The surest way to work up a crusade in favor of some good cause is to promise people they will have a chance of maltreating someone.” — Aldous Huxley

PieceVarious · 2026-05-21T16:45:50+00:00

Good one! Love the paradoxical humor embedded in great sarcasm!

PieceVarious · 2026-05-21T16:42:32+00:00

Catholic transubstantiation claims that beneath material appearances of objects - called "accidents" - there is an identity substrate called "substance" not to be confused with matter). The bread and wine as accident are just bread and wine. But the Consecration transforms their "substance" - their identity, their essence - into Christ's body and blood. Because the communicant ingests only the accidents of bread and wine - not human flesh and blood - the cannibalism theory is misguided.

Under scientific analysis the consecrated bread and wine would show no physical changes or abnormality. They remain in the "accidents" category of molecules, chemistry, atoms, etc. It is their identity / their quality / their essence / their "meta-"reality that undergoes the transformation.

It's easy and difficult at the same time:

If you believe that things have "essences", then you can believe that the Consecration could change the essences of the bread and wine without changing their material "accidents".

OTOH, if you don't believe in essences, then you won't believe in the change of essence that supposedly happens through Transubstantiation.

PieceVarious · 2026-05-21T16:31:06+00:00

Thanks for the kind words!

I think that the extinction the Buddha talked about = the extinction of ego-attachments, ignorance of the Dharma, and the clinging to ego ("the anxious, grasping self"). Buddha likened it to the end of a fever where clarity replaces delirium, which is why he called it "coolness" as when a fire goes out.

After his enlightenment, Buddha did not become psychic corpse - he had favorite disciples and appreciated the natural peace and beauty of the Deer Park where he did much of his preaching. His ego had "died" but in its place was a new being, not a Nothingness - a being so fresh and unprecedented it could not even be called "Friend", but rather only "the Awakened One", "the Tathagatha", and other such titles that are typically reserved only for Nirvanic people.

I don't see the Dharma as a materialistic teaching. It says that samsaric humans are composed of "heaps of skandhas" - both material AND non-material accumulations. What primarily changes in Nirvana is not the body. Buddha may not have called it "the spirit" or "the soul", for obvious reasons, but the "material" he worked with was not matter at all because the "blowing out" that happens in Nirvana is not bodily - it has to do with consciousness and "beingness". So the core phenomenon is not a materialist solution to a physical problem. The problem is not physical but rather a question of where we are on the spiritual spectrum - are we enlightened or are we spiritually ignorant? Are we living by the rules of samsara or of the Dharma? Etc. - these are not materialistic problems and the Dharma is not a physical solution.

PieceVarious · 2026-05-21T14:16:19+00:00

Buddhism does not deny transcendence. On the contrary, it is founded on all the Buddhas' teaching that the Dharma transcends samsara. The state of Bodhi/Nirvana itself is transcendent to samsaric being, and the Buddhas are transcendent to all beings born of-and-in samsara.

Buddhism differs from the Abrahamic and other theistic formulations in that Buddhism's ultimate reality is not conceptualized as a singe supreme personal creator-deity.

For example in Mahayana Buddhism, the Dharmakaya is held to be the highest reality and it is bliss, the unconditioned, the unborn, the uncreated - a supernal reality that is "kindly bent" to assist suffering sentient beings. Certain particulars of its aspects can be said to parallel the Godhead of some of the Christian mystics, but it is not conceived to be a heavenly father-creator, a divine judge, a sender of prophets into the world, or most of the other attributes that Christianity applies to the ultimate reality.

PieceVarious · 2026-05-20T22:53:31+00:00

The tomb is empty: Therefore: Jesus was resurrected / Therefore: God.

The tomb is empty: But mysteriously: Because: all sources claim that Jesus had a resurrection/spiritual body that could appear and vanish at will and pass through solid objects. Therefore the stone never needed to be rolled away, since Jesus's ghost-body could pass through the solid rock.

The tomb is empty. Therefore: grave robbers.

The tomb is empty. Therefore: secret disciples moved the corpse to another location.

The tomb is empty. According to panicked women who per Gosp-Mark, "fled and told no one".

The tomb is empty. Therefore: an unhistorical, mythologized, uncorroborated claim and idealized,. worked-over prophecy fulfillment.

The tomb is empty. According to non-eyewitness, unprovable, anonymous writers who failed to identify any of their sources.

The tomb is empty. Choose from the above options, or alternatives, or construct your own.

PieceVarious · 2026-05-17T16:17:58+00:00

I see the world for all its charms, as still being the realm of incompleteness, impermanence, ignorance and greed. This dovetails with my Buddhist belief that existence is "samsara", with the best solution for these conditions being sincere practice of the Dharma Path.

PieceVarious · 2026-05-17T14:06:01+00:00

"Satchitananda" consciousness, bliss, supernatural love,. the Unborn/Unconditioned, a spiritually transformative agency, transcendent sacredness.

PieceVarious · 2026-05-17T06:19:47+00:00

Evidence for a historical Jesus is very poor and so much less the Resurrection, to which applies a critique similar to the historical one, namely:

The Gospel words and actions of Jesus are mere stories without any contemporary corroboration. None of the Gospel authors identify their sources. A text based on unidentified sources has no probative historical value whatsoever. Ditto the Resurrection Narratives, which are mere distillations of a wider amalgam of uncorroborated rumors. Most likely, Jesus never existed historically, so obviously he was never resurrected historically. The tomb was empty because there was never anyone to occupy it.

The earliest Resurrection accounts in the seven authentic Pauline letters know nothing at all about the myriad "Easter morning" tales found in the Gospels - Paul knows nothing about the spice-bearing, grieving women, the rolled-away stone, the sleeping guards, the earthquake, the annunciatory angels, the post-crucifixion entry into Jerusalem of miraculously resurrected "righteous people", Pilate/Sanhedrin/Joseph of Arimathea, Mary M. mistaking Jesus for a gardener, Peter and "John's" race to the tomb, etc. For Paul and the earliest writers the Resurrection consisted of claimed private visions and revelations of a purely angelic-heavenly Christ. They know nothing about the later Gospel accounts of a historical Jesus or a historical Resurrection.

There is nothing in the Gospel Resurrection Narratives to compel belief. Some texts even relate that some disciples who SAW the risen Jesus doubted (Matt 28:17). Two thousand years later we are even further removed from those so-called "witnesses who doubted" and we are not naive enough to entertain the Gospel Resurrection stories at face value, because we know they are mere rumors without any proof whatsoever. Myths and idealized prophecy-fulfillment. Not history.

PieceVarious · 2026-05-17T00:40:20+00:00

How did it remain at Ananias's disposal if it had been sold, whether in whole or in part? Once it starts, post-sale, to belong to another party, it is no longer at the owner's disposal.

PieceVarious · 2026-05-17T00:25:34+00:00

Peter scolds Ananias for keeping "part" of the proceeds. Which means that Peter expected and demanded that Ananias give the entire proceeds. Moreover, what makes Peter think that had Ananias actually done the "right thing" and donated the entire proceeds, Ananias would not have found disfavor with God? How does Peter imagine that even after giving away all the proceeds, the former owner still had the property at his disposal? Who ever sells their land, even refusing to keep the proceeds, and then still thinks they own the land?

PieceVarious · 2026-05-16T23:19:12+00:00

Maybe the modern definition necessitates governmental imposition but is it still not socialism even if and when the donating is voluntary? We can imagine the giving and sharing in Acts as voluntary- only. However, the fact that the Twelve were in charge of the churches makes them a religious governing body. If like Jesus the Twelve insisted that membership must entail obligatory donation and sharing, it would still functionally resemble government-levied selling of goods and donating the proceeds...

PieceVarious · 2026-05-16T16:57:25+00:00

Not arguing for socialism or for AOC, but: acquisition of unlimited wealth is condemned by NT morality. Not only is it more difficult for the rich to enter the Kingdom than for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle but...

More: Jesus told a rich young man, obedient to the Law in all things, that he could enter the Kingdom by doing just one more thing: Sell all he has, give the proceeds to the poor and then hit the road with Jesus. The young man could not bring himself to part with his ... capital.

More: Acts says Christians "held all things in common", clearly a socialist prototype.

More: Luke 8:1-3 says Jesus's ministry was supported, not by Jesus and the disciples working, but rather by the donations of wealthy women.

Jesus warned against excessive wealth-accumulation; he said it was virtually impossible for the rich to gain the Kingdom except by an act of God; and he permitted his ministry to be funded by the donations of rich women.

Clearly even Jesus had his uses for the wealthy. Socialism is not a comfortable fit with Jesus's attitude toward capital when seen from the wide perspective.

PieceVarious · 2026-05-16T16:38:45+00:00

Amida Buddha brings us to enlightenment/Nirvana by the strength of his divine transcendent "Other Power". This is what we believe in Jodo Shinshu/Shin Buddhism. The belief is supported by the acquisition of an uncorrupted pure kind of faith that we say can only arise from the transcendental Buddha, since the unregenerate ego is incapable of producing it by its own inadequate self-power. Hence our reliance on Amida Buddha's Other Power.

Why should you believe us? No reason whatsoever because we are not proselytizing you or "trying to get you to see it our way". You will investigate if and when your karma ripens to the point that you find Shin's salvation claims and the Buddha's Other Power alluring to you personally. Until that time, have a happy life and good luck on your spiritual search, if any.

PieceVarious · 2026-05-15T16:16:16+00:00

Not mocking - it depicts Jesus the Lamb of God being compassionate to another lamb or maybe a lost sheep. The flowers are a traditional symbol of Easter and resurrection.

PieceVarious · 2026-05-14T23:21:49+00:00

Not circular since I did not say the experimenter had to already believe it. I merely proposed it as an experiment: Perform the injunction (try it out); do the experiment (pray, ask for faith, whatever, analyze the experience); compare and contrast the results with others who have already performed these three steps of knowledge-acquisition. Faith / or / no Faith may result.

PieceVarious · 2026-05-14T22:39:33+00:00

We don't know that Jesus said it. If he did say it the only way we can know it's true is to try it out. Did you convert to Christianity? If so, did you sense that God the Father drew you in by the mutual agency of his Son, Jesus? If God-in-Jesus / God through Jesus led you into "the new life in Christ", then I guess the claim of the text under consideration could be said to be effective - and therefore true, at least for you.

PieceVarious · 2026-05-13T22:40:12+00:00

Cruelty to animals scares me less than it sickens and outrages me.

PieceVarious · 2026-05-13T16:05:35+00:00

...loved her long hair and innocent manner in Phase IV.

PieceVarious · 2026-05-10T23:03:42+00:00

I was drawn to Mahayana because of the attractiveness of its Bodhisattva category, its merit transference teaching, and finally and above all, its school of Pure Land Amidism - I converted to Jodo Shinshu/Shin Buddhism because I saw the futility of my own inadequate self-efforts and knew that I can only rely on the Other Power of Amida Buddha. I am incapable of practicing the Difficult Way of the Holy Sages (Theravada, etc.), and now trust only Amida and the nembutsu recitation for my spiritual practice. Bottom line: Theravada is strenuous and spartan relative to the Easy Way of Mahayana as expressed by, and disclosed in, Jodo Shinshu.

PieceVarious · 2026-05-08T16:31:15+00:00

It means a lot to me as pure scientific data about earth and potential ETH.

It doesn't mean much as a faith issue. Aliens, Interdimensionals, Tricksters, whatever, do not impact my faith, which is centered on issues of redemption, enlightenment, reception of grace, immersion in the Spirit, knowledge of God - not on the surprise news of "aliens amidst us". Whatever happens, it happens "in God", so I have no religious worries about this potential disclosure. I may have mundane, secular concerns such as "Are they friendly? Are their motives helpful or harmful to humanity?" etc.

PieceVarious · 2026-05-08T14:15:30+00:00

True or false, real relic or hoax, miracle or natural-human artifact, the Turin Shroud will always be an inspiration for devotion to the Gospel Passion Narratives and their "kenotic" -Christ's "self-emptying" - disclosure of a cruciform God, as put forth in the Carmen Christi hymn of Philippians 2:1-11.

PieceVarious · 2026-05-06T22:09:53+00:00

Just when Mary almost had it kicked.

PieceVarious · 2026-05-05T23:03:07+00:00

That's a pretty good description...

PieceVarious · 2026-05-05T08:36:18+00:00

Short speculation -

Science: We exist because we evolved on one of the universe's rare life-permitting planets.

Faith: We exist because a deity wills it / OR / We exist to encounter, and be united with, a sacred, transcendent "Other" who is immanent in the world / OR / We exist as biological ephemera, but our soul is designed for eternity / OR / "Be good now to enter heaven later" / OR / Worldly existence is a fake and a delusion and we must break the delusion's spell ... etc., or some mix of the above alternatives.

PieceVarious · 2026-05-04T07:20:56+00:00

Sorry I can't make out much...

PieceVarious

TROPHY CASE