Friday, January 23, 2009
Who'd have thought!
I am taking a religions of the world class at my school and I am learning so very interesting things. In church we always talk about how like most religions contain at least some portion of the truth, but for some reason in my head that translated to, most christian religions contain truth. But i have now changed my mind on that note. I am currently learning about Hinduism and to some degree I was shocked at the major connections and parallels between, Hinduism, and Mormonism. Although from the exterior it may appear that Hindus worship many different gods, in reality they believe that you can worship whichever god you choose as long as it leads you too the ultimate reality of Brahman. Brahman is a sense of complete unity with everyone around you, an idea that I believe connects exactly with the LDS desire to create zion. Zion is sometimes thought to be a literal place but in actuality, it is more of a oneness in heart between all people who believe in what we know to be the true reason for our existence. Also, we believe we are all brothers and sisters as part of one eternal family which I find to be a great parrallel between the two. The last connection that I have thus far discovered, is between the idea of the veil in mormonism, and Maya in Hinduism. The veil and Maya are both ideas that we have forgotten the true purpose for our existence, and that our time on earth is to be spent rediscovering that truth. It is amazing to me how close those similarities are. I know of course that there are many differences between the two churches but that does not mean that they cannot share some of the same core beliefs, and why shouldn't they? Any desire for goodness is commendable and differences in approach are not ours to condemn.
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
An open mind
College is interesting, everyone makes it sound like this totally 'mazing place filled with open-minded learners, especially my college. And to some point it is true. But honestly, some people there are not open minded, but closed-minded about different things, and that isn't okay. If you are to be open-minded, you should be all around open-minded. I occassionally fear that I may be too open-minded. I believe that people should do whatever it is that they want to do, good or bad, nice or naughty. That is not to say that i cheer for the bad choices made in the world, but i do respect people's ability to make them, as long as they are willing to face the consequences. I also do not believe in denying rights to people with a different blief system than my own, I believe that a person should be able to make their choices based on their beliefs, not my own. Honestly, I think this is how I am supposed to think, so I am okay with it, completely. But if I at some point cause you offense, I am so sorry.
Thursday, January 08, 2009
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