Theos-Talk Archives (July 1996 Message tl00249)

Jim,
When I was in college the student paper did an editorial cartoon of me
entering heaven sitting in a tank with about a hundred stars on my helmet,
with heaven in a shambles, a squashed angel sticking out from under the
treads and I was holding a map upside down saying that I thought we took a
wrong turn somewhere.
I may have gotten older, but I haven't changed very much.
Personally, I have no use for either the ignoble (sorry, there I go again,
but it really bugs me) eight-fold path or the sermon on the mount.  As far as
I'm concerned enlightenment has nothing to do with being a nice Pali and the
only thing the meek inherit is the dirt.  So I view those teachings as being
totally without any practical value.  I'm not even sure that the Buddha was
really enlightened.  He may have had good press agent.  And I'll bet good
money that Jesus was not the Son of God.
I operate under a basic assumption.  All teachings are lies.  Some lies got
popular and some did not, but there is not a word of truth in any of them.
 Having thus dispensed with all spiritual epistemic authority, I then proceed
to go to work and see what happens.  That's how I got into the TS.  I mean,
it is real difficult to be working on some kind of spiritual path and not
believe a word of what anyone says about it.  And then I discovered this
group that said all you had to do was assent to these nice, three objects,
which I sort of already agreed with anyway, and did not have to believe in
anything else.
Yippee!
So I'm willing to accept as a basic premise that no matter what the system
is, it will work for somebody and not necessarily for anyone else, and that
includes any system I might come up with.  But the fact that the system works
for any number of given individuals does mean that there is any actual truth
behind the system, there is merely something there that resonates with the
particular person involved.  Thus, in a very real sense, I believe that in
the realm of the spiritual anything does go and everything is permitted.

Chuck the Heretic