Thursday, October 12, 2006

• What if.........
  
  I have often wondered - considering religious figures like Jesus, Buddha, Mohammed - whether God intentionally inspired these people to make changes in their own cultures, intentionally enlightened the willing and receptive. And instead of throwing things around like "well, Jesus is alive and the others aren't; Jesus is God and the others aren't," maybe we have a responsibility, in honoring God, to look at what he inspired in the others as well as Jesus.
  
  According to Wikipedia,
  

  In Buddhism, a Buddha (Sanskrit, Pāli) is any being who has become fully awakened (enlightened), has permanently overcome greed, hate, and ignorance, and has achieved complete liberation from suffering.
  
  

  I think Jesus would agree with this. Of course, Buddha apparently parted ways with the Judeo-Christian concept of a personal God who created the universe. Well, that was Buddha.
  
  Again, according to Wikipedia, Mohammed did make some really good changes in society but at the same time he was a military leader. I haven't looked deeply enough into his background or the religion to know everything he was about, but apparently he believed that man had corrupted the pure religion and it was his job to set it straight again.
  
  That sounds exactly like Joseph Smith and the inception of the Mormon church, who believed he had a revelation from God when he asked God which religion was right and he was told they were all corrupt and he had to bring back the pure religion.
  
  It seems to me that with these last two, as was the case with many of the desert hermits of the early Christian Church, that they saw the corruption in the world around them, and wanted to set things right again.
  
  Now, Buddha (the original) apparently lived about 5 centuries before Jesus. Where did he get those ideas about overcoming greed, hate, and ignorance? He had to get them from God, I think.
  
  Still, people didn't get it.
  
  Then we have Jesus coming on the scene, and being resurrected as God's exclamation point, so to speak. And then enter religion, doctrine, infighting, schism. Greed, hate, ignorance.
  
  We still don't get it. God is not about "look, I'm the biggest, baddest thing in the universe and you will bow to me and my messiah or spend eternity being tortured."
  
  I guess the point to all this is that there is goodness and truth in different places, places we reject out of hand because we are raised to believe that our way is the only way. We believe what we believe because we have been taught to believe that, and to be critical of others who do not, to believe that others are less enlightened, less intelligent, and have nothing to offer us. Or worse still, that these lesser beings do not deserve the least bit of respect, and in some cases, that they don't even deserve to live.
  
  Religious zealots and terrorists are not restricted to Middle Eastern cultures.
  
  The truth is that truth and beauty are strewn throughout the world. We need to look for it where it is, because when we take one package hook, line, and sinker, then we get a lot of debris with that and we miss some genuine gems in the process.
  
  I am not saying all beliefs are equal or equally true. I am saying truth is what it is, and it is where it is. It would be nice and tidy if all truth were found in one package - less work for those who like things in nice, tidy packages. But finding truth takes looking for truth, and asking, what if.......
  
  

  • 7:47 AM
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