h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Christianity promises eternal life in communion with the Godhead.
Buddhism promises complete annihilation of the self – the theological opposite; ie, one way of describing Hell!

Not sure why you're talking Buddhism with me, TowelSurfer - I'm a Quaker! Quakers are taught to see the Light within each of us, and maybe I should be a little more relaxed with you. I will explain. I was brought up as a Christian Scientist and had it force fed to me. So I find what I see as religious intolerance pushes my hot buttons.

I think that we are all part of the divine - Christian and non-Christian. We are pieces of the mirror and as such we reflect each other.

I like the story of the happy dog who wandered into the house of 1000 mirrors. What it saw was 1000 happy looking dogs looking back at him. He left saying what a great place it was and it would go back there.

A second, less happy dog went into the same place. It went inside and saw 1000 rather unfriendly looking dogs. It growled at them and was horrified to see them all growling back. This one left saying what an unfriendly place it was.

Heaven or Hell. Our own choice.

Is there anywhere you think God is not, TowelSurfer?

I assume the Buddhist thing came out of the fact you're interested in the teachings, as well as being a Christian. I've been interested in finding out about Buddhism (Zen anyway) lately too, but don't know much about it really.

Since I have started from a point of ignorance, I may as well carry on ... does being a Sufi involve spinning round and round until you're dizzy and, if you're lucky, enlightened? Or is that something else entirely?

Hi Mardi Gra

This thread came about because Towel Surfer put something into Peer Review about Theology and simply talked about Christianity, refusing to concede that Theology could refer to anything other than Christianity. Got quite hot under the collar.

I'll reply in more depth when I get back from work. Sufis do whirl as a spiritual practice, yes.

Hi again, Mardi Gra!

To give you a flavour of Sufism, it might be helpful to describe a visit to the Sufi Centre I used to go to.

We would start off with a hour's Sufi dancing, which was done usually in a circle with someone in the middle to teach the words and the steps. The words are usually simple phrases or verses taken from spiritual traditions. They can be in English, Arabic, Latin, Aramaic, Hebrew (Aramaic and Hebrew can be reasonably difficult to pronounce), Greek, Russian, American Indian tongues, etc. The dances are usually reasonably simple and can involve movement, so that you progress round the circle, meeting different partners. When you do this, you are not dancing with that person, you are dancing with the divine. Each person is an aspect of the divine.

The second part of the evening is an hour's class. We would often attune to the energy of a spiritual master, eg Buddha, Jesus, Krishna, one of the saints or some other person. Interesting how few females there are. There would be a number of classes running at the same time.

Then we would gather together for another hour of lecture/breathing practice, etc and would finish with whirling. After that there would be a shared meal, where everyone brings something to share.

Well, there's a taster.