Zen Flesh Zen Bones
as compiled by Paul Reps.

Read this in college, as I was beginning to study comparative religion.

Having grown up Catholic, I'd had more than enough Christianity and guilt for one lifetime, so I thought I'd see what else was out there.

Zen meditation is interesting. There are basically two approaches to practice (this is a completely bastardized description), 1)sit down, count your breaths, and try to free your thoughts and still your mind. Or 2) pick a koan (a zen riddle), and run it like a mental screensaver. Koans are designed to lock up the conscious part of your mind so you can attain a transcendent awareness.

The practices work. (At least as a way to experience a new and impressive mental state, not as a way to attain immortality, etc.)

The inevitable problem (assuming you haven't joined a temple and are being constantly reaffirmed in your belief system)? You're still mortal, you've still got stuff to do, and now being less attached to "things", you need to find better motivation than monetary rewards to get through the day, which can be tricky.

The downside with the Western proselytizing faiths is that their practitioners tend to cause a lot of problems (e.g. the Crusades/Jihad/Terrorism/bad music/etc.)

The downside with Eastern religion is that the passive and detached mindset makes those cultures vulnerable to less enlightened but more active tyrants (see e.g. China/Myanmar-Burma/Cambodia/North Korea).

Luckily we're getting past religion now. (Once we get a few more electric cars on the road and some solar thermal generators up and running, OPEC will be out of business and the terrorists will have to go back to their day jobs.)

Oh, I know, some of you may think you're Christian, but what most of you really are is products of the Enlightenment, an 18 century philosophical (not religious) movement.

Read the following: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_Enlightenment

Then compare it with the values of the New and Old Testament (rape/homophobia/slavery/having to believe in invisible magic beings, etc.), and see what you're really in favor of.

(That's assuming you're interested in actually practicing the faith according to the texts. If you decide to go the 12-step/New Age/believe whatever I want to route, that's your right also, but that's not really religion, that's pretending. (Is there a difference?)

But seriously, for an interesting mental experience, Zen is worth a shot, and Zen Flesh Zen Bones is an interesting book.
(not here, Thu 22 May 2008, 4:47, 1 reply)

I don't agree
that we are getting past religion. OK, some parts of the western world may be becoming more secular, but not everywhere - look at the hard core Christians in the US for example. And Islam is growing in popularity, I believe. Even the UK still has a monarch who is head of the state church.

Also, it's going to be a while until oil runs out. Yes it's expensive at the moment but that's not actually due to a supply/demand issue. It's artificially high because of speculators buying futures. And there's a lot of oil yet to be extracted.
( K2k6 has a proper job these days, Thu 22 May 2008, 9:28, closed)