life…is how well you let go’…

    Let’s assume for the sake of discussion that that quote is accurate and correct, if not entirely complete nor definitive. Now that’s interesting, because I’d always credited Buddhism (from Hindu precedents) as advocating ‘non-possession’. But ‘letting go’ is not ‘non-possession.’ ‘Letting go’ implies that there was previous possession, and that’s an important point. I think I was wrong all these years. (More …)

     
  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 7:22 pm on October 26, 2014 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , religion,   

    Religion 101: the Quest for Meaning 

    Hindu God

    Hindu God

    In the Beginning was the Question: WTF? And thus was born Consciousness, self-consciousness, both blessing and curse. Could the origins of consciousness be of anything besides the juxtaposition of Self and Other? I doubt it. From that is born the recognition of basic relationships, very similar to Boolean logic: more than, less than, equal to, etc. This is primal thought, thought without language. From that all the plethora and panoply of consciousness is possible.

    Now that we have language, it’s hard to imagine thinking without it, because we certainly do think in a language, just as does a computer. But computers existed, and had functions, before language, and so did we humanoids: not much, perhaps, but some, enough to populate several continents, apparently for no other reason than that they were there, and had food.

    From the basic relationships come causal relationships: if this, then that, every time, so one must be the cause of the other. Animals do this all the time, and without language, as we know it. Yet they exist—and have meaning, to us, at least. This cause-effect relationship I suspect is the origin of ‘reason’, in fact, and arises very early in the history of thought, in fact the same word in some languages. (More …)

     
  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 9:16 am on October 19, 2014 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , , , , , , , religion   

    Religions Gone Awry, Systems Rendered Asunder 

    Buddhist shrine in Sri Lanka

    Buddhist shrine in Sri Lanka

    Islam promotes discipline and ends up glorifying violence. Christianity promotes love and ends up glorifying sex. Buddhism promotes non-possession and ends up glorifying money. Hinduism promotes India. Judaism promotes Israel. How did our major religions go so badly wrong? Good question. An even better question is how to set them right again. It won’t be easy.

    Religion was long ago taken over by politics, and used as a tool for manipulation, souls for sale as the price of politics, people’s desire for meaning in life reduced to authoritarian submission and hopes for the best. Truth, beauty, and goodness have been traded for sex, money, and violence in some devil’s bargain, arbitrage of the soul, leveraged buy-outs of vestigial beliefs, so much debris and detritus… (More …)

     
    • chicagoja's avatar

      chicagoja 11:22 am on October 19, 2014 Permalink | Reply

      I agree whole-heartedly. However, understanding God never required a religion, a church or even a holy book.

  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 10:34 am on June 26, 2014 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , , , religion   

    #Buddhism #Christianity #Islam: Time for a New Religion… 

    At their best Buddhism, Christianity and Islam are the head, heart and muscle of the One True Religion (as yet unnamed), the bush of which they all beat around furiously, passionately and mindfully, Buddhism with its ‘many books’ and philosophical approach, Christianity with its Sermon on the Mount and “Love Your Neighbor” One Best Commandment, Islam with its Qur’an Third Testament to the Torah, the Tales of Jesus, and much much more, maybe the greatest one book of all religions which includes all the others on a good day, whether in chapter or verse, sutra or suture…

    At their worst they degenerate into Buddhist passivity, purple passion and pragmatism of the worst kind, thousands of pragmatists plying the streets of Bangkok on any given night, sucking from the rich and giving to the kids, and parents, and anyone who’ll listen to the sad tales of femmes fatales and homos erectus…

    (More …)

     
  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 8:39 am on September 25, 2008 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , religion   

    Put something heavy in a light format, 

    a spoonful of something sweet to jazz up the bitter pill. Soften the tragedy of self-consciousness by giving it an ego to coddle and hug. The face in the mirror keeps looking back increasingly suspiciously. Religion may have the answers to a thousand questions that keep popping up so regularly that it must be more than coincidental, but I doubt it. Religion can only deal with certainties, and those are very few. Put something hard in a soft place and gift-wrap it for future generations to come, the seeds of memory, the fruit of immortality. These are the things that humans do, species specific, above and beyond the duties of genus, aspiring to the heights of genius, destined to settle for something less, a graveyard for egos. You study and slave, you scrimp and save, you sweat and sacrifice, postponing personal pleasures, giving your godly gifts, just to end up alone and afraid in a corner in a room in a building in a neighborhood in a city in a state of despair, in a country on a continent of a world in a universe that really doesn’t care. You take your love when and where you find it. You give your love to anyone who’ll have it.

     
  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 12:36 pm on September 17, 2008 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , religion   

    Gay marriage is more about equal rights than the conferral of sacrament 

    and is best dealt with that way. Certainly life partners should be able to share themselves with full legal rights without regard to sexual preference. Nevertheless, full church sacrament will never be granted, not from any of the established churches, anyway. Churches exist to decide between right and wrong and that’s what they attempt to do. The Great Chain of Being figures prominently in the philosophy of many religions, either directly or indirectly. This sanctifies reproduction as something holy, not dirty, not chosen, but a duty.omosexualityH Homosexuality figures into this system only as a sin, an aberration to be condemned. Whether homosexuality should or should not be considered something reprehensible has to do with whether it is a lifestyle chosen or an inherited trait. If chosen, then it is an aberration. If inherited, then it is natural. The debate may never be resolved. Certainly bisexuals throw a monkey wrench into the argument. Certainly no one is born with two sexual needs, are they? Surely one is chosen, isn’t it? By the same token, much sexual activity goes above and beyond the strict call of duty in fulfilling the basic needs of reproduction. Nothing is obvious. Nothing is forbidden. Everything is given. Everything is permitted. Religion that must resort to enforcement is not true religion at all.

     
  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 8:34 am on September 13, 2008 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: mothers, religion,   

    “You’ll spoil your dinner,” my mother used to say 

    with all the conviction of a nutritional specialist issuing pronouncements on the future of the species, as though one bite of the forbidden cookie would send shock waves through the culinary establishment. Mothers are like that. They speak in parables. They speak in circles. They speak in broad terms on multiple issues. They issue directives. They issue freshly washed clothing and recipes for fulfillment. They issue love at low interest, with long-term repayment options. I loved her because I was supposed to love her, even though it was hard sometimes. No, that’s not true. It was hard almost all of the time, she rigid of bent and unyielding in her convictions, a woman of God and little else. I used to call her ‘Mother Superior’ only half-jokingly. At least we kept our sense of humor. I wonder what my father kept hidden. I doubt that he ever had good sex. Maybe he didn’t care. Hey, wait a minute! That’s me!

     
  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 2:22 pm on June 4, 2008 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , religion,   

    SEX, DRUGS, RELIGION 

    One of my previous lovers left me for a woman. That made me stop and think. She swings both ways now, I think, if and when she swings at all. I guess that’s natural when your life consists primarily of sensation. She’s an artist. She’s also an atheist, or so she says. They’re the saddest people in the world, or so it seems. They also seem to be more inclined to drug use, though I couldn’t place causality. They go way beyond recreation, inspiration, and good ol’ fashioned “getting fucked up”. They’re into Club Med, something to kill the pain, that special kind of sympathetic pain that accrues mostly to druggies; they need it special. But don’t forget the ‘opium of the masses’. It kills pain, too, the pain of being. I think the main problem with religion is the picture in our minds of the traditional battle gods with their long beards, war wigs, and bad teeth, threatening us with eternal damnation if we slip and fail. Thor is there with a fist full of thunderbolts, and so’s his boss Woden and Frida the Wonder Woman, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday hanging over us like a sentence of death and a book of lies. It’s so negative, promising Hell for bad behavior, as if we couldn’t behave ourselves otherwise. Islam takes the opposite tack, promising a Heaven full of virgins if we do the right things here and now. Score one for Islam. You already know what Hell is like. Buddhism doesn’t do any of that. It doesn’t lead you into battle, nor does it promise Heaven nor Hell. It just doesn’t do much of anything at all, actually. This world is all illusion. No shit. These are not religion’s bright spots. People have done things in the name of religion that I wouldn’t do to my worst enemy. It doesn’t have to be so hard.

     
  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 7:41 am on June 3, 2008 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , LEARNING, religion   

    RACE FOR RELIGION 

    Pidgin English replaces Pidgin Sanskrit and the history of Southeast Asia moves forward into the new millennium. The Indian influence seems as though it were always benign and probably one of the best justifications of India’s reputation as a guru-culture, i.e. a culture of teachers and teachings. It appears that that is exactly what they did in Southeast Asia about two thousand years ago, both as traditional Brahmanists and as the reformers, Buddhists, bringing not only religion, but alphabet and much new vocabulary. But as is always the case, ‘teacher, teach thyself.’ Hinduism in its original form is forever stained by its embrace of the caste system, a polite form of racism. There is always the danger of this in any culture with more than one race, of course, and the religious acceptance of it seems no more than an afterthought to justify what was already the case. While Buddhism never addressed the issue specifically, its lack of a caste system must have made it more attractive, all else being equal. Islam certainly capitalized on the inherent tension in the caste system and complemented it with its simple, but strict, teaching accessible to all, and an army promising plenty of spoils for the victors. To the present day Buddhist temples are centers of learning, if basic, in Southeast Asia and were for a long time almost the only centers. Islamic schools serve much the same function in its sphere of influence. It’s an open question as to why the history of the area is entirely dependent on Chinese annals for chronology and corroboration, given the advanced state of Indian learning and literacy.

     

← Older posts

Newer posts →

c
Compose new post
j
Next post/Next comment
k
Previous post/Previous comment
r
Reply
e
Edit
o
Show/Hide comments
t
Go to top
l
Go to login
h
Show/Hide help
shift + esc
Cancel