Sai, I am sorry, but could you please stop with the casual
use/misuse/abuse of the sacred name? I do not pronounce it out of
respect, and I am cringing over here at the way you have been so
doing. Adam

On 6/8/10, Sai Emrys <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> On Tue, Jun 8, 2010 at 12:03 AM, R A Brown <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>> Surely a system of identifying Christianity should at least have reference
>> to Christ! There ought, surely, to be a reference to a _triune_ God.
>
> Agreed on the former, but the trinity is not universal. Some sects
> don't believe in Christ as an "aspect" of Yahweh, but rather as an
> independent entity. ;-)
>
>> The trouble is that often
>> today 'gender' is used to mean 'biological sex' - which is so often
>> misleading.
>
> As it is for humans as well. ;-) [Insert standard queer theory rant here.]
>
> It might actually be interesting to intersect them. I think that
> Louie's proposal is too naïve to work as such, but certainly having
> better names for personal religious/spiritual beliefs would be a good
> thing. Perhaps we could make it easier to have less poorly labeled
> beliefs by not having to rely on extremely broad ones like
> "Christian", "Buddhist", or "atheist" - and thus have more
> interesting/useful discussions about them?
>
> Of course, that would imply that people actually have to know what
> they believe first, which IME is not generally true.
>
>> Buddhism isn't a simple label, but covers a wide range of religious
>> beliefs,
>> practices, experiences etc.
>
> Seriously! The proper Eastern sort seems to have quite a lot more
> intertwined dogma, cosmology, etc. - just like any religion. Whereas
> the Western concept often means something as simple as "practice of
> meditation, generically".
>
> Which is unfortunate, since it conflates a set of techniques
> (meditation) and associated experiences (oneness, ego loss, etc) with
> particular metaphysical truth-claims, two things that I think could
> stand a lot more separation if we're to have the ability to rationally
> discuss such topics without undue offense.
>
>> Thus, I repeat again, that in my view simplistic categorizing of religious
>> and other beliefs systems is at best misleading, and too easily causes
>> offense.
>
> Amen! [ha]
>
> Plus, simplistic categorization leads to seriously flawed,
> equivocating/strawmanning arguments. :-P
>
> - Sai
>
> PS Meta: two essays that may be interesting to the whole issue of
> discussing religion: http://www.paulgraham.com/identity.html &
> http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html
>


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