Comments:

1. Aran Shetterly on November 9th, 2004 at 1:04:

   Hi John,

   The 10×10 is a really cool site. You must have referenced my Dad’s site,
   http://www.americanswhotellthetruth.org . Thanks for that. I was looking for where your
   link was but I couldn’t find it. Can you show me?

   All the best,

   Aran

2. John on November 9th, 2004 at 7:11:

   here

Comments:

1. Mel on November 9th, 2004 at 0:27:

   While I agree that Buddhism is in most ways more Darwinian than how many Christians interpret the Bible, Darwins survival of the fittest never mentioned anything about the weak returning after their death to give things another go.

   While the whole ‘salvation through knowledge’ aspect of Buddhism can seem very appealing to technical people like me (and you? I’m sorry I don’t know you) I have found that the more I learn the less I know.

   Just because the Bible as we know it today may not say things quite the same way as Buddhist doctrine, it doesn’t mean that Christianty doesn’t have its merits. Jesus taught compassion. And Paul was like the ultimate blogger. He spread Christianty with no aid from modern communication networks….just by walking around and talking to people.

   You also have to take into consideration how the Bible may or may not have been changed up over the years. Religion has been regarded as an opiate for the masses for a reason…..I think it would be safe to say that somewhere down the line somebody has taken the privilege of puttin their own two cents into the good book.

   As flexible as the Buddhist doctrine is, it does not escape secularism found in other religions. They all abide by the eight fold path, but the Mahayanas don’t quite see things the same way as the Theravadas.

2. John on November 9th, 2004 at 7:32:

   Mel,

   If you show some passages (like the sermon of the mount) to a Buddhist, he’ll go “Of course!”. So you won’t find me saying Christianity, or Islam or any other religion for that matter, has no “merit”.

   However.

   When I was about 12, I discovered that churces in the Netherlands were subsdized based on the number of people who had that particular church registered as “theirs” at municipal registration. So I went to town hall and changed my registration to “none”. The pastor paid me a visit (apparently they get notified) and the discussion was very short: “I do believe in God, but not in His ground personnel”. Exit pastor. Although it is a little white lie (I do not believe there is a God in the Christian sense) the meat of the message was most definately true – I see way, way too much suffering introduced by people who claim to represent or promote a religion.

   About ten years ago I had a discussion with an evangelical christian who was deeply worried about my soul when he heard I didn’t share his faith. I usually don’t bother to discuss the issue, since it is unlikely either of us will be “convinced” and I don’t want to hurt any feelings, but this was a really nice neighbour, so we took the time required and had a long talk about religion. He tried Pascal’s Wager on me, to which I replied that I try to live my life in as best a way as possible, and any God that would want to judge me was more than welcome to. If my failure to pass that judgement is not based on how I lead my life, but instead of my acceptance of a certain doctrine, then I do not care for that God at all.

   But between you and me, I expect life to be simply over when I die. No afterlife, no reincarnation, nothing. And I accept that – death does not frighten me. Most religious people look at that outlook on death and immediately think I cannot have any morals or ethics (after all, I’m not going to be held Accountable by God, or something like that), but that’s a bit ignorant. It’s also one of the reasons I never really bother to discuss this, since people who are part of organised religion find this really, really hard to understand. Most religions have believe in an afterlife as fundamental part of it – both as a “reward” for being part of the religion, and as a way to keep people in line – “if you do not do X, you won’t get the reward”. That makes it very difficult for people to get their head around different opinions.

   Your point about secularism in Buddishm is well made, but I guess it doesn’t surprise you after all this that I’m not part of organised Buddishm.

3. doug on November 10th, 2004 at 5:14:

   Mel, I concur that the essense the faiths of the “book” are the same, including compassion and humility. Mannerized doctrines, particularly antiques, include many “two-cent” pieces the sum of which are worthless. Simple forms, like the Four Noble Truths, with minimal doctrine, stand the test of time best.
   John, I researched Pascal’s Wager. The existence of soul as a question of odds is comforting. I have played the odds many ways over the years. The odds of god’s existense “in the christian sense” are laughable. I second your statements about god’s judgement. In the end, I suspect, it is us who judge ourselves, so it is important to live by values we, at our subjective core, consider true, regardless of doctrine.
   My sense of Buddhism is: the life encompassing a quite mind is the same life that one’s composting flesh will have 10 years after one is dead. I can live with that.
   Sadly laughable, also, is the “reward”.
   I appreciate your discussion, and being reminded of the agony of desire/attachment is comforting.

Comments:

1. Maarten on November 8th, 2004 at 19:11:

   Yours looks much bluer than the one over there. Maybe they changed to a different coloring scheme since you grabbed it.

   It’s a great map. A caveat, though: you always have to be careful not to take these too seriously; by diddling the correspondence between cutoff values and colors you can often produce quite different looking maps that suggest different situations.