Murdock, Mark (Mark.Murdock@Unisys.Com)
Fri, 12 Dec 1997 00:08:37 +0100
Ken,
For the record, I am not here proseltyzing for any church or the bible.
I did not start out with really anything more than most people did, I
believe, when I picked up Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance many
years ago.
This book, ZMM, pointed me into new directions, my own personal
Copernican Revolution. Perhaps my ideas are not germaine to this site,
I don't know just yet. I appreciate your comments and believe I
understand them.
I too was railing against the bible and religion for most of my life. I
believe I now have come to a more balanced, middle of the road view.
Yes, the historical accounts of death and evil are terrible. Men do
terrible things and not just in the name of religion. Intellectuals
have also done their share of slaughter. But I am not trying to one-up
evils here. What I would like to say is that the good that religion has
brought, the good that studying the bible, or meeting as a community, or
praying -- each small act of goodness from a man forgiving his neighbor,
to another giving freely to another -- these deeds are never recorded by
history and documented in high school textbooks. I am also not foolish
enough to attribute all good to religion either. It is our nature! But
I do look for the positive side of the ledger now, whereas I did not
before, that's all. In the end, we are to blame to hurting one another,
not religion or some political philosophy.
> If you conceive of God as the idea of Truth and Good then we first
> have
> to define what Truth and Good is. I see much discussion on the Squad
> about
> Truth and Good. Truth and Good are assumed to be the same thing but it
> seems to me that this does not necessarily follow. Truth can also be
> bad as
> well as good. What do we mean by good?
>
May I make a suggestion? Zen and the Art of Motocycle Maintenance does
a fairly good job of differentiating these two. I have to reread the
book myself every six months or so. Might you consider rereading Zen
then e-mailing me with your comments?
Thanks for your thoughts,
M.
> --
> post message - mailto:lilasqd@hkg.com
> unsubscribe/queries - mailto:diana@asiantravel.com
> homepage - http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/4670
>
>
>
-- post message - mailto:lilasqd@hkg.com unsubscribe/queries - mailto:diana@asiantravel.com homepage - http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/4670
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.0b3 on Thu May 13 1999 - 16:42:26 CEST