living endlessly in the past!

Sorry to tell you this but the old ways ,ancient scriptures and religious philosophies no longer provide  us with solutions to complex problems which we confront today, each second of life we must find the creativity and intelligence to solve global environmental and social problems  in order to assure our survival and well being!   History shows us that Religion is responsible for the majority of suffering, bloodshed, illusion, manipulation, war, horror, and hell on earth!         Shakty

Re: living endlessly in the past!

Dude I so Agree the past is gone the future is here we need to deal with our  problems we got going on now : )

Re: living endlessly in the past!

If you have seen my pods & blogging you know I tout Interfaith Religions, and at the same time I absolutely agree with you both - Religion is done, past, & we must move on.

I am a member of a progressive Christian church, but ONLY b/c the minister strongly reaches out to those on the fringe & is consistently speaking of the Winds of Change in a positive way from the pulpit. And this church happens to be central-city-located & is daily serving the homeless in numerous ways.

And I support those religions that are growing wide, bonding with traditions outside their own: Western Sufism, Universalists, & Unitarian churches, and the enormous work of the Jerusalem Peacemakers, who btw are a bonded group of Jewish, Bedouins/Druz/Sufis, Christians, Buddhists…, united towards peace.

I see the Interfaith groups as Transition-Bridges for those unable to leap into the All-Nothingness that is already here for many.  I think that the bridges (churches-in-transition) between the past & future should be respected for their efforts to nurture change within the church & provide comfort while challenging those who are hanging onto ghosts of the past.

I can not give myself a religious lable any more, although I lean strongly towards essential Buddhism. But I can support those who are doing good work in embracing all.

Re: living endlessly in the past!

Are you sure you're sorry, Shakty?  Or is this sort of thing what you live for?  It's really rather trendy as well. 

~Ww

Re: living endlessly in the past!

Ick.  So much I could say here… let's say you should read some Joseph Campbell.  He shows pretty clearly what the true purpose of religion is.

A point could be made that old mythologies no longer accurately reflect the prevailing archetypal systems, and that a new mythology needs to be developed.  You will note, however, that much of New Age has extremely little in common with the Eastern religions it claims to represent.  New mythologies are popping up, and in generally non-pathological form, in that they do not attempt to conquer or acquire power.

“History shows us that Religion is responsible for the majority of suffering, bloodshed, illusion, manipulation, war, horror, and hell on earth!”

No it doesn't.  If you did any research, you would find that this is true only of those few religions that have become, or attempted to become, monolithic power structures: Christianity, Islam, and occasionally Judaism.*  (I'd include Scientology on this list, but they can't even make up their minds whether they're a religion or just a really scary bunch of people.)  To be precise, they became pathological religions by attempting to force their way into politics.  Religious wars are almost universally political wars.  In other words, politics masquerading as religion, not religion itself, causes all the above problems.

* The Jews have actually been really good for the past several thousand years, despite frequent sensationalist claims to the contrary.  The only exception, possibly, is the whole Israel/Palestine mess, but that's not even a religious so much as a political issue.