Thank you for a superb analysis. Greatly appreciate the thought and effort!
It also led to a great tradition of scholarship and a love of learning and knowledge...still...
In third or fourth grade our Vacation Bible School teacher told me that my.cat Boots, who had been killed by a car, wasn't going to heaven...thus began my journey of doubt...
Perhaps the decline of religion and religiosity signifies the advance of reason!?
I am in total agreement. A Buddhist nun once told me that "existence is suffering and we suffer because we do not want what we have and do not have want we want." That's a superb summary of the human condition!
Sounds good to me... I have some Confucian/Dao literature in the stack by my chair. Thanks for your comment!
Totally agree (I am bipolar and have considerable psychological training and experience as both a patient and care provider). Not taking your medications and participating in regular therapy sessions is a recipe for disaster. Trust me on this...
Imagine those lips...
He was neurotic but not psychotic unlike (rule 3).
Me too...and compared with (rule 3) Dubya was a supreme genius!
Truman wasn't exactly a Bolshevik.
He has really good taste in books and music too...Coltrane while jogging, anybody?
I really hate Obama-bashing. What a role model he is for young men and young black men in particular!
River of Doubt spins quite a tale!!
I am a saxophonist and yes...it really works!
I completely agree, and similar to Obama, who I also admire despite what the pundits on Fox/NewsMax/America One might think.
Just like his exceptionally distant cousin...ME!
My parents were quite straight arrow and strict but that didn't prevent me from being a teenager doing asshole things...
Same here, for 8 years. There ARE some commendable ideas, particularly the emphasis on charity and the encouragement of knowledge and learning (better the sleep of one scholar than 1000 men praying) but the homophobia and ultra puritanism were real turn-offs. Don't like the notion of no dating in Islam as well...meet somebody once, like them, give a dowry and marry them...this seems to be a recipe for disaster. The absolute segregation of men and women is also a negative, as though we're going to fornicate immediately on talking to a woman. Love Abdullah Yusuf Ali's translation of the Quran and Islam's militant stand against racism: "Have I not made of you nations and tribes that you may recognize each other and not despise one another" always sticks in my mind. But I write on this link and read people's commentaries for good reason...i e. reason negates superstition and human freedom is the ultimate good
Not sure yet if Buddhism is actually a religion. I know there is a hierarchy and it has rituals of veneration of the Buddha but it doesn't seem to be deity-centered... I think of it as a philosophical construct...
That's GOLD 🥇🪙!
Who keeps spray painting sovereign citizen tags on the Greenway?
asheville