Re: A profound disturbance found in Yak butter.

At 09:15 AM 5/27/2006, glennmorton@entouch.net wrote:

>The questions I see are these:
>
>1. Does belief itself justify ones religious duties and obligations?

@ Not if one is irrational.

>2. Does belief itself make the religion metaphysically true?

@ Only between the ears of those who have
rejected the law of non-contradiction.

>3. How does one recognize when ones religion has
>become pathological? (I can honestly say that I
>found the Tibetan culture pathological)

@ "..has become" ?? Replace that with the word, "is".

>4. Can we really say all religions are equal
>when some believe yak butter pleases God and we
>believe that the sacrifice of a God-man is what pleased God?

@ "All" religions? There are only two religions
when boiled down to their essence.

>5. Can a modern Naxi who knows better than
>believe that her ancestor was descended from 9
>gods claim that her religion doesn't teach
>science but teaches the true theology????

@ Yes. Those who embrace the man-centered
religion suffer from cognitive dissonance (the
mental confusion that results from holding polar
opposite ideas, beliefs, and attitudes simultaneously)

>6. Can a Naxi or Tibetan claim that the ancient
>religious world view was not to be taken
>literally but metaphorically and therefore it is
>intellectually OK to beleive what they do? (not
>that many today take it non-literally)

@ See above.

>7. How does one determine religious truth when
>faced with what I saw and have seen in these places?

@ Easy. What you described is (one of the
thousands of variations of) the man-centered religion -legalism- in action.

All adherents to the pagan religion believe that
they must do things to placate and/or earn the
favor of their god(s). Their focus is on what
they can do FOR their god(s). It is never
"finished" until the day they die (or can
bribe/purchase their way out of [fill in the blank]).

In the God-centered religion (true Christianity),
God's people (the invisible church) focus on what
He has already done for them. "It is finished".

>8. How did the West come to think of this
>Tibetan religion as being filled with such deep
>wisdom, when what I saw was not so wise (at least in my opinion) ....

@ How? Pagans (in the visible church) haven't
been given to understand that "faith" means
"trust" and "wisdom" means "Christ".

>9. And drawing this back to the issue dear to my
>heart, how can we say the Genesis doesn't teach
>any historical or scientific truth but only
>teaches theological truth, when my dear Buddhist
>friends in Tibet would say that we are
>theologically deficient because we are not
>providing God with yak butter and service and
>because we don't spin the prayer wheels, which represent the cycles of life?

@ See # 7 above.

>How do we tell them our "theological truth" is
>the ˜real truth" when we don't even believe in
>re-incarnation (which if it is the truth, we are
>sadly and sorely wrong). In other words, without
>setting up a tautology where a priori,
>Christianity is declared true and made the
>standard by which all other theologies are
>judged, demonstrate that the theology of
>creation (or any part of Christian theology) is
>actually better and more true than Tibetan Buddhism.

@ There are only two "theologies". Light and
darkness (see above). The darkness can't
comprehend the Light. When the blind attempt to
lead the blind, they will both fall into the ditch.

>In my mind, to do what I ask is impossible and
>that is why Genesis, in order to be true, MUST
>teach something real about nature. To divorce it
>from reality makes it no more real than yak butter.

@ You won't be so confused once you become able
to see that there are only two religions. It is
immaterial to "the truth" what various and sundry
beliefs (like reincarnation) are held by pagans
(who are easily identifiable by what their main focus is on).

~ Janice
Received on Sun May 28 10:53:15 2006