What is your view of the Creator (if you believe in that kind of thing)?

Sishir Chang, good points,

I don't think knowing the will of God is much of a big deal, not like doing it.

self righteousness is what it says-- deciding for yourself what is righteous.

So what have you decided is righteous?

 

Boy talk about putting me on the spot...

All I can say is what I said before. I believe if I practice compassion then others will have compassion towards me. If not then so be it.

On a societal level I subscribe to a philosophy called Pragmatism that frames actions to an observable greater good and rather than absolutes to be followed in every situation holds that responses change if that leads to an observable greatest good.

To put in the terms of the other Religion V Science thread its means that if sacrificing my wife to save the lives of thousands then I would sacrifice my wife.

I would also add that is colored by a belief in moderation which is faith based in the Buddhist idea of the Middle Way. Existence is not defined by absolutes but instead by the mediation of seemingly opposing forces.

 

Sishir Chang- I really appreciate your responses. They are well thought out.

I myself do not have enough confidence in myself to decide what is righteous.

I also do not expect to be able to have enough absolute information to make decisions based upon situations that present themselves.

One man's moderation is another man's excess.

Pragmatism sounds too dangerous for me, often what is observable is not truth, but what is hidden is truth.

I would rather drive around Houston with yellow stripes, traffic signs and driving rules that will be the same each day than drive on these freeways without any signs, centerstripes or rules at all except what someone else felt was observable as a greater good.

Situational rules might work for you in life, but they would bind up traffic in Houston to a stand still (plus cost many lives)

Thanks for your input, I like hearing many views.

 

Meogwi- Have you ever read that quote by St. Athanasius about "For the Son of God became man so that we might become God." ? From on the Incarnation, its pretty good. Also there's a lot of recent theology, like Hans Urs Von Balthazar, about the idea of the Word of God creating the world linking John and Genesis together and it is in that idea that I see a lot of I guess really Taosim more than Buddhism, but the idea that that making by Christ is the "natural law" which Aquinas and others expound upon. I swear I've had this conversation with you before about Merton.

I don't know half of enough to talk with you about Buddhism though but it seems very intellectualized to me, sometimes bordering on Gnostic, but I could be completely dead wrong and probably am.

 

Except if your wife was in labor I presume you would speed to the hospital rather than stick to the speed limit.

 

How much of your morality is given to you by your parents and by your culture's traditions? How much of it has been molded by removing past influences and seeing each event through an uncorrupted perspective? When we are taught unalienable rights and truths, what results when we realize that the world is shrouded in grey...that those same rights and truths do not apply to everyone and how sometimes the teachers have even been guilty of denying them.

That might answer your question of why people of other views even talk about God.

 

Invisible fan- very good points.

most of it.

None- there is no such thing as an uncorrupted perspective unless you mean the Bible or some other book claiming divine origin and infallibility.

This totally puzzles me because in my twenty five years of being a pastor I find few people who have been taught unalienable rights and truths. Instead I find people constantly in conflict with disregard to human rights and truths. I find people eating themselves into obesity that can't understand why they have health problems. Marriages breaking up, children neglected and a whole long list of ills that don't seem to support the idea that unalienable rights and truths have been learned. The shroud of grey seems to be a by product of the failure of your first point.

I assume you believe their are universal unalienable rights and truths and that is why you are touched by the neglect and abuse of them. Not to single out teachers but I would add parents, churches, religions, government, schools and whole cultures as being guilty of poor practice of basic human rights and truths.

Now I don't know what you mean by truth but I will give you one example- Treat your neighbor the same way you should be treated. Jesus came up with that one and I like it.

To clarify what I meant,
The God of the Bible has the whole day of judgment scenario, judging the world in righteousness, rendering unto man according to his works whether they be evil or righteous.

I never found that an appealing subject to discuss when I considered myself an atheist. I found that in my own life I avoided the subject and therefore avoided learning any more than I had about God. I never ran to church to try to learn and understand more about God, I stayed away. That's just how I was. Buddists, agnostics and atheists may be running to church services to get a broader perspective and I am just missing it.