Is Religion Pertinent to AA?

[sageb1]

Is religion outdated in post-modern Asian society?

Has substitution of secular ideologies (both political and apolitical) resulted in an ignorance that even secularism is a form of unorganized religion when a particular tenet is taken on faith i.e. a secular morphing of the ancient tenet to "love your neighbour" into the Christian "love your enemies" into the particular flavor of it in secular ideologies?

IMHO even avoiding deep thought on religion is a form of secularism, especially when once avoids thinking about it and behaves in a manner similar to when religionists are confronted with atheists and scientific materialists aka scientists and their groupies.

Therefore, religion is pertinent to AA, except that secularists like to pretend it isn't and the religionists vary from people who know everyone else is going to hell except them and some of us who know they are going to hell anyway.

And no, this aint any troll.

YMMV

[Yeahman]

What does any of that have to do with Asians?

[sageb1]

"All scientific knowledge is produced by the human brain. It is therefore only temporary limited knowledge. So it has only temporary utility and can be only temporarily fruitful. But the eternal truth of religion remains unknown to the scientists. To understand the truth one must emphasize that the traditional teaching is better than the modernized one." -- Yogi Chen in A Collection of Short Chenian Lectures in America II (http://www.yogichen.org/cw/cw30/bk051.html)

Religion and ideology has a lot to do with Asians because it was developed by and influenced Asians' moral codes since the Buddha, Confucius, and Mencius.

Even the CPP has tried to moralize against Falun Dafa, the Dalai Lama and Uighurs, as well as against the West.

So the religious roots of Asians are still prevalent, even in this post-modern era.

It is just that the socialists had taken the Buddha and God and deities out of the compulsory public education system.

However, psychology and Buddhism appear to go well together, considering the commentaries by Chogyam Trungpa and Freemantle to The Tibetan Book of the Dead state that the divinities mentioned in the text have both religious and psychological manifestations.

Please don't tell me Asians today are ignorant of ideologies, because even the patriarchal morals of free love still has a moral basis even in its more base of amoral raison d'etre.

I mean, even who a woman eventually takes as her lover is based on "chemistry", which is based on a complex set of social rules and some sort of inner moral code.

So, what is your religion, Yeahman?

[AngryABCGirl]

Asian American Christian Fellowships are HUGE on most college campuses with a sizable amount of Asians.

I know a lot of people who practice Buddhist traditions very faithfully too in US and of course Asia.

I say yes of course, but I think religion in Asia is framed, practiced, and should be understood in a very different manner than Judeo-Christian traditions.

[CBC guy]

Does the fact that I was raised in a Christian HK family in Canada mean Im less Asian than an atheist? Come on.

Even CCP party members are known to sneak a stick of incense in a Buddhist or Daoist temple from time to time. Churches and mosques, though are off-limits to CCP members as they are "foreign".

Anyhow people will believe what they want to believe. Christianity is huge in S Korea, Buddhism in Taiwan, and both in HK have a fair number of adherents (Buddhism outnubmers Christianity in HK I am sure) Also as ABC girl said there's a lot of Christian fellowships and stuff in Colleges across North America with plenty of Asians in those.

[sageb1]

Now if we can only out the new-agers.

People think I am new age when I mention Buddhism, but Pureland traditions outnumber the Zen traditions, especially considering that even the Dalai Lama follows in part in it.

Also, Amida Buddha may have the following associated Bodhisattvas, Mahasthamaprapta (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahasthamaprapta) (the chanting bodhisattva) aka Seishi Bosatsu (http://www.onmarkproductions.com/html/seishi.shtml) and Avalokiteshvara (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avalokitesvara) aka Guan Yin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guan_Yin) aka Kannon (http://www.onmarkproductions.com/html/kannon.shtml). So if a Chinese Buddhist honors Kuan Yin, she also honors Amida (http://www.onmarkproductions.com/html/amida.shtml). And in Japan, Amida (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amitabha) is associated with Amaterasu Omikami (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amaterasu), of which the Japanese Emperor supposedly is descended. This was probably done to get more people into the Amida cult since even Prince Shotoku (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_Shōtoku) recommended Amida to Jodo Shinshu (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jodo_Shinshu) founder, Shinran, in a dream.

[sageb1]

Here is something new: Nestorian Christianity influenced Asia (http://www.keikyo.com/).

Tho I feel that Pure Land is a syncretization of Zoroasterian, Greek pagan, and Buddhist beliefs centred in Gandhara in Afghanistan.

[Yeahman]

All this can be said of any people, not just Asians. Perhaps you wanted to argue that AA's should recognize the role of religion in their Asian tradition and renew their interest in it?

I thought my avatar would be a dead give away as to my religion. It's St. Andrew Kim.

[SunWuKong]

this thread would be much better if sageb1 was actually more coherent.

[sageb1]

I don't know.

I've never heard of Shin Buddhists founding an order, only discussion groups. But some of them helped to feed and clothe the poor after WW2.

After reading about him, I'd like to think the founder Shinran never wanted to make a name for himself, because of what he had learned by becoming associated with Honen.

When you see a friend get murdered for preaching a new dharma in an offensive manner, get your ass whupped by the government due to professional jealousy, and exiled to a far off province as a result of it all while your guru gets exiled to an island full of spiritually connected people then you'll gladly accept a Stated sanctioned secular life, complete with change of name, yet still function as a obscure religious leader. Why? Because samsara beats nirvana for practising what you preach.

Even when offered the opportunity to head a temple late in life, he refused.

Yet, for lesser men, the ego is sometimes so hard to curb.

So, because in these times ordinary people in the West have been inculcated in the public school system to fear any religious or spiritual feeling and to be ignorant of such things in general, the awakened may decide instead on a life of poverty and obscurity over a life seeking status and wealth.

Somewhere else, I saw a Buddhist website where the author suggested such-and-such is an enlightening being because of his or her works. In Shin tradition, it is more about ignorant and uncouth people try to be very ordinary and simplie; calling attention to one's good works is like bragging about one's merits.

If a founder of a Buddhist order, whose ordination is suspected to be materialized out of his imagination, was really deserving of his yellow robes, then his works will not declare this. It'd be shown by his humility when exposed to the light of public opinion.

I suppose that I talk like this because I am Japanese and of the Jodo Shinshu faith. For I'd rather be a nobody than be in the hell some celebrities are going through right now.

So, what I guess I am asking here in the OP, is:

Does religion, even if it was avoiding it, have an impact on your life and how you chose to behave?

As it stands right now, especially in light of certain websites whose mods do not appreciate honesty, sincerity and truth in an understanding manner, I don't ever want to make a name for myself, because there will always be people more addicted to ego than me.

Even having to admit to this makes me cringe because it might be taken the wrong way.

SunWuKong, what part do you not get of what I've said so far? If you would point out where I beat around the bush, then can you point them out?

As though I could be so humble as to apologize for expecting others to read between the lines like my mommy expects me to read her mind!

[Adaon]

Thanks for finally cutting to the chase.

No, it wasn't too deep for some of us.

You just never followed the simpler format of stating a point and then supporting it with whatever knowledge you might or might not have accumolated. You were rambling and going in all sorts of directions and lacking in the "coherency" that SWK was speaking of. Quit being a putz, be consistent, and cut to the chase. Crap. As you're one of the more "eccentric" posters on, it'll take some of us a bit to cut through the haze of your posts.

[/Rant]

That being said, here's the response to your oh-so-deep question.

Does religion, even if it was avoiding it, have an impact on your life and how you chose to behave?

Yes. It does.

Was that so hard? For crying out loud . . .

[Yeahman]

I think sageb1 is a cyborg. Part human and part bot that posts random sentences it finds on the web.

[phoenixlament]

Religion doesn't make you any more Asian than what you wear. I'm a Christian myself, and I get along fine with Atheist and Buddhist Asian brothaz as long as they don't impose their religious beliefs on me. And of course I will never impose my beliefs upon them.

[Yeahman]

Brothaz?
Am I just getting older or is the quality of the posts deteriorating?

[phoenixlament]

Brothaz?
Am I just getting older or is the quality of the posts deteriorating?


Well, you have "YW Mafia" listed as your description. So maybe you shouldn't complain ah..

[eos]

catholicism was part of my life for 9 years, not by choice. once i left grade school i felt the stranglehold loosen and i was FREE.

i'm an atheist. i respect other people's method of worship/religion. just don't try to talk to me about it or convert me unless you want to double over in excruciating pain.

[sageb1]

I think sageb1 is a cyborg. Part human and part bot that posts random sentences it finds on the web.

I think only feminists endorsing Haraway's cyborg manifesto (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donna_Haraway#A_Cyborg_Manifesto)
can be that random.

In response, I am going to spew some random musing on religious ecstasy, its similarity to being stoned, drunk, high or psychotic and its relationship to divine madness.


Being stoned is like being caught in religious ecstasy where one is in awe of the realization that we are just a tiny insignificant part of the cosmos, all the usual trials in life cannot remove that wondrous moment of awe found in that almost spiritual higher state of mind called "divine madness", and merrily laugh away all our trouble before that madness quickly fades and is forever forgotten when a tiny voice suddenly cries, "I'm hungry! Let's got eat!!"

Although our physical hunger could barely be sated while moved by such madness, that hunger represents the spiritual hunger that motivates the sublimation of the libido, which is the root of all human creation.

Yet it is only with unconditional love are we able to better appreciate this madness, whether its genesis is due to intoxicants or our physical condition, and to respect love's power to transform such madness into that sense of awe of the divine, lest we fall prey to fear and pervert our memory of the very first time we were transformed from mere human form into the state of being one with the Divine itself.

Thus is being at one with the Divine, be it through madness or religious ecstasy is part of the human condition.

[CBC guy]

BTW I am Christian but I don't force my beliefs on other people and others BETTER DAMN NOT try to enforce theirs on mine or I'll kick their ass. :wink: (Yeah not Christian thing to do I know but I'm not quite as "religious" as the rest of my family at this point in my life. Things might change though who knows)

EDIT: Woot 700th post! Can't believe I made it this far eh?

[sageb1]

For a commentary on Haraway's cyborg manifesto, Senft has a good one (http://www.echonyc.com/~janedoe/writing/manifesto.html).

Even though feminism, due to its socialist roots, rejects religion, I am not going to exclude feminists from my questions about what makes us who we are.

Given the rise of feminist paganism and the Goddess feminism movement, I agree with Haraway that with "woman" being a social construct much like "homosexual" and "youth", both movements are reactionary and are based on the hypothesis that in the roots of patriarchism are both the means of oppression of women and their ultimate liberation.

Since the social construct, "woman", arises out of the patriarchy, then feminism is actually rooted in a reaction to it but is in the end both symptom and solution, once a feminist transcends the duality of wo/man.

This is not to imply that cyborg feminism requires religion, but that post-modern fictions and myths are derived from science fiction which are stories based on extrapolations of scientific knowledge, and the stories that turn into cult classics, including animes, Final Fantasy and other online RPGs, and even Hello Kitty, reflect much of what Haraway discusses in her manifesto.

Thus, post-modern pop culture is inspired by various secular ideologies which are ultimately based on socialist revisionism that removed religion's influence on our collective histories, of which feminism was a large influence.

So instead of assuming madness is due to the gods, we assume the person is psychotic and need of help, due to our ignorance about religion which was never used to explain why the things ancient civilization did in the name of God. Rather, we learned that the Pyramids were built to satisfy the egoes of the Pharaohs and that the Bible is not a useful reference for factual information - though a few of us got censured by well-meaning Christians for implying that the Bible was "just another book of myths".

But then so is Inu Yasha!!

[tripostrophe]

I think it definitely can be for those who are religious. I'm struggling with it myself, but I do know some amazing Christian anti-racists [anti-sexists, anti-heterosexists...] who are able to reconcile the two and use both aspects of their identity to build on one another - it's amazing, and I hope to be able to do this myself someday.

[Adaon]

Brothaz?
Am I just getting older or is the quality of the posts deteriorating?

Both.

12-19-2007 08:23 AM - phoenixlament

Well, you have "YW Mafia" listed as your description. So maybe you shouldn't complain ah..


Slow your roll, new guy. The "YW Mafia" is custom status title that members obtain for a certain level and number of decent posts.

Don't flip out because someone noticed your slang. Sheesh. Kids these days.

****************

That being said, I'm a Christian Asian American. No, putting the Christian before the Asian American aspect does not mean I identify more with being a Christian than an Asian American. Both are aspects to my identity.

I personally don't go around in my day to day life, wearing my WWJD Bracelet/T-shirt/Headband, and holding a sign walking around Market Street telling everyone to repent. (I do that on the weekends [/Sarcasm])

I don't think brain-bashing someone over the head with my beliefs is an effective way of getting to the open up and understand my view point and gain interest to get to know me, and become more informed on my faith. If anything, yeah, if it comes up, I won't deny my faith. But I will neither choke someone out with a rosary, nor shove theology down someone's throat when the theology means nothing to them, but empty words from someone who honestly doesn't seem like they give a damn.

I've seen and experienced way too many times the overzealous attempts at "informing" (converting) of myself and the people around me, and it only causes me to roll my eyes and grumble as more and more stereotypes are perpetuated, and misinformation is spread in "the name of the Word".

Pfft. Talk is cheap. If you walk the walk, someone'll ask you eventually to talk the talk.

In the meantime, try not to trip and fall or to cause anyone else to trip and fall. (Figuratively, of course. If you do so literally, that's all on you.)

[/Rant]

Merry Christmas

[Faithless]

catholicism was part of my life for 9 years, not by choice. once i left grade school i felt the stranglehold loosen and i was FREE. ...
And you haven't had the yearning to return to that special feeling? Come on! Tony Blair's gone catholic. :frown:

[phoenixlament]

Slow your roll, new guy. The "YW Mafia" is custom status title that members obtain for a certain level and number of decent posts.

Don't flip out because someone noticed your slang. Sheesh. Kids these days.



Sorry, apologies for my ignorance. Beat me up, mafia bitch. Walk your walk :smile:

[Adaon]

Sorry, apologies for my ignorance. Beat me up, mafia bitch. Walk your walk :smile:

Where's my wizarding hat and robe?!