My own experiences have led me to believe that there are forces at work in our world that have not been described by physics or other science. Most, as is the case with most people I've talked to, are anecdotal, but there are some that have proven repeatable under the right circumstances. Though I am a skeptic in many ways, I cannot discount the idea that there are "supernatural" forces that can be tapped into by us humans. I don't necessarily believe these forces are magic; rather, I believe that they can be explained if they are studied.Despite the vast number of religions, nearly everyone in the world believes in the same things: the existence of a soul, an afterlife, miracles, and the divine creation of the universe. Recently psychologists doing research on the minds of infants have discovered two related facts that may account for this phenomenon. One: human beings come into the world with a predisposition to believe in supernatural phenomena. And two: this predisposition is an incidental by-product of cognitive functioning gone awry.
Our world is filled with mythology; stories that attempt to describe man's connection to the divine, or if you will, stories about gods that define a particular faith. These stories often form the basis for certain practices within a religion and are instructive as to why the practice differs from other faiths. These stories represent best guesses of explanations of phenomenon observe by people lacking in the tools to fully study them. These mythologies embody, but do not completely or accurately describe, phenomena observed but not understood. As such they may reflect universal truths that are worth of study and further description.
On the other hand, these mythologies and practices have been passed for millennia, often in oral tradition, translated from language to language, transmitted through hand copied manuscripts. Ideas have been corrupted for political and other purposes; texts have been lost or destroyed. Meaning has been lost due to cultural differences or social changes. Ambiguity, difficult in modern language, becomes all the more so when examining an ancient idea.
This blog will document my attempts to study the practices and mythologies of various religious schools in an attempt to separate the wheat from the chaff. My approach will be to treat each source as potentially truthful, but to ascribe ultimate authority to none. My approach will also consider that there may be more than one correct approach; that an underlying principle or universal truth may be manifest in more than one way. What does it mean if a particular source is "true," what does it mean if it is false. This discussion will assume that no tradition is true; it will assume that all traditions are true.
I welcome comments and feedback from fellow travelers on this path. It is through discussion that we may find new ideas or new ways of looking at old ideas. This is not a place for evangelism or proselyting. If you already have your answers and are unwilling to challenge them through deep examination of their underlying premises, you fill probably not find much of interest to you here, nor add much of relevance to this discussion.
