[Buddha-l] Re: Multi-cause vs single-cause

[Piya Tan]

Richard,

I was introduced to Buddha-L by Weng Fai couple of years back.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading "A Buddhist's Reflections on Religious
Conversion" and find your honesty and conviction very refreshing.

Thank you for sharing your wisdom.

Piya
 

"Richard P. Hayes" wrote:

> On Tue, 2005-03-15 at 14:28 -0500, Stanley J. Ziobro II wrote:
>
> > Do you, Joanna (and Richard), object to God talk per se or to certain
> > usages thereof?
>
> Speaking only for myself, I have no objection to any kind of talk,
> provided it ends when all the points have been made. The only sort of
> discussion that begins to strike me as fruitless is that in which one or
> more parties seem determined to get the last word and begin to repeat
> themselves.
>
> > It seems to me that the sort of God talk objected to (at least by
> > Richard) is that utilized by his beloved right-wing brothers and
> > sisters.
>
> Any sort of fundamentalism or dogmatism grates on my nerves. These days
> I am receiving e-mails from a forum of student socialists (since I
> agreed to be their faculty sponsor), and I find it just about the most
> irritating stuff I have ever read. Although I may be a little left of
> center (especially in a country such as the USA, which is, by
> international standards, pretty far right of center), I really cannot
> stomach left-wing sloganeering and triumphalism any more than I can
> stomach the same sort of rhetoric from the right. Moreover, I admire a
> number of commentators who are far enough to my right that I almost need
> a telescope to see them.
>
> On religious matters, I think quite a few readers of buddha-l would find
> that I am as ready to pounce on Buddhist blind faith as on any other
> flavor--probably more ready to pounce on Buddhist blind faith than any
> other flavor. (I am, after all, the author of a talk entitled "No faith,
> please, we're Buddhists," which is packaged with three other items in a
> thing called "A Buddhist's reflections on religious conversion," which
> can be downloaded for your delectation from
> http://www.unm.edu/~rhayes/conversion.pdf )
>
> > But what of God talk that is concerned with perceptions of reality,
> > and the like?
>
> There are few people in the world whom I admire as much as Swami
> Vivekananda and George Fox. It is difficult to read a paragraph by
> either one of them that does not contain several references to God, and
> it never bothers me in the least. I also love reading Saint Augustine,
> the desert fathers, and such poets as Kabir and Rumi. And, as you
> probably know, I very much admire Jim Wallis. Intelligence and sincerity
> in God-talk, or any other kind of talk, is always welcome here. But some
> discourse, even here on buddha-l, does fall a little short on both those
> virtues, and one does occasionally sense a certain amount of
> poseurishness and obsessiveness.
>
> > I'd hate to think the same sort of bigotry of which the right-wing God
> > talkers are accused is being transposed and manifesting itself here.
>
> So far I have not seen any evidence of that sort of bigotry here, but if
> it does manifest, be sure it will earn the author thereof the right to
> be moderated and to have at least some messages rejected by our team of
> keen-sighted but fair-minded moderators.
>
> --
> Richard Hayes
> Department of Philosophy
> University of New Mexico
>
> _______________________________________________
> buddha-l mailing list
> buddha-l at mailman.swcp.com
> http://mailman.swcp.com/mailman/listinfo/buddha-l