It doesn't really explain what I believe ... but maybe the fact that I find it interesting/intriguing somewhat points to some of my struggles. Of course, while I find it intersting, Adam scoffed at it ~ maybe I can have a little more open conversation about it here. I guess what I find the most interesting is the description of the soul. I think the meaning of life being maturation has some level of applicability to Christianity... Just thought I'd throw it on here since it ties in with the theme.
http://www.galactanet.com/oneoff/theegg_mod.html
So I spent a long time and posted a really thoughtful comment, which blogger promptly erased.... I will try to recapture....
ReplyDeleteStrange and interesting.
There are some Christian themes in here. One that life is a journey of faith. 2nd that God exists and acts independent of time.
The post, however, is primarily of Buddhist thought. Though, even extreme for them in that I don't think they believe in a single created soul but rather bunches of souls all on their way to becoming god.
I didn't know that there were many overlaps in Buddhist and Christian thinking until I moved out here. My pastoral intern found his way back to Christianity through Zen Buddhism and sometimes sees them as not mutually exclusive. Another friend here found herself in continuous debates with Buddhists.
In many ways, they argued the same point with different vocabularies. Namely that life is a faith journey. We must quiet ourselves to hear God in the universe. Life is deep and beautiful. But, in the end, there are some distinguishing characteristics of Christian thought.
1. Christians believe that they cannot achieve perfection no matter how long they take. God is infinitely out of reach. It is in fact, the only religion that I know of that places this as its primary tenant. Perfection is not achieved. Relationship with God is on God's terms not ours.
2. God seeks us and desires to be in relationship with him and relationship with each other. In fact, the representation of God as trinity gets at the heart of God as a relationship and love is perfection. (Buddhists are on a quest of inner perfection which means limiting attachments with the world and living in harmony with the circle of life)