Tag: Judaism
Prophets and Their Purposes
The world has been blessed with powerful messages from prophets of the past. Five of these prophets have a present-day influence on billions of people: Moses, Laozi, Buddha, Jesus, and Muhammad. These five men were the impetus for Judaism, Taoism, Confucianism, Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam. Those religions represent almost 6 billion of the 7.6 billion people on the planet. Given those numbers, it seems appropriate to discuss who they were and what they were about. Read More
The Timeless and the Timely
It’s hard to find elevated and elevating messages these days. It seems to me that we keep looking for quick and easy solutions to complex problems that require deep debate, creative thinking, and thoughtful analysis.
In this post, I revisit some sources of ancient wisdom, finding timeless principles that can help us deal with today’s challenges.
Sin and Spin
There is no greater sin than desire, No greater curse than discontent, No greater misfortune than wanting something for oneself. Therefore he who knows that enough is enough will always have enough. —Tao Te Ching, Chapter 46 It seems to me that religions focus too much on sin; and politics focuses too much on spin. They may both be guilty of the sin of spin and the spin on sin. Religions specifically call out the Read More
Wisdom and Wealth
All religions allude to the challenge of acquiring enough wisdom to deal with whatever wealth you may have.
These various points of view help us address the questions, “What is wisdom?” and “How do you measure wealth?”
Renewal
“Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.” —Samuel Beckett Remember when air traffic was shut down in Europe from the eruption of E15 in Iceland? It was April, 2010, when Eyjafjallajökull (E15) erupted causing floods to rush down the rivers and requiring 800 people to be evacuated. The eruption was so explosive it caused air travel disruption in Europe for 6 days. More tragically, it buried the farms below it Read More
Holism
Holism is the theory that parts of a whole are in intimate interconnection, such that they cannot exist independently of the whole or cannot be understood without reference to the whole, i.e. the whole is more than the sum of its parts. If you believe in the power of synergy, then 2+2 may equal 5. While it is sometimes very useful from a scientific point of view to break things down into smaller and smaller Read More