US ambassador killed over a film

[kandrathe]

Hunh? Is there any reason why a popular book is more true than an unpopular one? Does popularity have anything to do with truth? All you'd have is data on peoples' opinions, which has no traction on the truth at all.

Books like Tao te Ching, Vedas, Bible, Torah, Talmud, Midrash, Quran, etc. are meant to be contemplated -- they aren't history, or ethics, or science -- they inform philosophy and thought. I didn't suggest it be measured by popularity, only by it's value to the reader.

His statement was one of incredulity that people find it to be *real*, which I understood to be a measure of value. As opposed to a work of fiction. You might just as well pontificate about the *realness* of the color "green". These books are what they are, and people seem to buy them, read them, and gain insight from them. I've stated this here before -- the truthiness can be quibbled about and theologians do it all day, but it's value is in how it shapes (and has shaped) our society for the better.

And, yes, there are dark parts as we are inherently greedy and murderous beings. Stuff like the Crusades, inquisition, James II -- the Holy Roman Empire, Corrupt popes, Henry VIII, etc. Centuries of rampaging nobles across Europe, slavery and expeditions of pillage and conquest. Where most any excuse has been used to justify our lusts for power and plunder.

Western civilization is what it is due to it's founding philosophies, which key among them are Christianity and Judaism.

This is the Texas Sharpshooter fallacy. We've labelled a whole series of disparate beliefs "spirituality," but they do not share any objective qualities. There is no inherent reason Buddha and Thor and Reiki and the Tao are part of the same phenomenon, except that we have post-hoc labelled them as such. Our modern category encompasses the set because we have built the category to do exactly that - it needs no further explanation.

So then you'd subscribe to the theory that for thousands of years parents have been brain washing their children? Perhaps we can blame Constantine, and the nobles of the Holy Roman Empire for beating it into us. My observations is that the quest for spirituality is universal in humans -- and, I do disagree that they are entirely disparate. There are huge similarities between the Christian Trinity and the Hindu god aspects (Brahma, Vishnu, & Shiva) -- likewise in the fundamental love based philosophy of Moism and Jesus. Then, take native American spirituality of "The Great Spirit" and contrast with Buddhist compassion and respect for every living creature.