Do you really believe a number of people are only here as a front? Maybe the level of inactivity can be chalked up to lurkers instead. Lurking either b/c one is too shy to post, yet wants to be inspired by others' wisdom, or because there isn't enough time in the day to do everything one wants (including devoting time to constructing words into coherent thoughts for the sake of a virtual community). Personally, I'd consider myself more a lurker (time constraints) than a fronter.

I do appreciate, and share, your desire to light a flame online and get people moving on a given subject. To that extent, Mad Doc, feel free to school us (or at least me - who's Diarmuid O'Murchu?).

...namaste...

Whoa. Gotta brush up on my Heggel before I reply to that. B-)


But I do agree that one of the primary pitfalls of orthodox religions, eastern & western alike- is that they tend toward political conservatism.

But consider the sociological machinations: You are a church of the establishment. you have clout among the people. Therefore you can be easily seen as a conflict of interest for the ruling class. The ruling class controls the military, police and other death-wielding social structures. All your acolytes are trained pacifists.

Ergo, you will suck up to the elite, or at least not get in their way of dominating life on earth.

Besides, as whosit said, it's the opium of the masses, right? Religion, as a social force, does not ADDRESS the social ills of life, so much as *sidesteps* their gravity by contextualizing the experience of brutal suffering as some existential test before admission to heaven or advancement to Atman or what have you.

So religion isn't about solving the world's ills, that's government's role (theoretically). Religion is about understanding your ills within a greater, more cosmic context. And thus being okay with the fact that The Man's boot has your neck pinned firmly to the asphalt.

------------won't I ever shut up?-----------

Here, we should make a distinction between religion and visionary spirituality. As a social function we see that religion is just control. Odd, that within its folds we see a monastic level, where the actual mysteries of existence are pondered. Therein lies the liberatory seed within the carcass of orthodoxy. The priests have always been about controlling the masses, but the *monks* are about liberation of the self.

Disenfranchisement has always existed, and always will. There will always be an underclass, and a handul of alpha-male dicks who abuse them to win power. It's part of the human ecology, as natural as fucking.

I believe that it is all well and good to fight for equality and justice, and that this may even be endowed with spiritual underpinnings at times, but what we manage to do is to partially affect the tides of disenfranchisement/privilege, never really close the gap entirely. In some ways (from a cosmic perspective of the monks for example) it can be seen as an absurdist concern.

And yes, philosophical tomes tend to be written by a buch of white guys with a lot of free time on their hands. But SOMEBODY'S gotta do it. And it's not likely to be a Brasilian pregado who spends 16 hours a day hauling mud uphill for the gold-leeching overlords.

---------huh?-----------

I believe that a push forward is necessary in ALL fronts. Personal-liberation spirituality needs to push against religious establishment at the same time that we need direct activists confronting the WTO globally. All fronts must be active, phisical, mental, and spiritual.