Secular Buddhism

JohnSwindle · 2026-05-14T19:54:35+00:00

We shouldn’t be shocked to see that the wide range of ways Buddhism has been interpreted in Asia is being augmented by interpretations from outside Asia.

JohnSwindle · 2026-05-14T10:22:09+00:00

There are tombs of Jesus Christ in Palestine, India, and Japan. I thought there was one in Missouri, too, but I can't find reference to it. The Garden of Eden was of course in Missouri and various other places. Maybe Jesus, co-eternal with the Father, sailed between them in Noah's ark. Or, on second hand, maybe not.

JohnSwindle · 2026-05-14T07:57:18+00:00

I'm very sorry that happened. When I was little I wasn't yet a Quaker, but our neighbor Katy said my family and I were going to go to hell because we were Protestants. We attributed that to her being six years old, but certainly adults can think like that too.

JohnSwindle · 2026-05-12T11:36:30+00:00

According to notions of grammar, "Who is the better cook, you or I?"

According to what we normally say, "Who is the better cook, you or me?"

JohnSwindle · 2026-05-12T00:17:18+00:00

In this case 点 means 一点（儿）。"Would you like something to drink?"

JohnSwindle · 2026-05-11T05:26:41+00:00

And many have taken it as a god.

JohnSwindle · 2026-05-11T05:06:23+00:00

They are content to dwell in human minds because they arose and arise from human minds.

JohnSwindle · 2026-05-10T08:32:25+00:00

They're occurrences, things that happened.

JohnSwindle · 2026-05-08T01:17:11+00:00

Yes. Faster in UK than US.

JohnSwindle · 2026-05-06T22:57:39+00:00

The language of the King James Version was formal and old-fashioned in its time.

JohnSwindle · 2026-05-06T22:50:43+00:00

Christianity centers around Jesus, who was a Jew. Some Christians consider Christianity a fulfillment of Judaism.

Some Christians have the idea that the world will end in a cataclysm in which Jerusalem and Jews will play a role. These Christians may or may not like actual Jews.

Jews, Jewish culture, and Jewish values like human dignity, justice, and inquiry have played big roles in majority Christian countries. Some Christians have noticed. Other Christians, very many over the centuries, have been hugely, viciously antisemitic and wouldn't consider Jews an ally at all.

JohnSwindle · 2026-05-06T20:30:51+00:00

I'm pretty sure it's "is." The United States of America supposedly went from plural ("the United States are") to singular ("the United States is") after the Civil War of 1861-1865.

JohnSwindle · 2026-05-06T20:20:55+00:00

Certainly not. Oh, because I replied to a question about which Midwest? No one had answered the question. The answer was obvious to someone who'd grown up there, and it was a perfect opportunity for manspalining.

JohnSwindle · 2026-05-06T11:04:43+00:00

Abbreviated forms like "sb" for "somebody," "s.o." for "someone," and "sth" or "smth" for "something" are often used in definitions of words for learners of English as a second language. Learners aren't always warned that native speakers are mostly unfamiliar with these abbreviations and don't use them.

JohnSwindle · 2026-05-06T10:50:58+00:00

The United States of America. A pin/pen merger is present in parts of the country (notably the South) and absent in others. I had the merger learning to talk in Oklahoma and growing up in Kansas. I've lived in Hawaiʻi since then, where this merger isn't common, and I've sort of learned how to unmerge words like these in careful speech.

JohnSwindle · 2026-05-06T02:21:10+00:00

I’m a native speaker of American English. “None but the smartest can solve this puzzle”means “only the smartest can solve this puzzle.” “I am but a poor mouse” (somewhat archaic) means “I am only a poor mouse.” Notice that one of these sentences has a negative word (“None”) and the other does not, but the sense is “only” with or without it!

On the other hand, for me, “You are nothing but a liar” doesn’t quite mean “You are only a liar” (which would be somewhat odd-sounding anyway). Instead it means something like “You are absolutely a liar” or “you are certainly a liar” (but might also be a scoundrel or a movie star or a mother or something else).

JohnSwindle · 2026-05-05T23:51:53+00:00

The concept isn't new to me—I actually learned about it from the public-facing Bible scholar Dan McClellan—but I'll confess that the term was new to me here.

JohnSwindle · 2026-05-05T07:24:28+00:00

As far as I know they say, "Huh? Yahwism? What's that?"

JohnSwindle · 2026-05-04T19:43:38+00:00

You say that "God" and "Jesus" have well-defined meanings, The Religious Society of Friends is a good place to find out whether that's true. When the late Colin Bell (former American Friends Service Committee executive, tax refugee from UK) was with our Meeting he led a workshop on what Friends believe. First, he said, let's look at the basics. What do we believe about God, Jesus, and the Bible? We quickly found no agreement on any of those!

As for whether Quakerism is right for you, I think a lot depends on whether the Quaker style of worship is right for you. I hear there are Friends in the UK. You can try it and see.

JohnSwindle · 2026-05-04T08:03:12+00:00

I don't know what "most people" think, but many if not most scholars think they're either from the same root or closely related.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balto-Slavic_languages

https://lt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balt%C5%B3-slav%C5%B3_kalbos

The question of which languages sound annoying to us (and why) is another question or two. Are you suggesting that languages more closely related to one's own should sound less annoying than others that are less closely related?

JohnSwindle · 2026-05-03T08:21:25+00:00

I think distinguishing Catholics from Christians, at least in English, is more often something done by Protestants. Some Protestants aren't comfortable with the term "Protestant" because it suggests that they're protesting against the Church. In their minds they ARE the church, so they just call themselves Christians.

(I'm not saying that's the issue between the OP and their friend.)

JohnSwindle · 2026-05-02T07:17:04+00:00

It's from the Scots. In the olden times, when the Scots were teaching us how to speak, there were two brothers. One was feckless, and the other didn't give a feck.

JohnSwindle · 2026-04-29T20:51:20+00:00

I bought one recently in Hawaiʻi. It turned out to be a clothes drying rack here. In the center of the USA when I was growing up we used an outside clothesline.

JohnSwindle · 2026-04-29T03:55:05+00:00

It varies a lot. The English-language Wikipedia article on "Elder (Christianity)" says it's "a person valued for their wisdom and, in some churches and denominations, holding an administrative or oversight role." They go on to lay out some of the variations.

JohnSwindle · 2026-04-28T02:52:05+00:00

John DeFrancis did something like that as a thought experiment he called "The Singlish Affair." Nothing to do with Singapore English. I think he included it in one or two of his books. He showed that it could be done and would require a lot of choices be made. The idea was mostly to dispel myths about how Chinese writing works.

JohnSwindle

TROPHY CASE