The Guardian Comment Is Free site published another one of my little essays. I wrote and submitted this in February, as I remember, and I’d thought the editors had forgotten it. Now that I’ve re-read it, I don’t think I like it very much. The comments are pretty nasty; I stopped reading them.
10 Comments 
Religion
“The comments are pretty nasty”
I would say some more critical than nasty. As interesting as any essay on religion could be (for me a non-believer). The only religious talk that ever made any sense to me was: “The Tao is silent”!
Well, the Tao can be pretty damn noisy sometimes, too. It has its moods.
I read your article, but the comments wouldn’t load. The divide between philosophy and religion is like the divide between logic and faith, to me. I got in trouble over it at age 12 or so, which led me to decide logic ruled. All I did was say that going to church to avoid going to hell was a negative reason to be a Christian, and that if the ideas were worth anything, they were worth it on their own, without sticks or carrots. I guess idealism is a hard sell.
The article speaks for me as it articulates the middle way without offense to the two ends of the continuum. The comments seem typical limey to me–they just are what they are. I still think the light is more important than the lamp given there are so many lamps of different shapes and sizes. Thanks for posting the link.
[T]he Tao can be pretty damn noisy sometimes, too. It has its moods.
Mahabarb
I love this. Can I put it in my .sig quote?
What don’t you like about your Guardian piece?
–
Dave
Whoops, meant to cite that quote as Maha, not Mahabarb.
Sorry.
Dave — sig line usage approved.
I suppose the piece is OK. There are some things I think I could have written more clearly. Maybe next time.
I rather liked it, actually. And while some of the comments were nasty (impossible to avoid on the ‘net, anyway), several of the commenters got into a fairly serious discussion of the merits of their various positions on the subject. If you can make ‘em think a bit and discuss their thoughts, that’s not bad. You regularly make me think a bit as well, about both politics and religion. Thank you for that.
I thought it was a good piece. The comments only seemed nasty in the sense that the commenters weren’t hearing what you were saying. They seemed too focused on finding fault in what you were saying that they couldn’t hear what you were saying.
For me, I see the whole Christian bible bullshit as utter lunacy, but there are aspects to it that are true in spite of the overall nonsense that composes it.
I thought the essay was okay and didn’t find the comments overly critical. Of course there are always those people who do not have an open mind and will say anything is BS if they don’t believe in it.
Although Taoism and Buddhism are both practiced in China and there are similarities, they are separate schools of thought and/or practice. Lao Tzu said “The name that can be named is not the enduring and unchanging name.” It is the unchanging principle behind all change so to speak of it as silent or noisy is erroneous.
Apr 16, 2009 
