Nice car, got the year before that one sitting just outside the window waiting to be restored of course it belongs to a freind, I'm a 63 chevy impala kind of guy who says there is no god ??

Thanks Yubba. She is my personal transport to another time and place.

63 Impala. Iconic Chevy of the era.

My thoughts exactly.

Spirituality makes you free, religion restricts it into pre defined boundaries, basically abusing spirituality for its own personal gain, power, money etc..

I like bacon.

What you call restricting to predefined boundaries others might call a path to enlightenment. Who is right?

Anyone who calls that by himself and not by being told by ''holymen''.
And those that do not force those boundries on others.

Okay, so to be straight, you reject all religious doctrine on the grounds that it is religious doctrine? So a man that worships a rock as part of a spur-of-the-moment spiritual enlightenment is a genuine and harmless spiritualist, but as soon as he writes it down as a set of practices to share with others he is an oppressor of his fellow man. That doesn't make sense to me.

.. and By who's standards do you make that determination? What makes those standards any different from others?

Sorry, just partially completing an old thought i've had for many years. :haha:

People tell other people all kinds of things all the time. You don't have to listen, you don't have to heed and you darn sure don't have to abide by a "holymans" orders and still remain a every bit as Christian in the eyes of God as any Sky Pilot, more even.

As long as he don't FORCES it upon others. If he writes it and spreads it around by sticking fliers on window wippers it's allright. Whoever finds it decides for himself if he agrees with it.
Then there's that question thats more down the road. If whoever wrote those boundries rewrites it and some of the followers don't agree with it, they're not forced to follow the new rules and can leave on their own accord without fear of reprisals.

"Reprisals" is kind of vague (excommunication is a form of reprisal for example) but aside from that you're pretty much describing the Protestant religion which has over 30,000 sects last I checked.

As I already declared myself, I'm an atheist and I shun the roman chatolic church, of which I was once a part of.

But I don't steal because I know how hard it is to achieve/afford something and then have it taken away by a punk.
I don't kill because one has only one chance on this world and no-one should take that away.
I have respect for my parents because, even if I was an ''accident'' they went over the top to get me to this point alive, healthy and educated. My mom had to drop out from medical school so she could earn enough to take good care of me. And I intend to be rich since I will give them back a Euro for every cent they spent.

It's emphaty that gives me my moral compass. A trait that I usually don't notice with the local ''village saints''. And a trait that I didn't get in sunday school

Can I have a fried egg with that??

HunterICX

http://www.usashaolintemple.org/user...neng_small.jpg

So much ^ for religious dogma, holy scripture, etc etc.

If you do not know what the paitning is about, google for "Hui Neng".

Our thinking is limited to the ways our brain allow us to think. We do not perceive a "real" reality, because we are not equipped with the means to accompish that and are too much interwoven with the object of our perceptions - all reality is just our brain's interpretation inside our heads. But we take the sensory input from our eyes and ears and put it into categories - categories that WE have formed up and invented. And then we cannot escape these categories anymore. This is what all religions and all philosphy - all thinking - cannot escape. It leads all religions and all philosophy into vicious circles where they sooner or later turn against themselves - necessarily.

And that is what that painting is about. It shows Hui Neng after he gained enlightenment. The first thing he did was running into the monastery's library and destroying all written scripture he could find there. Because its all just bits of paper, leading you wrong, always, no matter what it says.

That's what the painting is about.

We all must get found by the one koan in our life that hits us almost like a jumpkick right into the face. And when it has found us, then we must deal with it. Somehow. It's the one question in our lives that is more important and overwhelming than any other there is. And for everybody, it might be a different one. The risk is total, utmost dispair - the chance is utmost freedom. Not shortcuts, no refunds.

Any answer is wasted, if you have not asked the right question before.

Film of the moment: BLOW UP, by Michelangelo Antonioni. Special attention to be payed to that tennis match. ;)