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LOL...it seems as if you need no help defining 'oxymoron'. I would submit that the whole mess is caused by misunderstanding. Let's take a popular theme...'selfishness'. We have some person, Bob, that is selfish. Bob begins to get the idea that selfishness is bad thing, and he doesn't want...

I would say, no. After all, I'm sure that if you or I wrote down 942 short suggestive paragraphs, at least one of them would be bound to coincide in at least some way with some event that happens hundreds of years down the road. I mean, its not that you or I are prophets...it's just that a whole...

Just wanted to mention, Vajradhara, that I am always pleased and interested with the sometimes obscure knowledge of Buddhist cosmology that you concisely provide. Thank you for your posts. -jiii

This is a most important addition to the discussion. And, I think it opens the door to a further idea: Christianity is not a person. As such, it is not capable of emotion or action. Thus, Christianity cannot really be peaceful, or war-like, or have any human quality. 'Religion' may be an...

So far as I know, there aren't many full translations that are still in print. There may be none, at all. That excerpt from the Questions of King Milinda is from a small volume I have titled "The Teachings of the Compassionate Buddha" by EA Burtt. I have quite a few different books on Buddhism...

I offer a paraphrase of a discussion by Watts that I think is most appropriate to this question: "There is a strong distinction between faith on one hand, and belief on the other. Belief is, as a matter of fact, quite contrary to faith. Because belief is really wishing. It's from the...

Well, we ought to take care not to jump to conclusions, though. Just because we don't know some things, such as the mystery of biogenesis, doesn't necessarily prove that there is a 'higher power'. Unless, that is, we are to attribute all things unknown to a higher power simply because they are...

To be honest, I don't have all that much to say as far as this goes. I would offer that the answer would depend on what you think Nirvana is. After all, "Nirvana is uncompounded; it is made by nothing at all. One cannot say of Nirvana that it arises, or that it does not arise or that it is to...

Clearly, there is no such method, and no such method could ever really be devised. Furthermore, why would we bother devising one? I hardly think, however, that talking about such things as the preciseness of certain languages is meaningless and moot simply because we can't prove with...

What?:confused:

This is certainly a good point. I am reminded of a lecture by Alan Watts (to paraphrase): "A great deal of damage is done in our personal affairs because of our lack of honesty. We commit ourselves to things that we only ideally believe we ought to do, and that we simply aren't going to...

Believe it or not, I intended to post this question in the 'Belief and Spirituality' forum. When I refreshed the page I saw I posted it here. Thus, if it is not moved, let me specify this: I am not trying to rip on Abrahamic religions, necessarily. My post did not refer to Heaven, but...

This question has been partially insipred by a different thread in the 'Alternative' forum, but I'm approaching it from a different angle. Why is it that many religions seem to promote doing good or being compassionate by offering some kind of reward in the afterlife? Isn't this a case of...

In thinking about the original question, I found myself asking: Why would we expect somebody to be punished after they die? I mean, are we really so bent upon vengeance that we need to believe that if you do something wrong, you will be punished after dying? If we did not believe we would be...

Well, perhaps so. I mean, Christianity really took off in Europe centuries and centuries ago, so it wouldn't be all that strange if his facial features would suggest men such as those most common in Europe at the time, and that such a model would be kept for quite a while. LOL...I can only...

God's mercy is greater than his wrath.

Alechmical texts are certainly intended to be experienced, as you say. However, using an alchemical text such as, say, The Secret of the Golden Flower (T'ai I Chin Hua Tsung Chih), one should not expect that an actual golden flower will manifest in their mind. That would be a terribly literal...

Whew! I read through a good deal of the post, Marietta. The explanation of 'dimensions' does seem to make sense. The only downside I see is that the whole system of ideas is so unwieldy. You know, it's just that it uses somewhat complex concepts to talk about something scientifically that...

You can only know anything at all in terms of the past. Every complex concept we have was developed by past societies. Our language is an inheritance that is given to us. Even our concept of ourselves is really based only upon information we gathered in the past. So, every idea about the future...

I have thought a good deal about this, but thus far, I have a pretty hard to swallowing it as truth. The 'multi-verse' idea is a hypothesis, at best...at that, one that cannot be tested, really. When I looked into the concept of 'multiverses', I began wondering exactly what scientists think...