(This is the shortened version, believe it or not-I’ve sent you an email with a longer version which has more personal stuff and a postscript).

But there was no ridicule-if you saw some I’m sorry but none was intended. Critical and sceptical yes, but thats because I apply the same level, if not more, of criticism and sceptism to my own beliefs.

However I may have been strident and critical of christianity in my comments, because I have been recently immersed in an environment which confronts me the damages down in its name.

I suppose my ramblings come down to two points.

-Can you rescue christ out of christianity, untainted? I’m not so sure that this is possible. To get all biblical, I can’t seperate the wheat from the chaff in this instance as it all looks like chaff to me. Maybe a small handful of wheat grains, but not enough to make it worthwhile to spend all that time and energy seperating them up. Perhaps you and others can find more wheat, maybe enough to make some bread out of it-but not me right now.

-Secondly, I feel concern that even trying to do so, somehow legitimises and enables the nastier aspects. This is one of the points where I have to say I agree with Richard Dawkins.

As to other traditions-quite frankly you’re right and I’ve accepted that for years. Buddhism has slightly more aspects that are salvagable , I feel but theres a lot of dross that surrounds it and again even abuses committed in its name. However I accept only those tenets which survive criticism(at a level probably a thousand times more critical and sceptical then I was in my comments above re: christianity).

Finally I value philosophy culture and scientific knowledge above wisdom from the divine because I see the benefits. It is because of the philosophical and cultural advances of the enlightenment that we can have this debate and not have to follow an orthodox belief because the King says everyone has to.

But I suppose in the spirtual mystical sense you are talking about there is the sense that everything collapses and religious distinctions disappear. So I will leave you with a triad of quotes from the Buddha

“However many holy words you read, however many you speak, what good will they do you if you do not act on upon them?”

“In the sky, there is no distinction of east and west; people create distinctions out of their own minds and then beleive them to be true.”

“It is better to travel well than to arrive.”
Buddha

Yours Obstinately and in Love,

Ruaidhrí

I am sure the fact that I am willing to recognize some validity and beauty in Christianity is what is really getting to you. If I decided to write about nothing but Hindu philosophy, you wouldn’t know it like you know the oppressive Catholic bastion that is your country, so it wouldn’t be as easy to throw stones. Certainly, I know myself that it is easy to shop for other traditions because the books that describe them do not tell you about their negative manifestations in their native cultures.

I am going to quote another blog reader, Gartenfische: “Christ is my path; I often have disagreements with Christianity.” Over and over I have said that I am still full of questions, joyfully pulling wisdom from different traditions. Just recently, I am discovering that Christ is one of those paths. Recognizing the beauty of his message and the legacy that he has left that has reached us through the mystics is not an automatic endorsement of everyone who used Jesus’s name to propagate their own agendas.

You sling many arrows here, my friend, but I’ll just respond to one last thing: interesting that you value “culture, philosophy, and scientific knowledge” above all of the wisdom gained by communion with the Divine. How many hours could we spend thinking about the ills of the world that have sprung from these great secular sources?

If every entity that was touched by scandal and human frailty was discarded as rotten to the core, we would still be sitting in caves somewhere I should think.

In a pub or in a cave, I’d still share a bottle of wine with you though while we make sense of this crazy world. Thanks for being the most obstinate person I have ever had the opportunity to call a friend.

Your modern consciousness does mean you are wiser then millenia of saints, mystics and prophets. You have the benefit of hundreds of years of cultural, philosophical, and scientific knowledge and wisdom which was not available to them. You start of with an advantage they never had. Modern thought, especially since and because of the enlightenment, is much better then any insight a hermit sitting in a lice and plague infested hut. We get to choose the best and weed out the worst, I suppose-a natural selection of ideas. And remember-those saints and mystics are as much responsible for transmitting the sexism,homophoba, and general evil of organised religion as they are for the beauty of their thoughts. Which just shows what humanity is like doesn’t it?

However the main problem I have with the acceptance of those religions, even with liberal and pick and choose versions of those religions is that these condone and somehow protect the more fundamentalist and literal versions. I think the anglican church is actually a good example here-we have the liberal side being ok with the gays and the evangelical side foaming at the mouth because of the gay…and it more often ends up with the liberals caving into the fundies. Or the liberal catholics who have no compunctions with using condoms or the pill themselves, but actively support an organisation which tells millions of africans at risk for HIV that not only are condoms ineffective against HIV but that it actually causes AIDS.

I suppose my point of the ramblings is that it is ok to throw the baby out with the bathwater in this situation. Especially since there never was a baby and all that’s in the basin is dirty water.

Yes there is a spiritual compunction to life-but why accept an organisation which has and does benefit from the suffering of others?And by only looking for the ‘nice’ Christians with their liberal interpretations and mystical interpretations are you inadvertently propping up the other half?

Sorry for the rambling-I just don’t want to get an email from you saying you’ve become a baptist or joined the legion of mary