Re: virus: More tangents on religion, etc. (prev. Demon Thread)
James T. Martin (martinj@theriver.com)
Sat, 27 Apr 1996 16:06:37 -0700
At 06:14 AM 4/27/96 -0700, you wrote:
*** Marc Connolly wrote:
>I would say that Eastern religions offer the most efficient memes for
>replication and are less chaotic from a memetic standpoint.
>The Eastern philosophies (Buddism,Taoism,Hinduism) are vague (to say
>the least) but if you read stuff by Alan Watts he boils all things down
>to a basic yearning all people are affected by.
>He wrote in BECOME WHAT YOU ARE, "Is it too impossible to admit that
>all our well-laid traps for happiness are just so many ways of kidding
>ourselves that by meditation,psychoanalysis,Dianetics,raja yoga,Zen
>Buddism, or mental science , we are somehow going to save ourselves
>from that final plop into nothing?" I guess facing nothingness leads to
>the utter futility of everything. No rules, just face the fact that you
>are a shooting star in terms of existance and thats all.
> Biblical approaches require a blind belief in supernatural events and
>repititous analysis of current and past world events all pointing to
>the end of the world. Evangelical Christians, Baptists, Catholics and
>Islamic, Muslim, Jewish followers all use the same historical figures
>in different contexts. (I wonder how many Evangelicals know how close
>Islam is to their beliefs ) As science and technology permeate human
>populations I think Taoism has potential for perpetuation in that it is
>atheistic and paradoxical in that the more rules and conventions you
>tie to it the further you stray from your unavoidable ride into
>oblivion. Easy and efficient to perpetuate. For me, studying
>evolutionary science doesn't prevent me from reading Taoist stuff but
>it certainly has closed my mind to all others.
>
>Marc Connolly
>
>
*** James Martin was inspired to acknowledge and reply:
Thanks Marc, that contribution is erudite and succinct and, I hope,
well received. My feeble attempt to bring the Tao and Eastern
philosophy to the table was not well received. I cannot agree more
stongly with your last sentence.
------------------------------------------------------------
|| Come ride The River ------- http://www.theriver.com/ ||
------------------------------------------------------------