Great, thanks! :D And AL , im happy that you and your family are Ok, after the large-scale attacks by the terrorists.:)

Sorry to disappoint you, but that is just western romantic thinking. Socalled orientalism that puts buddhism where it doesn't belong. Buddhism has been a religious tool as well. In medieval Japan, the buddhist monks where a major headache for the ruling clans. When they perceived that buddhist law was not duly upheld, they took up arms and stormed the capital. Buddhist religion was as intervowen in politics then as it is today in other religions.

Ok, but I was more describing its western adoption than historical evolution.

Well I am sure you could be as eclectic in adopting islam for western consumption. Cut out the raised sabre and dhimmi bits, and focus on the spiritual parts. Easy. Pray 5 times per day. Keep clean bodily as mentally. Treat your brothers kindly. In fact, it would be really nice if they'd do it themselves. I still believe that this is why no religions differ when it is used as a political tool.

But no. We see no such attempts at modernizing islam. The important religious leaders hang on to the ever withering olive branch that islam must remain a fiery force. Today is the day of wrath, called as a response to the pope's speech a while ago. And the reason for this thread.

Let us imagine for a moment that the proper response cited by the quran would be to thumb your nose. Or fast for 3 days in defiance. Imagine that. I am inclined to believe that the problems between the occident and the near orient is perhaps due to the occidental world having won supremacy as the most powerful and dominating culture in our parts. And the proper response to this is the angry fist of defiance. And some nutjobs take this very seriously and blow up people here and there. It seems so bloody illogic.

Danish cartoon drawers make more or less tasteful cartoons depicting the prophet. Response are mass nose thumbings in the streets of Damascus. In Indoneisa 100.000 protestors sit down and refuse to eat food for 3 days.

Sounds nice doesn't it? Instead we got embassy torchings and violence. And anyone not muslim is definitely scratching their head and deciding, these people are dangerous and irrational.

We differ on your view of religion, which has become apparent before. For you, it is a set of historical constellations, that's why you do not differ between "church" and "Christianity", while the content of the thoughts is not so much of interest for you. In principle, it is a tendency to relativize differing contents again, and clean them of differences. For me, religion is the expression of spirituality, and alive spiritual expoerience is not about rituals and idols, but directness (Unmittelbarkeit), and unblinded perception of the reality of cósmos/existence/mind. Thus I say that religion and theism are excluding each other, and that true religion as an expression of alive, healthy spirituality necessarily must be atheistic, non-theistic.

I think and teach this in accordance with Buddhist psychology, religion, philosophy or however you may call it. It is not about how you call it, but direct experience, that's why Siddharta did not actively founded a tradition of theological dispute, like in Christian church. Jesus also did not do that, nowehre he has founded a church. The church came not before Paul. And this guy is a completely different story. One should not match up Church with Christianity. If anything, the church represents "Paulanism".

"Strange what misunderstandings there are about atheism, seem to be more an annoyance that there is somebody who refuses in believing one's own idols." - Or ideas, I should add.

I think you've got it right.

No, you can't do that. That's as if one is saying: okay, I pick the teaching of Jesus, but exclude what he has said in the sermon at the mountain. the teaching of Jesus cannot be cut into pieces, and then eclectically choosing those parts you like. It is one whole, one teaching only, it all is crossreferring, it all is in contact with each other "element". you can take the teaching of Jesus, the four gospels) and separate it from the rest of the NT, and even more so from the OT, because the bible has a historical structure shows that it was created over along time, and reflects different phases of man's evolution and understanding of what he means when saying "God." the God of the OT is not the God Jesus talks about. Jesus made it clear that with him something old was ending, and something new was beginning.

The Quran, to sum it up in roughn words, has been "dicated" by one man during a couple of years only, muhammad. It also is one whole, and all thinking that derives from it and for example resulted in the codification of Sharia law in the Hadith is one thinking. You cannot be Muslim, for example, without wanting Sharia, for that reason. you cannot pick some Suras and verses you like, and reject the others. It brings the whole concept of Quranic understanding to collapse. Moderate muslims often are not aware of the contradcitions they create when doing so. It all is one whole. If you do like you suggest, picking some parts, refusing others, you do not reformate Islam, but in fact create something completely new, which is not Islam anymore. Quran does not compare to the bible. If it does, then only to the older parts of the OT. It did not see various phases of evolution and developement, or even replacement (Jesus), like the bible. It only saw a phase of various political ambitions to instrumentalize it during the first three centuries. But this did not affect the structure of it, which I referred to just days ago as a "monocockpit", manufactured by one piece of material only: you cannot raplace a minor part of it when it is broken. you can only replace the complete cockpit cell.

Isn't that the truth!

http://www.jihadwatch.org/asay.gif

Of course you can. It has been done many times. New interpretations of the bible, new and old, has been carried out many times in the last 2000 years. There is no unified christian church toda if you pay just a little bit attention. But you are probably too busy blindly rambling on these boards about things I doubt you know the full meaning of. There are the copts, the greek orthodox, the catholics, the many versio ns protestants, the anglicans, the ethiopian christians etc. Many and diverse interpretations of the so-called holy words. This is a good sign of mankind being more smart than you seem willing to credit us for.

Now that might be because no one WANTS to. Fine, what ever the cause, there is nothing that prevents them except dogma. You cannot be a good christian either without rejection homosexuality. However, societies have figured out how to do that just the same. The books are just paper, it is the people that chose what to do with the words. And you are showing the exact same fundamentalist traits in your interpretation of the gospels and the quran that you seem to fear is the case with all the worlds muslims. You really start to tire me with these constant and unfounded religious attacks. I will discuss it with you no more.

You know, I'm just confused.

All the pope did is tell the truth. What's he apologizing for? :doh: :know:

Watch your tone.
And thank you very much for perfectly illustrating what is possible with the traditions deriving from the bible (if you only would have red carefully what I said you would have seen that I headed at the same direction), and why it was possible.
You are fighting shadows.

You are talking about institutions and dogmas only. Get your things better together next time before starting to balk at me, and at least try to understand what I said, your reply shows that you have not understand much of my posting. I wonder if you even have red it all, or stopped after the first sentence you did not lie.

At no time I felt you were discussing with me, or with others not sharing your partly incomplete, partialy contradictory views in the last days. You were balking at me, three times in as many days, if I counted it correctly. So check yourself in the mirror, Mr. Clever.