Why do we trust anyone at all? Does trusting someone necessarily have anything to do with how trustworthy that person is, and should their trustworthiness be a consideration at all in whether to trust them?
i must disagree. the bodhisattvas are known for helping us gain material benefits like food and money and health. they give these to the hungry and the poor and the sick. as part of their compassionate nature.
if you were sure about someone, you wouldn't trust them. you'd know them.
luckily, we cannot know people like this. thank god we cannot know a person. instead we can trust them.
certainty and faith do not go together. to have faith in a person requires the possibility of being wrong, but...
i would qualify that by saying that personal salvation is the farthest thing from individual salvation. person does not mean individual. 'person' is by definition a social concept. characterising humanness as personhood acknowledges our intrinsic and irreducible essence as social beings...
the only way we can interpret mystical experiences is through 'cultural' terms.
what is culture? it is the way people live.
only in life, through life, can we interpret experiences that belong to the realm of the mystery. there is no mystery that does not come in the form of culture...
so as i was saying, even though it is an endless task to become a good person, the very task of becoming a good person, the journey and path, interminable as it is, is the end itself. therein lies the very telos. and this is not a negative thing that god has enjoined upon us. though we may never...
Meine Formel für die Grösse am Menschen ist amor fati: dass man Nichts anders haben will, vorwärts nicht, rückwärts nicht, in alle Ewigkeit nicht. Das Nothwendige nicht bloss ertragen, noch weniger verhehlen – aller Idealismus ist Verlogenheit vor dem Nothwendigen –, sondern es lieben.
my...
what is humanly impossible is possible with the help of god.
the funny thing is that we cannot even hope to begin a task without the aid of god, let alone complete it without his help. god gives us the commandment to love, and then he gives us the love to love, that is, he is the love with...
i don't know if i can ever be a good person. but i know that i can never consider myself to be a good person.
in the eyes of god, we are everything. but in our eyes, we must be as nothing. because to see ourselves as everything as god sees us is mere pride.
i am always becoming a good person...
if anything, it seems to me that people are eager to turn to anything in order to escape the here and now.
boredom, or silence, or being alone with oneself and with other people, might be the new deadly sin to people.
has it been 10 minutes since i've checked my social media providers? oh no...
i do not think many muslims are followers of the most merciful god they believe in.
just as i don't think many christians are followers of the god of love we believe in.
as christ said, wide is the gate that leads to destruction. and we're walking it.
you must look for the true believers -...
we hurt so many people within the boundaries of our 'reason'. our reason betrays us when it is convenient. it is reasonable that i do not give this person or that person my time of the day. it is reasonable that i keep what i have for myself. it is reasonable to strike back when someone hits us...
there are innumerable ways we hurt others and ourselves. for me today, i sinned by turning away from the help-seeking eyes of a stranger person.
an aberration! one might say. but sin is not just a series of isolated actions that one may commit in one's life. sin is both the reason for the...
i think that to acknowledge our own personal sins, the innumerable ways we hurt other people, is enough to take up all our time.
as it is, there is a life or death cut throat struggle within myself to live in the way of god, does god expect me to be my brother's keeper? should i burden myself...