thanks god!!!
what does the dalai lama want in dr anyway???
His Sanctity???
this is a shame that we address spiritual leaders which such grandious titles. No wonder people believe blindly in them, as media and others address them as holiness and sanctities.
Beware..
no saints walk among us. read your bible!!!

For once, he isn't going to pass the collection plate.

Not enough cameras in the D.R., or Richard Geere is too busy to come down.

NYCDR, you said a mouthful. is it not ridiculous that in the year 2008 we still have "Sanctities", kings, princes, lords, and all that mush? it is this type of thinking that keeps us mired in backwardness, even though we have bluetooth headsets!

dreadlocks, LOL
thank you!!!

Chances are he is many times more pious than you guys, so why does it bother you if he is called his sanctity? At least his religion, unlike many others, does present a method for inner peace and not just moralizing & superstition. Spirituality per se isn't negative, just totally abused in much of the world. Personally I'd prefer a rash of Buddhist conversions in DR than some of the evangelical & similar faiths spreading there...

The question is, does anyone really need any religion to live a just life? What if we lived up to or exceeded the commonly accepted level of decency. A set of rites and a hiarchy of humans who are more spritualy evolved does not sound very progressive.

NYCDR, you said a mouthful. is it not ridiculous that in the year 2008 we still have "Sanctities", kings, princes, lords, and all that mush?-- and god? and the bible, please written on paper and you wipe your asses with paper.

oops a little extreme with the Bible as toilet paper, but Dolly Lame -a needs to go where people beleive in his cause, and Buddah Belly rubbing. his time would be wasted here this country beleives in one God or shuld I say in God we Trust which is printed on the back of a dollar bill

i wonder what all those chinos from la avenida mella got to say about this.

Written by: Manhattanite, 27 Aug 2008 3:49 PM
From: United States, New York City

There are quacks out there that hear the term its sanctity or god on earth and really believe or begin to idolize these individuals. Let's not forget how people handed their children in the trust of Priests (who some consider that have been called upon a special service and/or calling), and look at the mess the catholic church is in and all the people who have been hurt.
We need to believe but not idolize.
About the conversion of DR, please leave it be...lets not forget what happen to Iraq , Haiti (vodoo), Cuba (witchcraft, and/or vodoo), who have religious believes that have crippled or moved them backwards instead of forward.

Written by: BASTA, 27 Aug 2008 5:50 PM
From: Dominican Republic

My only comment to such a low class comment on the bible as toilet paper is...NO COMMENT!!!

Written by: Jander, 27 Aug 2008 6:32 PM
From: Dominican Republic
oops a little extreme with the Bible as toilet paper, but Dolly Lame -a needs to go where people beleive in his cause, and Buddah Belly rubbing. his time would be wasted here this country beleives in one God or shuld I say in God we Trust which is printed on the back of a dollar bill


Missed your point completely...care to elaborate...thanks

The Dali Lama is an insult to all tibetans who want freedom.

"Personally I'd prefer a rash of Buddhist conversions in DR than some of the evangelical & similar faiths spreading there..."

oooo

Everybody should be alarmed by the pace at which Moonies and redneck Nazarenes are converting DRs to mysterious US-based sects and cults.

But this rag-wearing "holy man" from Tibet is a fraud and millionaire hustler who rejoices with Bush and other US reactionaries as they wallow in over 1,000,000 dead bodies of Iraqi citizens who were completely innocent of US lies about WMDs and 9/11 complicity.

This "holy man" of Tibet has nothing much to say about the one-million person genocide in Iraq, except it's OK.

http://hawaii.indymedia.org/news/2003/09/3720_comment.php

"And the bible, please written on paper and you wipe your asses with paper," BASTA imparts his idea of practicality.

oooo

Frankly, there are number of things one can do with the bibles of both the Zionists and the Nazarenes other than wipe your asses.

What's more, there are other products on the market everywhere designed specifically for the function that BASTA mentions ... without much tact ... that better serve the purpose he contemplates.

Belial, we all understand Basta's point...its sad..but you also believe that we need religion?
Let us not forget what happens to all the countries that have adopted religion as the dictator of their life (or so they want the masses to believe). Those days are over THANK GOD!!! Es para atras que vamos!!! :(

NYCDR, on this subject you are a breath of fresh air. organised religion is the biggest hoax and racket ever imposed upon humanity. criminal types professing to guarantee you a pleasant afterlife, while they steal everything in the present life. blessed are the poor? how come the catholic church is so rich? hell, the money awards they paid out to the victims of pedophilia could run a small country for decades!

Consider also what has transpired in nations that renounce religion in favor of the various 'secular' ideologies. Religion doesn't have a monopoly on inciting idiocy. Yes many men do need some form of worldview/psychology package to help them grow. Now it is a sad fact many of the ones we have out there have forgotten the growth part, and maybe it really is time they start disappearing. That just means it is on us to shape the new ones and make sure they are imbued with reason. Religious activity is as inherent to mankind as speech, art, science, sport, etc...

Now I'm no expert on Buddhism but from what I've read and seen it is, on paper, closer to growth-promoting practice than the variants of Christianity that seem to spread most easily amongst the borderline literate. That the DL has money, or a few dubious political positions, doesn't negate that he promotes a positive. I know it's hip to hate on him, but does he even compare to the evil wrought by real politicians?

Whats the big deal ,?don't you know its Buddah's will that the dalai lama is exciled
Doesn't that religion preach that all things are pre destined..

Written by: dreadlocks, 28 Aug 2008 9:35 AM
From: United States

I agree with you.
the sad thing is that the usual person needs an idol of some kind to workship, the bible distiguishes between the fakes and what's real. I havent met a human who may be divine . I dont need a group of people to tell me how to behave and what to do with my life, but again some may need that kind of control due to ignorance.
Organized religion is a way of controlling the masses, specially women. Most of these religions are always telling women how to behave, how to dress, what to do ex:moppy clothing to make you out of this world. reality check, then get the fabric from heaven. The catholics are not the only ones with secret under the rugs.
Needless to say I dont believe in Organized Religion PERIOD!

Written by: Manhattanite, 28 Aug 2008 9:39 AM
From: United States, New York City

Manhattanite, I am all pro positive thinking!!! but full blown religion is not the way to go.
Lets take some of the arab countries that dont even allow their people to read worldly periodicals.
the term ignorance is a bliss comes to mind, but mainly you have generations of brains on sabbatical...no challenges, no growth...stone age comes to mind next.

Please read what I wrote to Dreadlocks.. everything in moderation please.

NYCRD, call me heathen if you like, and i will wear the label with pride. but when i am afraid to go into the mall because some religious fanatic might blow me up to secure his future joy, then i am not happy with the premise. and when some biblical passage tells me that "it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven, i guffaw unrelievedly. because, when the sunday morning homliy has been delivered, and i go into the parking lot, i see the reverend getting into the Cadillac. all religion has sought to do is to divide up the world and conquer it. if the best that catholicism can do is the conditions in Latin America, i'll take a pass.if i want to commune with whatever is my concept of God, i do not need any snake oil salesman to make the call; i know the number myself!! why do i need the intervention of some guy in a big, bizarre, hat?

Written by: dreadlocks, 28 Aug 2008 10:19 AM
From: United States

DREADLOCKS, LMAO....THANK YOU I NEEDED TO LAUGH MYSELF OUT LOUD!!!

NYCDR, i am like the baseball umpire "I CALLS THEM AS I SEES THEM"

:) :)

Written by: alejandro, 28 Aug 2008 9:57 AM
From: United States

Doesn't that religion preach that all things are pre destined..

Nope. That is some forms of Hinduism

Some widespread forms of Christianity also believe in predestination, notably Calvinism and Anglicans, and others.

Organized INSTITUTIONAL religions around today do often justify a lot of backwards beliefs and behaviors. Don't forget they have also been used to justify a lot of progress in society. We may not need over-institutional religions in the future but men do need organized systems of thought, philosophy, ethics, etc. I understand the hostility, but I'm more about moderation as NYCDR suggests. If learned, rational people toss spirituality aside we let the idiots continue to use it for wrong.

http://integralinstitute.org/?q=node/1

Manhattanite, are you giving us a link to a religious website with a mask of integral living?
Each one of us can do our part to help out and make the most of our world and our surroundings.
I hate to quote a movie but the best line in Gladiator is "what we do in life echos in eternity"

think and then DO

NYCDR take the link for what you will, though I don't see how anything there is masked. I put it up as an example of the Gladiator quote...there are thinking people out in the world of spirituality trying to do something about the confused and even dangerous state of religion at large . Like I said I agree with you we need to take a moderate eye to these things. I post only bcuz from my end it sounds like you and dread represent less moderation and more castigation...much deserved castigation, but again if that is the moderate thinking response to religion then we are in store for a whole lot of ugly.

i am not sure i would characterise it as " castigation", but my position on organised religion is unswerving. i find it to be a racket, plain and simple. and ,as my late mentor, DR john Henrik Clarke used to ask " why do you think african religions never caught on in america? because they did not have collection plates".

WOW.

Something me and dread agree on.

LOL good quote dread, and I would say accurate. Religion in Western civ and it's bastard children has a number of serious defects, not least of which has been the collection plate. There's also the fact they are mostly built on 'faith' and believing things on someone else's authority. You would hardly expect that the civs in which modern scientific process grew up would approach spirituality so naively, though if one looks into this question there are good answers fr why. I unfortunately don't yet know a whole lot about African religion, though I'm reading an interesting book about Akan philosophy and proverbs.

well , anthony, every journey starts with a single step.

tall to accomplish that for me? that is pretty basic stuff, if you ask me!

manhattanite, i find your isnights on this subject to be really well founded, and it appears that you have exposed your mind extensively to the subject. i am more a fundamentalist on this topic. my basic disagreement is that most organised religion asks me to belive things coming from some dude who claims that he communicates with God. yet, he never seems to accomplish this feat when anyone else is around to bear witness. God always seems to visit with him when nobody else is around, as if he is a hunchback who is embarrassed by his deformity! then , you get to pay for the benefits of this clandestine visit. no sir, i will commune with God on my basis. i am a reductionist. first, i give thanks for my existence, and the joys, and sometimes sorrows, i experience. then i beg for protection from the urge to violate my fellow man in any way.. ibeg for the urge to be charitable, and to treat my fellow man like i want him to treat me. why do i need guys in dresses and hats five stories

Free Tibet!!!

"Written by: buenoha, 29 Aug 2008 6:10 AM
From: Netherlands, Amsterdam
Free Tibet!!! "

1st step.....Ignor the Dali Lama!

Written by: Manhattanite, 28 Aug 2008 4:56 PM
From: United States, New York City
Thanks for the words. and Yes I believe that everything you do contributes to our world at large. We now have the option to see things without the mistisism gods, ghosts, gobblings etc.

Castigation?I post only bcuz from my end it sounds like you and dread represent less moderation and more castigation...much deserved castigation, but again if that is the moderate thinking response to religion then we are in store for a whole lot of ugly.
Castigation!
I believe just like dred that you can communicate with God w/out intermediaries...period.

Manhattanite, do you really believe that if we were to have NO religion we would have more perversity in the world?
I hate to disappoint you but we are already there!
Organized institutions have the same problems like the outside world but they are more hush hush....believe it.

Its a matter of ingrating values, being a parent to your kid, not allowing institutions, or tv to educate your children. Punishing for the right reasons and rewarding for the right reasons.
Finally, its about old school family values.
Period!

dread
my words exactly no intermediaries!!!! go straight to the source, its free, available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week....

the problem word is FREE. that is why the church is so forceful about denouncing those who do not attach themselves to a religion as heathens. they do not want guys getting salvation for free. they want their piece of the action. they are the mafia in dresses, wanting a piece of everything in the neighborhood. every hardened criminal "finds God " in jail. well, good for him. but then, he gets out, and sets up some storefront church. before you can blink, he is raking in the cash. why is it God loves felons so much that he visits with them after they shot six people in a robbery, yet he wont drop in on a guy like me who never hurt a fly?

Written by: dreadlocks, 29 Aug 2008 11:24 AM
From: United States


Whao, I will agree with part of your statement not all of it.
I've walked on my own most of my life. I could dare say he walks with me, I dont wait until I am down and out to pray to god. I say thank you to God whenever I get a sit on the train in the mornings on my way to work, in other words I am grateful in the Great, the not so great and the bad.
If you want God to drop in on you, its simple, ask him to manifest himself onto you and your life.
its sounds like gibberish,right. you got nothing to lose.
give it a try...who knows, you may prove me wrong!

no, no, no, NYCDR. you got me wrong. i am not saying i do not have constant contact with God. what i mean is that he never seems to just pop up out of nowhere beside me when i am sitting on the john!

:) :) :) :) :) :) :) :)

Written by: dreadlocks, 29 Aug 2008 12:16 PM
From: United States
THANKS!!!
MAN, YOU MAKE ME LAUGH...YOU MAKE MY DAY!!! YOU ARE A RIOT!!! I SWEAR!!!!
LAUGHING OUT LOUD....

glad you like it, and i am glad whenever i help someone pass a happy moment. laughter is next to Godliness ( or is it "cleanliness"?)

NYCDR in the big picture I totally agree as regards individual spirituality and individual internal realities. Where we disagree a bit is not that I think the world will be worse without religion, but that I don't see religion disappearing so we better aim to fix it. Some people will always need a communal outlet for spirituality, while still others will always need instruction and guidance to get in touch with what's inside, while still others will always feel a calling to teach and help those who need it. And on occasion stellar mystics appear with a spiritual connection so strong people cannot resist getting close and organizing around them. Now a lot of the existing institutions to serve people really are corrupt from top to bottom as you guys point out. Others have good intentions but have fallen behind modernity and failed to incorporate insights from psychology and science at large. So again my main point is that good, intelligent ppl need to get involved and fix this.

I had a good laugh. Religion is a touchy subject since WE all have been infected by the bug.

However, it baffles me when I see obviously "educated" and "rational' adults having a hard time debugging themselves.

They're scared to death of not believing in the god that we've been taught and believe that the spirit of God and the universe is outside of themselves.