Category: Buddhism
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Open Mind, Free Speech, Science, Religion
A friend sent me a link (https:\\unherd.com) to an interview featuring Iain McGilchrist (a psychiatrist, neuroscience researcher, philosopher and literary scholar). I found myself in agreement with much of what I was reading so, for once, instead of inflicting my own scribbles on you, here is a grouping of selected and edited extracts from what…
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My Religion
In my seventy-seventh year of life, I’m still asking myself what the word “God” means. Long ago, as a conservative evangelical minister, I felt sure I knew the answer, but no longer. Perhaps this is why I love the music of Gustav Mahler. The conductor, Bruno Walter, who was close to him, was once asked…
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“For All Beings”
Here, from Zenju Earthlyn Manuel, teacher and author, is a beautiful, meaningful, moving, timelessly relevant, “if only” vision of humanity at its very best. It’s also ‘religion’ at its very best. It comes from the ‘beating heart’ of Buddhism, but surely also from that of Christianity, and all other religions worthy of the name. It…
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A Juxtaposition
The Wordsworth poem reminds me that we are all made of ‘star dust’. We’re made of exactly the same atoms as everything else in the universe. These atoms of hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, carbon, calcium, phosphorus, sulphur, potassium, sodium, chlorine and magnesium were created millions and billions of years ago in the nuclear furnaces of massive,…
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“The Great Mystery”
“The Great Mystery” rightly says the also great physicist and thinker, Albert Einstein. But there are still too many people who imagine they alone know everything about it. That’s a hubristic folly, that can sometimes discount and even menace the rest of us. A lot more humility, width of receptiveness, and open-mindedness would better serve…
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The Non-Tribal Religion of the Future?
I stopped being a Christian minister forty years ago, and don’t now attend any church, but I’d gladly have listened to the late Bishop John Shelby Spong. And if I were to have my time over again, this is along the lines of what I’d want to say, not that it might be welcomed. Bishop…
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Heart on (heretical) Sleeve
After sharing some thoughts with a friend, I want to try to put into words what ‘religion’ means to me. It’ll make sense to some, though not perhaps to all. Joseph Campbell describes the “game of belief” that leads to a “divine seizure”, his use of the word ‘game’ (as in Wittgenstein’s philosophy) not meaning…
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Unconditional Love (i)
There was a time when I was a conservative evangelical minister, fervently believing in the complete historicity and literal factuality of the Gospels, and accepting therefore the historical, traditional, orthodox, Christian interpretation of them. I don’t regret that, because it means that I know about this way of seeing things – I’ve been there –…
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“God the Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth” ..
I’m continuing to ask myself, what is Christianity? A previous post saw it as being like the typical supermarket set of shelves, with many different options on offer. Let’s narrow things down, however, to a traditional, historical, generic outline of what Christianity has said it’s about. Let’s consider the 4th century CE Apostles’ Creed, which…
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A Credo and a Plea …
While contemplating my current series of posts on Genesis, I felt the need to remind myself, (and explain to any interested reader), where I’m coming from, and what is one key source to which I keep returning. Here’s an edited quote from the Prologue to Volume One of “The Masks of God” by Joseph Campbell.…
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