Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!mips!dimacs.rutgers.edu!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: jwtlai@watcgl.waterloo.edu (Jim W Lai) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: Checking your mind at the door Message-ID: Date: 1 Oct 90 00:45:10 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: University of Waterloo Lines: 16 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu [John Graves commented on some similarity between Jesus' concept of God as love and the messages of Moses, Buddha, Confuscius, and Sequoia. Neither I nor other people responding to this message were quite sure what John was saying, but it appeared to some that he was saying that those folks had proclaimed something equivalent to the Christian Gospel. --clh] Confucius withheld judgement on spiritual matters. Paraphrasing from memory, in regard to the religious practices of his time, he said that spirits should be respected, but kept at a distance. Confucianism is more a philosophy than a religion, as he avoids comment on spiritual matters. Confucius seems to me to also have been concerned with the virtues that rulers (or any superior, if generalized) should cultivate. This is hardly the egalitarianism promoted by "love thy neighbor". To claim him as a representative of God seems very inappropiate to me in this light.