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

If I'm good will Sants bring me some nice presents

You all are not fooling me. Karen Carpenter is really dead and never coming back.

Well .. I'm back .. why shouldn't Jesus, son of Mary?

His taking his bloody time, I think we have been stood up.

But... isn't the anticipation deliscious..... and, its so exciting, I mean... who will win the race of the second coming?; nighthoover or Jesus?

Typical diety promises an eternity of bliss and two thousand years later hasn't even bothered texting to say he'll be late getting back -I think he is going behind our backs with another species probably promising the Vogons an endless supply of crabs to smash and an Eistedford

I did post a witty reply, but i thought better of it and it's deleted!

He did come back, but he forgot something and left again.

I always thought Isaiah amusing and instructive, those cyclothymic mood swings between the heights of elation and the depths of despair.

I've been readying myself for six years now - I have sore legs

This theology stuff is awfully confusing don't Quistians believe their god is everywhere and Jesus is part of their god - so how can he come back if he is already here - I'll stick to simple stuff like quantum mechanics.

Meanwhile, its not for nothing that Gotama Buddha is considered a saint by both tbe Roman Catholics and the Greek Orthodox Church, despite the fact that he lived about five centuries before Jesus.

His advocacy of "the middle way" is, I'm quite sure, among the reasons for that.

Yes it would seem many former Christians also embrace the middle way. You can practice zen meditation as part of your prayer, and not go against any of your Christian teachings.

Or better still maybe some would say; you could practice zen meditation and try and forget about your Christian teachings.

As a buddhist I would say that a believe system that claims an all powerful all seeing being takes an interest in ones mundane life and promises an eternity of bliss in exchange for believing in them is not condusive with the humility needed for spiritual development.

There is something to that point on humility, Tucuxii.

Taking it from my own syncretic point of view, I was very taken by the point that the interpretation of 'the light of sin' from the Tibetan Buddhist mass for the dead and dying is completely consistent with that of Christianity.

The cathartic process of 'enlightenment' whether it was that of Gotama Buddha, or that of Saul of Tarsus, is cause for humility.

It can cause humility to see pictures of the Hubble.
we are just a tiny tiny bit of chemistry that last almost nothing...

“Recognize that the very molecules that make up your body, the atoms that construct the molecules, are traceable to the crucibles that were once the centers of high mass stars that exploded their chemically rich guts into the galaxy, enriching pristine gas clouds with the chemistry of life. So that we are all connected to each other biologically, to the earth chemically and to the rest of the universe atomically. That’s kinda cool! That makes me smile and I actually feel quite large at the end of that. It’s not that we are better than the universe, we are part of the universe. We are in the universe and the universe is in us.”
― Neil deGrasse Tyson

BG,

Those words sounds like poetry

and... to think... I'd been lead to believe I was made of puppy dog tails

I've been reading _The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying_ by Sogyal Rinpoche, a complete update (for Western ears/eyes) of the Book of the Dead and I find it very much in accord with my Quaker belief system, which is Christian but not orthodox. There are several Tibetans on staff here, so I have the benefit of being able to discuss some of the basic concepts with them.