At the risk of kicking a dead horse too often I respond to Doug and Tim in the November 14th edition of the Record-Bee:
Doug writes that he and I are both from the “me” generation and we are therefore narcissistic and for him it”s a problem; for me I just accept it. Being of the same universe as written about in the “Woodstock” lyrics of Joni Mitchell: “We are star-dust, Billion year old carbon, We are golden, Caught in the devil”s bargain…” The devil”s bargain being his assurance to Eve that if she ate the fruit of the tree she would be “like God.” I Believe that this is where the story really ends – we are all “like God” and if there is a God I don”t believe that He/She/It would ever be vengeful, but would smile at all of their creations as any parent would smile at their own children after they had been gone a while. That is my comfortableness; but I really think we only live our 80 or so years and that is the end.
Interestingly, Tim writes that science is “[t]he best yardstick we have for finding objective reality” and then brings in a quote by Buddha. What is fascinating about Buddha is how he came about his beliefs. Turns out that he turned his back on Zoroastrianism, the precursor of all Abrahamic religions: Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. Most modern-day religious people have no idea that most all of their beliefs actually come from the beliefs first presented in Zoroastrianism. Zoroastrianism rejected polytheism, had one supreme and universal god, saw the struggle between good and evil, believed in the devil, believed in the divinity of creation, believed there was an afterlife, believed in sin and expiation of sin, believed there was a judgement day, etc. Buddha talks of enlightenment as a means of finding peace and fulfillment.
Several years ago on an African safari I asked our guide if he was an enlightened person and he said he was. I asked him how he attained enlightenment and he said that he had a guru and for a couple of years he was stuck in finding peace. Finally, he kicked his guru out and almost immediately, by giving up everything, he found enlightenment.
By the way, I really was at Woodstock in 1969 and I do like the 49ers.
Greg Blinn, Kelseyville
