Bevlina said:
Stickied Caitlin!
Welcome everyone! Don't you love our Chrisbot?
No matter how charming the Chrisbot, there's always a DarthInvadar waiting in the wings.
[move]*Quick glance over the shoulder ... and another .... and another ... and yet one more ... still looking ... another glance ... *[/move]
I do believe the coast is clear.
So greetings, Caitlin and Belvina and Christians Forums, and thanks to you all for stickying a botsplit thread far too intimidatingly large in its former incarnation for a proper introduction. I am Jesse, a free-thinking Taoist in the western tradition, following my own path to truth as best I can, fervently and religiously, politely but godlessly, in daily meditation. A few posts here and many thousands elsewhere on other fora make me hesitant to begin an individual newbie thread, but as I've been visiting for a while, I thought it only proper to post a general thread, especially as it seems to have emptied itself out for my benefit.
A happy Easter to you and your fellow adherents.
Having spent a number of years in your tradition, you may trust my familiarity with your beliefs is sufficient to avoid giving offense, though my decades pursuing a further search on my chosen path have given me a rather divergent conception of the divine. Nor have I found, on any but the most aggressively Christian forums, that politeness was habitually returned except in kind. My experiences on fora following other Abrahamic traditions has been similar. Nor did I expect otherwise after my travels in muslim West Africa. It seems that hospitality and kindness are as near to universal in the human tradition as are faith, hope and charity.
My screen name is taken from the final anonymous editor of the collection of 81 meditative poems known in English translations as "The Way of Life." The Tao Te Ching, literally "The Way of Life and its Virtue," from which Taoists take inspiration, is not the inerrant source of knowledge credited by Christians to the Bible, or by Jews to the Torah, or even by Muslims to the Qur'an. This tradition of inerrant scripture is as common to the Abrahamic traditions as it is foreign to other traditions, including my own.
The Ching is a work of men, crystallized from the longest philophical traditional in history. And it is meant as a guide to men and women who are similarly imperfect, as am I. Taoism is not a struggle for salvation from a supernatural threat, but rather an acceptance of the full humanity that is our birthright. And in that birthright is a willingness to quest for understanding of our fellow humans. In this spirit, I join the Christian Forum and wait without waiting for the enlightenment of understanding, as it becomes available to those willing to accept the opportunity.
In other postings, you will find that I consistently give the names of religious traditions not my own and deities in lower case, reserving upper case only for proper names of humans. Hence I write Jesus when referring to the god of christians, allah when referring to the god of Muhammad (saas) ... Please do not consider this a mark of disrespect, but rather a grammatical distinction designed to allow others to readily recognize a divergent religious tradition behind the words.
In peace I wish you harmony on your chosen path, that you may see it clearly and follow it faithfully.
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