This might interest some of you (if you enough spare time for browsing websites!). The Huffington Post now has a Religion section. It's new today, so I don't know how it will develop:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/religion

Interesting . . . and, of course, we know which way it will lean at Huffington. There's Jim Wallis, of course, and, from the Catholic side, Sr. Joan Chittister. These are good people, to be sure, but they lean hard-left. And there's Deepak Chopra, ever-ready to get in his pot-shots at Christianity:

quote:

All religions are founded on a deep spiritual experience of unity consciousness where there was complete union between the personal and universal. Unfortunately, many times the followers of religion, instead of understanding the religious experience and seeking it for themselves ended up merely worshiping the founder of the religion. . .

I like our Founder and think it's OK to worship Him.

From Jim Wallis' "The Great Recession: A Spiritual Crisis":

quote:

Idolatry means that something has taken the place of God. The market can be good thing and even necessary; but it now commands too much, claims ultimate significance, controls too much space in our lives, and has gone far beyond its proper limits.

One thing I find about the left is that they tend to be superb psychological projectionists. Everyone (except those on the dole) needs to make a living. Those who equate someone's passion for making a living as "greed" tend to pooh-pooh the free market. And yet it is the left (socialists) who fixate on what everyone is making. A good capitalist keeps to himself and does what he can for his or her family and doesn't begrudge someone else doing the same. But a socialist is obsessed with what everyone else is making.

Business is a bit down for most people right now, including myself. And rather than having a spiritual crisis, such times are a reminder that, no matter one's religious persuasion, there is more to life than just money. Most people in the free market (and those who aren't busy belittling, misrepresenting, or demonizing the free market) already know this. They work to live. They don't generally make an idol of the free market. But that is often how those on the left see it. Again, I do think those on the left tend to be the world's biggest psychological projectionists, sometimes a thousand watts of it.

One of the most honorable things a person can do is to take care of him or herself and his or her family. That requires work and this work is most productive and rewarding in a free market. Wallis seems particular ignorant to how the free market works:

quote:

It is the Market now that now seems to have all the godlike qualities--all-knowing, all-present, all-powerful, even eternal--unable to be resisted or even questioned. Performing necessary roles and providing important goods and services are not the same things as commanding ultimate allegiance.

The free market is effective precisely because it is not a monolithic thing. You could say it has an emergent intelligence that arises from the actions of millions of people all making free choices based on their circumstances and on the price of things. It is the Keynesian, centrally-controlled economy (which are always failures compared to free market economies) that aims for godlike qualities, that tries to be all-powerful, and longs to remove resistance to it and the ability to question it.

And, by the way, the economic recession is not the result of a spiritual crisis. It is the result of disastrous and ill-conceived leftist Keynesian command-control economics. We are now experiencing Jimmy Carter II. My spirit is just fine, thank you. And my wallet would be a heck of a lot better if neophytes weren't running the government.

quote:

Originally posted by Phil:
of course, we know which way it will lean at Huffington.

As might have been expected, the Huffington Post religion section has turned into an exercise in throwing the Christians to the lions.

I did find a couple of interesting articles, though, that are relevant to that book I was reading, Without Buddha I Could Not Be a Christian.

Apparently the new trend is to subscribe to more than one religion.

"We're going to yoga and taking Catholic communion. We're studying Zen meditation and keeping kosher. We're reading up on Sufism and believing in reincarnation. Americans are mixing religions." http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...-chang_b_509998.html

"Eve, 21, an unemployed designer, goes to several churches and attends Buddhist meditation every Thursday night, but she isn't religious, she says." http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...igious_b_509871.html