Why Belief?

"In my mind, prayer...and God...are all that can rescue me. I am unimpressed with psychologists. What would you do?"Phat,Been gone so long I've forgotten how to do fancy quotes. Last Decemeber my fasting blood sugar was elevated, a sign of insulin resistance, or pre type II diabetes. I'll tell you what I did. I started checking books out of the library and reading.I learned about diet and exercise and began experimenting. I found I needed to walk a lot faster in order to get pulse and metabolism up and I now walk to work fast enough to sweat and thus get about half an hour or more exercise each day. I don't like exertion but I like how I feel after exerting.I reduced my indulging in Hagen Das Ice Cream, donuts, chips, bread and butter, cookies, and convenient foods that used refined chemicals from flour to all the unpronouncable chemicals,etc. I even did the Atkins carb restriction diet for a while. I have lost about 30 pounds and intend to lose at least 10 more. I've been reading T. Colin Campbell's THE CHINA STUDY and have decided to try a whole plant food diet for awhile.Type II diabetes is largely a disease that results from an "affluent" lifestyle that is at odds with what the body needs. How much have you studied this? What exercise options have you looked into? What diet changes have you tried? I love Hagen Das ice cream but not enough to go on to develop diabetes with all the health impacts it can have.If you want more book titles to read let me know. The thing is that I've already found with the changes I made that I feel a lot better. I'm enjoying being 30 pounds lighter and in better condition. As far as self discipline goes Albert Ellis who is diabetic and a therapist has some good approaches in his books on Rational Emotive Therapy.Diabetes is a condition that can be changed. Think of it as your body telling you it needs more exercise and better foods. The refined sugars, flours, etc are just overwelming it. Get the idea in your head that you need to become lean. Body fat has bad metabolic consequences for you.Try little changes, read, experiment, get out and move! This is really a condition you can change. My best to you on this.lfenABE: And have you studied glycemic index and glycemic load? Learning about how different foods effect blood sugar is very helpful.This message has been edited by lfen, 05-06-2005 12:00 PM

That is a fundamental point. On the other hand (OTOH) can anyone produce someone who believes in their religion because it's the wrong one?I could imagine someone espousing a religion because it's the wrong one, for example a rebelious adolescent who wanted to irritate their parents but that wouldn't be belief just an espousal for an effect.Or are you saying that each person believes the religion that best fits them? I think this may approach a fundamental human behaviour.lfen

I don't know if Brian has a problem with Middle Eastern Religions or not. My problem with them is that individual egos have experiences of some message and write it down as the supreme directive from the source and supreme law of the universe. These directives often take the form of "God told me to tell you that he has given me your house, city, land." or "God told me to tell you that you aren't worshipping right or using the right name and you had better stop and do as I tell you and give me sacrificial meat for God and a tenth of your income."
or "God told me that I'm right and you are ignorant heathen and not as good as me." Etc, and so forth. This leads to many of the problems we have seen in the Middle East, India, and Europe.I don't think Middle Eastern religions are the source of all the massacres and persecutions in history but they are a source of a significant number of them.Buddhism, which some fundamentalist here have characterized as inspired by demons, has had a much lower incidence of violence because the Buddha took responsiblity for his teachings and didn't attribute them to the source of the universe. This is true of Lao Tzu also. Hinduism falls somewhere in the middle.lfen

Dear Ex,As you noted at least the major world religions have a lot of agreement on ethics and morals. It does appear to me that in the story about Jericho for example the Bible does have God sanctioning wholesale slaughter. And this sanction seems to have been inherited by Christianity and Islam and Mormonism, and I don't know how many other small off shoots from these major religions. So there seems to be an implicit de facto sanction of atrocities and I think we have seen this down not just to the Middle East but also in Northern Ireland and the Balkans.Buddhism has a much better record in this record partly because there is no implicit sanction of slaughter as a valid religious response. When the Buddha taught compassion he didn't include burning at the stake to save a soul as a compassionate means of excercising love for a fellow sentient being and in fact violence of any kind was not condoned.lfen

That is why I used a comparative and I'll stand by it. I'm not claiming perfection just an significant improvement.There are a few sects especially in Japan that do take something from Buddhism and use the name but seem to have mostly thrown out most of Buddha's teachings. And that will happen with any religion given even a little amount of time.And when Chan Buddhism was brought to Japan for some reason it was taken up by the Samurai class. Blake wrote something along the lines of "this miracle will never cease. The priest promotes war and the soldier peace". I'm about to leave for work so don't have time to locate and copy the poem exactly.But no I wasn't claiming Buddhism had achieved total peace. Still Asoka was an amazing story. A King who had committed mass slaughter converting to Buddhism and then creating a kingdom of tolerance that anticipated the enlightenment philosophies of Mill and others.lfen

Hey! That's my premise!lfen

i'Ll aGrEe with this (I'm leaving the first letter uncapitalized in my posts, when I remember, in protest against the vindicative petty punctuation policy, even though I usually follow standard English in capitalization.} Religion is one form of human culture. I'm wondering if you meant the removal of religions role in government, or the attempt to remove it from the society? I mean many people remained Russian Orthodox in Russia for example. They may have been persecuted but religion did remain.The Communist Party in a way was a religion though a materialist atheistic religion.As I understand the thinking of the founding fathers of the US, the separation of church and state is to prevent one religious group from imposing on others who have different beliefs from theirs, whether atheist, or simply a different religion or even denomination of the same religion.Brian points to a few fringe Buddhists who have engaged in violence. The religion though has far less violence in it's history than do middle eastern religions and it's because it was designed differently.Judaism is a state religion and advocated killing as a way of dealing with dissent and to maintain order. This passed into Christianity under Constantine and later Islam. When Asoka converted to Buddhism he created an amazingly for the time tolerant and peaceful society although he had been a fierce warrior. Buddhism in a way also helped spare Europe further invasions from the Mongols. The reasons are complex but the fact that they adopted Buddhism certainly helped them become more peaceable. Buddhism achieved this without appeal to a supernatural Deity, though it did appeal to a number of concepts such as karma that appear to be supernatural.lfen

I think disagreeing with particulars isn't regarded with the same significances in Buddhism that it is in Christianity. There are different schools and traditions complete with disputes and rivalaries but the emphasis does tend to be more on practise and less on specific beliefs.I know some contemplative Christians, I think particularly Catholics, are engaged in positive dialogues with Buddhist and Hindus. I don't think this is particularly mainstream, conttemplative Christianity isn't mainstream, however I am happy to see a tolerant approach between sincere people.I myself keep plugging Bernadette Roberts books on this forum and she is a Catholic with a background as a nun in a contemplative tradition. I am deeply impressed by the extent of her awakening and the clarity with which she writes and she still maintains her Christian lineage.lfen

Oh, well, it wasn't really a policy. I should have said something like in support of Arach and brennakimi. It's appears moot now. It's something moose felt strongly about and I thought it was blown out of proportion as I don't think I even noticed the lack of capitalization until his post brought it to my attention. hmmm, I probably should go back in there and delete the reference now?lfen