SPIRITUALITY/RELIGION - A Buddha playlist!

http://open.spotify.com/user/127676752/playlist/7wCyocuacu19sItXd63eSf

HUMOR - Bad Buddhist puns!

SPIRITUALITY/RELIGION: His only weaknesses are bad Karma and kryptonite!

SPIRITUALITY/RELIGION: A Flowchart To Determine What Religion You Should Follow

I got the link to this from GodlessGirl on Twitter. - OlderMusicGeek

ON ANOTHER BLOG: "SPIRITUALITY/RELIGION: Belief-O-Matic" on OlderMusicGeek's Stupid Tests And Quizzes (just click here)

SPIRITUALITY/RELIGION: Good Friday! Happy Purim, Eid, etc...

This is from Time magazine. I found it with my NetVibes page. - OlderMusicGeek

Good Friday! Happy Purim, Eid, etc...
Wednesday, Mar. 19, 2008
By DAVID VAN BIEMA WITH SIMON ROBINSON/NEW DELHI

On Friday more than a billion Christians around the world will mark the gravest observance on their Calendar, Good Friday, the day Jesus died on the cross. (To be followed in two days by Easter Sunday, to mark his Resurrection).

But unlike some holy days — say, Christmas, which some non-Christians in the U.S. observe informally by going to a movie and ordering Chinese food — on this particular Friday, March 21, it seems almost no believer of any sort will be left without his or her own holiday. In what is statistically, at least, a once-in-a-millennium combination, the following will all occur on the 21st:

Good Friday
Purim, a Jewish festival celebrating the biblical book of Esther
Narouz, the Persian New Year, which is observed with Islamic elaboration in Iran and all the "stan" countries, as well as by Zoroastrians and Baha'is.
Eid Milad an Nabi, the Birth of the Prophet, which is celebrated by some but not all Sunni Muslims and, though officially beginning on Thursday, is often marked on Friday.
Small Holi, Hindu, an Indian festival of bonfires, to be followed on Saturday by Holi, a kind of Mardi Gras.
Magha Puja, a celebration of the Buddha's first group of followers, marked primarily in Thailand.

"Half the world's population is going to be celebrating something," says Raymond Clothey, Professor Emeritus of Religious studies at the University of Pittsburgh. "My goodness," says Delton Krueger, owner of www.interfaithcalendar.org, who follows "14 major religions and six others." He counts 20 holidays altogether (including some religious double-dips, like Maundy Thursday and Good Friday) between the 20th (which is also quite crowded) and the 21st. He marvels: "There is no other time in 2008 when there is this kind of concentration."

And in fact for quite a bit longer than that. Ed Reingold and Nachum Dershowitz, co-authors of the books Calendrical Calculations and Calendrical Tabulations, determined how often in the period between 1600 and 2400 A.D. Good Friday, Purim, Narouz and the Eid would occur in the same week. The answer is nine times in 800 years. Then they tackled the odds that they would converge on a two-day period. And the total is ... only once: tomorrow. And that's not even counting Magha Puja and Small Holi.

Unless you are mathematically inclined, however, you may not see the logic in all this. If it's the 21st of March, you may ask, shouldn't all the religions of the world celebrate the same holiday on that date each year?

No. There are a sprinkling of major holidays (Western Christmas is one) that fall each year on the same day of the Gregorian calendar, a fairly standard non-religious system and the one Americans are most familiar with.

But almost none of tomorrow's holidays actually follows that calendar. All Muslim holy days, for instance, are calculated on a lunar system. Keyed to the phases of the moon, Islam's 12 months are each 29 and a half days long, for a total of 354 days a year, or 11 days fewer than on ours. That means the holidays rotate backward around the Gregorian calendar, occurring 11 days earlier each year. That is why you can have an "easy Ramadan" in the spring, when going without water all day is relatively easy, or a hard one in the summer. And why the Prophet's birthday will be on March 9 next year.

Then there is the Jewish calendar, which determines the placement of Purim. It is "lunisolar," which means that holidays wander with the moon until they reach the end of what might be thought of as a month-long tether, which has the effect of maintaining them in the same season every year.

Good Friday, meanwhile, like many of the other most important Christian holidays, is a set number of days before Easter. The only problem is that the date of Easter is probably the most complicated celebratory calculation this side of Hinduism, which has a number of competing religious calendars. The standard rule is "the Sunday after the first full moon on or after the day of the vernal equinox." But in fact, the actual divination of the date is so involved that it has its own offical name: "computus." And so challenging that Carl Friedrich Gauss, one of history's greatest mathematicians, devoted the time to create an algorithm for it. It goes on for many lines. You can look it up. And, of course, it doesn't work for Eastern Orthodox Easter (about one month later than the Western Christian one this year, on April 27).

So, should we celebrate all these celebrations? Yes, says William Paden, the author of Religious Worlds: The Comparative Study of Religion and a professor at the University of Vermont — at least to the extent that we revere the drive to carve out sacred time in the middle of the day-by-day profane. "Each of these religions is creating its own world, with its own time and space and memory system," he says. They recognize what's of real value, and they encode it, and it forms an architecture of memory." Yes, says Bruce Lawrence, the head of Islamic Studies at Duke University, who was invited to speak at a nearby synagogue when the beginnings of Rosh Hashanah and Ramadan happened to coincide last year.

But be cautious, since human nature is as fickle as coincidence. "When one group is grieving and one is jubilant there are some unfortunate tensions," says Anand Kumar, with the Centre for the Study of Social Systems at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, a city with considerable experience with multiple faiths. Such conjunctions have led to conflicts and even riots, not just when moods clash, but because "the public sphere is being contested." Kumar is convinced, however, that "a new generation is emerging that is more pluralistic and they don't feel threatened just because someone is from another religion."

And that will be what this writer meditates on this Friday.

Happy Holidays! :) - OlderMusicGeek

A link to the article at Time.com

HUMOR (and POLITICS): “A Happy Wholesome Holiday,” by Reed Martin

This is a poem from one of the boys in The Reduced Shakespeare Company. And any Christmas poem that mention The Batman is a poem worth having on my blog! - OlderMusicGeek

“A Happy Wholesome Holiday,” by Reed Martin

The outlook wasn’t broken for celebration that December,
The family had an accident, two were partially dismembered.
But though the world and several body parts were so divided,
We strove to celebrate the month where wonders coincided.
December 25th the baby Jesus did appear,
In a dank and smelly manger with a little tiny beard.
So we poured our Christmas gravy on our meat with a long ladle,
While the Jews lit their menorahs and their children spun the dreidel.
And many of our friends who are of African descent
Call their Christmas Kwanzaa, but I don’t know what it meant.
It had all to do with virtues and harvest times and herbs,
But I didn’t understand it because I live in the ‘burbs.
And the Native North Americans are nice and sensitive,
They gave up this nice continent for white people to live,
And we gave them reservations where they put up poles of totem,
Which boys are careful climbing so they do not hurt their scrotum.
And the druids in the forest cannot worship as they please
‘Cause extreme environmentalists are hugging all the trees.
In Gotham City, Christmas is protected by the Batman,
And all year round the Buddhists have their own jolly fat man.
All people have a special day this final month has fathered,
Except for those darn atheists who simply can’t be bothered.
Amen.

A link to The Reduced Shakespeare Company website

Happy Christmas and/or Boxing Day and/or Kwanzaa and/or Hannakah and/or Bodhi Day and/or Sanghamitta Day and/or Shabe Cheleh and/or Makara Sankranti and/or Junkanoo and/or Dong Zhi and/or Toji and/or Soyal and/or Yule and/or Seva Zistane and/or Alban Arthan and/or Long Night and/or Mean Geimrech and/or Brumalia and/or Dies Natalis Solis Invicti and/or Saturnalia and/or Lenaea and/or Wren Day and/or Tekufah Tevet and/or Winter Solstice and/or ChriFSMas and/or any other December or winter solstice holidays i missed!

Oh, and Bah Humbug to those who don't celebrate the holidays! :)

CULTURE SOCIETY (and sorta SPIRITUALITY/RELIGION): Happy Holidays vs. Merry Christmas

This is OlderMusicGeek here, not a reprinted article. :)

"Every time a person says Happy Holidays, an angel get AIDS!" - Jon Stewart? - Not sure if he said it first :) -

Well, since some of in such a tizzy about people saying "Happy Holidays", I am providing this December greeting as a public service....

Happy Christmas and/or Boxing Day and/or Kwanzaa and/or Hannakah and/or Bodhi Day and/or Sanghamitta Day and/or Shabe Cheleh and/or Makara Sankranti and/or Junkanoo and/or Dong Zhi and/or Toji and/or Soyal and/or Yule and/or Seva Zistane and/or Alban Arthan and/or Long Night and/or Mean Geimrech and/or Brumalia and/or Dies Natalis Solis Invicti and/or Saturnalia and/or Lenaea and/or Wren Day and/or Tekufah Tevet and/or Winter Solstice and/or any other December or winter solstice holidays i missed!

Oh, and Bah Humbug to those who don't celebrate the holidays! :)

But I'm sorry! Am I understanding wrong?! Are we suppose just shove a holiday that some people don't celebrate down their throat?

POLITICS: Letter to Politicians on a Judge Allowing Gay Marriage in Iowa

This is a letter my friend, The Computer/Music Nerd, wrote and sent me a copy. - OlderMusicGeek.

To: Governor Chet Culver

US Senator Tom Harkin

US Senator Chuck Grassley

US Representative Leonard Boswell

IA Senator Pat Ward

IA Representative Dan Clute

I just read about the ruling of Judge Robert B. Hanson and applaud it most rigorously. It is about time someone thought about the rights of human beings and not their own feelings or opinions.

The key here is "equal protection of the law". This is NOT a religious issue, to say so restricts my rights as a non-Christian. The idea of marriage being an issue governed by religion is based on the majority's belief in Christianity, and may also be found in Islam and Judaism. As a Buddhist I reject the notion that Judeo-Christian-Islamic beliefs govern my life. I live by the rule of law and believe that marriage in the United States is a matter of Law. The Law in the United States MUST be governed by the idea of "equal protection of the law" and as such, Gay and Lesbians should not be discriminated against.

To discriminate against a group because they have fewer voices goes against what it means to live in the United States , this is the country that protects the minority by law and seeks equal treatment by law.

"I can't believe this actually happened in Iowa," Rants said of Hanson's ruling. "What it means is that one person has decided they know better than the whole Legislature." (DM Register)

I am so glad this is happening in Iowa. One person has not decided they know better, one judge has determined that the majority is ignoring the Constitution, institutionalizing discrimination. Iowa, which took a heavy toll in the Civil War to protect the ideology of freedom of the oppressed, should take a lead in lifting the oppression of this minority.

Governor Culver I am personally deeply disappointed in you, as a Democrat and a representative of all Iowans you should stand by this ruling, not take the easy way out. You may personally feel a marriage should be a man and woman; however, you represent gay and lesbian Iowans as well as heterosexual Iowans. Your comment in the Des Moines Register is therefore inexcusable.

"While some Iowans may disagree on this issue, I personally believe marriage is between a man and a woman," Culver said. (DM Register)

In 1946 President Truman formed the President's Committee on Civil Rights. The Report began: (emphasis added)

THE NATIONAL Government of the United States must take the lead in safeguarding the civil rights of all Americans . We believe that this is one of the most important observations that can be made about the civil rights problem in our country today. We agree with words used by the President, in an address at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington in June, 1947:

We must make the Federal Government a friendly, vigilant defender of the rights and equalities of all Americans . * * * Our National Government must show the way.

It is essential that our rights be preserved against the tyrannical actions of public officers. Our forefathers saw the need for such protection when they gave us the Bill of Rights as a safeguard against arbitrary government. But this is not enough today. We need more than protection of our rights against government; we need protection of our rights against private persons or groups, seeking to undermine them. In the words of the President:

We cannot be content with a civil liberties program which emphasizes only the need of protection against the possibility of tyranny by the Government. * * * We must keep moving forward, with new concepts of civil rights to safeguard our heritage. The extension of civil rights today means not protection of the people against the Government, but protection of the people by the Government.

http://www.trumanlibrary.org/civilrights/srights3.htm

Protection of the people by the Government. You are all the Representatives of the PEOPLE. The people are not simply the majority; the people are all of the people. Gay and Lesbian people must have equal protection under the law or none of us do. What is next? Will we discriminate against some other small group? Perhaps I as a Buddhist will have my freedoms restricted while Christians are granted those same freedoms? Or perhaps Muslims, or Libertarians, you name the group. We must protect all Americans or we protect none.

Judge Hanson is standing up for ALL Iowans, why don't you?

SPIRITUALITY/RELIGION: Fun Little Religion Test

Found this fun test on a bulletin board for religion - Belief-O-Matic -- A personality quiz about your religious beliefs and spiritual beliefs - a quiz answering What Religion Am I.



It compares your beliefs to the doctrine and dogma of various religions, and show how much in line your thinking is with those religions. I highly recommend it. It's fun.

Here are my results:

Rankings:
1. Liberal Quakers (100%)
2. Unitarian Universalism (97%)
3. Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (92%)
4. Neo-Pagan (90%)
5. Theravada Buddhism (90%)
6. Bahá'í Faith (87%)
7. New Age (86%)
8. Mahayana Buddhism (83%)
9. Jainism (72%)
10. Orthodox Quaker (69%)
11. Reform Judaism (66%)
12. Secular Humanism (64%)
13. Taoism (63%)
14. Hinduism (63%)
15. Sikhism (62%)
16. New Thought (60%)
17. Seventh Day Adventist (58%)
18. Orthodox Judaism (56%)
19. Nontheist (55%)
20. Mainline to Conservative Christian/Protestant (52%)
21. Scientology (49%)
22. Islam (47%)
23. Christian Science (Church of Christ, Scientist) (47%)
24. Eastern Orthodox (43%)
25. Roman Catholic (43%)
26. Jehovah's Witness (35%)
27. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) (32%)

I was surprised by #1. Never thought of myself as the Quaker type. I always admired them for their anti-slavery and pacifist views, but didn't think we were that much in line. I think part of it is that Quakers can be anti-abortion, and so am I. Otherwise, they're quite liberal... And so am I.

#3 was surprising too, because I don't believe in the Bible, and I don't believe that Y'Shua/Joshua/Jesu/Jesus was the son of the Jewish god. And I was raised Catholic, and still considered myself somewhat of an ethnic/cultural/secular Catholic, if not a Catholic by religion, sort of like a non-believing Jew. And Islam is even higher than Catholicism at #25!

And non-theism is only #19! I am an agnostic! I lean toward towards thinking there is a god and an afterlife, but I ain't convinced.

The others I can see, because I do believe all religions have some truth to them, and that everyone has to find their own path to the god of the universe. And Buddhism and Paganism intrigue me, even if I not interested in joining those faiths.

But I don't think my results were quite right, because on a lot of questions, one of the choices was "Or not sure. Or not important. " I wasn't sure, but I still thought the question important, so I didn't choose this answer, and took one of the others that seemed most right.

I'm going to retake the test using this answer to see how it comes out this time.


1. Unitarian Universalism (100%)
2. Theravada Buddhism (99%)
3. Liberal Quakers (90%)
4. Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (79%)
5. Neo-Pagan (78%)
6. Mahayana Buddhism (76%)
7. Bahá'í Faith (70%)
8. New Age (70%)
9. Secular Humanism (70%)
10. Jainism (69%)
11. Hinduism (66%)
12. New Thought (60%)
13. Taoism (60%)
14. Orthodox Quaker (59%)
15. Sikhism (57%)
16. Reform Judaism (56%)
17. Nontheist (51%)
18. Scientology (48%)
19. Christian Science (Church of Christ, Scientist) (46%)
20. Seventh Day Adventist (43%)
21. Orthodox Judaism (42%)
22. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) (40%)
23. Islam (40%)
24. Mainline to Conservative Christian/Protestant (39%)
25. Jehovah's Witness (38%)
26. Eastern Orthodox (36%)
27. Roman Catholic (36%)

Well, this seems more in line with my beliefs. I tend to see something in all religions, so #1 isn't a big surprise here. But Quakerism and Protestantism is still high. But Secular Humanism and Nontheism are still lower than I expected.

Oh well, try the test and let me know your results.