Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!wuarchive!cs.utexas.edu!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: davidh@tektronix.tek.com (David L Hatcher) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: Sorry folks, it's NOT all relative. Message-ID: Date: 28 Oct 90 08:32:39 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: Tektronix, Inc., Beaverton, OR. Lines: 63 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu In article gross@dg-rtp.dg.com (Gene Gross) writes: >In article daveh@tekcrl.labs.tek.com (David Hatcher) writes: >> And rather the Christian likes it or not, people all over the world >> who are not Christian are ALSO very much aware of the presence of God, >> AND living with in His Grace and Glory. So, yes, I agree with you in >> that many Christians may be put into a position where they have to >> rethink what they believe is and what is not truth. >> >> The Glories and Grace of God are boundless. Boundless has no bounds. >> And neither does God. I point to the saints and ordinary people of >> religions other than Christianity whom ALSO know God as proof of >> that point. >Okay, David, lets take a look at some of these other religions. Your listings of the various aspects of Hinduism and Buddhism are not from where I'd compare religions. I feel a more correct place to look is with in and into the actual awakening of the heart that the adherents of those spiritual paths experience. The experience of God living with in ones soul reaches way beyond any defination as defined by man. Which is what you gave. I'm much more interested in the religious experience of God as God Himself is manifested with in the soul of man as the place to examine and compare religious truths. It's looking at God in people from the exact opposite pole from which you presented in your text. To look at the outer definitions is not looking at God as God is known and experienced from the soul opened to God. Nor is it looking at the place where God becomes alive for a person, again, that being with in in his soul. So looking into the souls of the Hindu and Buddhist, what is their hearts experiencing as they open their souls to the Divine? Tell me about the love they know and experience. Or how about the compassion and humbleness they grow to know and manifest. How do these things become alive with in them as they deal with social interactions of the poor and suffering? What are their fruits? Tell me about their prayer, and what they are knowing and experiencing as they raise above their mental concepts, while in deep prayer, and join with God as God is to Himself. Tell me of the Glory that they know? Or of the Love. Or of the changes they go through because of what they have touched. Or even "what" they have touched in their prayers. Tell me about religion as experienced in God, not religion as defined by man. I present this question as asked by Thomas Merton in _Zen and the Birds of Appetite_. If a Christian mystic has an experience which can be phenomenologically compared with a Zen experience, does it matter that the Christian in fact believes he is personally united with God and the Zen-man interprets his experience as Sunyata or the Void being aware of itself? David Hatcher