Religion’s grains of truth February 16 2007
I recommend reading Truth, love, beauty before reading this article.
Religion is attractive to many people because it answers important questions like “why are we here,” but it also resonates with people because it feels like the Truth. At the heart of most religions, you will find bits of philosophy. As I mentioned in the introduction, one of my goals is to distill these bits from the various religions that I have studied and provide it to you in condensed form. May you find some inspiration from these grains of truth, especially if stumbling blocks prevent you from becoming a follower to any one religion. These are not listed in any particular order.
The Golden Rule- Do onto others as you would have them do to you
Karma - There are consequences for your every action, even if it takes awhile to materialize - what goes around will eventually comes around.
Reoccurring cycles - Death and rebirth, creation and destruction
Complementing pairs - Ying and Yang, male and female, light and dark, order and chaos
Desire causes much of the suffering in the world - by reducing desires, you can be more at peace
The Middle Way - Neither having too much nor too little is good
Intuition - There are things we intuitively understand about Reality (ie. woman’s intuition). Zen Buddhism is famous for “teaching without teaching” by asking questions like “what is the sound of one hand clapping?” and “what is a stick if you cannot call it a stick?”
Oneness with all living things - The Native Americans had a deep respect for life, big and small. Buddhists and Hindus believe in reincarnation, so the animals might very well be their friends and relatives from previous lifetimes!
Special nature of mankind - Virtually all religions believe that human life is special. Christianity believes that man is at least half-god. We were created in God’s image, and we also have the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Suicide is also a sin. Buddhism believes that man occupies one of the better worlds in the reincarnation cycle. Since we are intelligent and self-aware, we are in a better position to reach higher realms than the animals below us.
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Spiritual science
David S. Paeth Jun 1
Rather than talking generally of Christian faith, or Judeo-Christian tradition as we do in the U.S., I’m thinking that Albert Einstein had a good idea when he filled in a form that asked his religion by entering “Mosaic”. Although it doesn’t take us as far back as the Abrahamic roots that we share with Islam, it could be a good way to speak of widely shared values/beliefs, or grains of truth. ByTheWay, “Karma” is a bit like the “spiritual power” mentioned in commentary of the Spiritual science article; (I like to use as objective terminology as possible.)
David S. Paeth Jun 6
Much as physics describes conservation of real energy, a I think we’re describing conservation of “spiritual energy” when we talk of Karma. (Spiritual Energy, as I refer to it in the Spiritual Science article can be quantified by imaginary numbers. Mathematicians talk of the square root of negative numbers–something real in a different way.)