Since this is an "off topic" forum, let's talk about something that is completely off topic to pickup. Iv'e been studying spirituality for the past years of my life and I consider it to be wholely way more important than pickup.

Sure, it's nice to stick your penis into some girls' vargina, but face it, eventually you would die. Nothing last...maybe not even spirituality but at least it's something that has a chance to last.

This post is probably extremely offensive to most if not all of you. However, if we live in a world of complete politically correctness, there's no way to get your point across to anyone. With that in mind, I'm going to repost what i post on my facebook blog. Let's just say the few people close to me are less than amuse by it.

Quote:This is of course base on the religion itself and not really the people in the religion. Not everyone in the higher level religion are spiritually higher than the one in the lower, but as with everything in life, this is base on average and it's base on the teaching of its' religion. With this in mind, I shall list the highest quality of spiritual teaching from highest level to lowest. This post isnt meant to be politically correct. Sometime, the truth isnt meant to be politically correct.

Quote:We're all spiritual brothers, but we're not equal

The Inner Life by Leadbeater

It is unfortunate that most people's spirituality are not at equal proportion, which is why certain religion exist to help that particular individual or group of people. However, once you realize there's a level of religion, you also realize if you feel frustrated that you're not finding answer in your current level of religion, then try to study the higher level of religion and you shall find answer there!

1. Buddhism: Buddhism offer the greatest amount of liberation. Some of the greatest spiritual works are found in buddhism. Buddhism are extremely complex and for 99 percent of the world population, they will not be able to understand some of buddhist advance teaching in this lifetime. Simple buddhist concept includes meditation and realizing life is impernamence.

2. Hinduism: Hinduism is very similiar to buddism and have some fairly advance concepts in it. Buddha himself did not say he's actually creating a "new religion" but rather he helps improve in the concept. Never the less, this is still a very advance religion.

3. Taoism: Anyone who actually open a taoist book and read it will immediately see the complexity of taoism. Hell, I'll be happy if i can even understand 30 percent of taoist book.

4. Christianity: When I say christianity, I do not include the genesis in it but rather only the new testament. Some of my favorite concept from Jesus include self sacrifice, compassion for humanity and willingness to forgive all his enemies. When Jesus died on the cross, verbally and in his heart, he completely forgive all those who harmed him. The world would become a great place if everyone can adopt this stance.

5. Confucius: Confucius have basic simple morality laws, kind of similiar to the 10 commandment of the genesis, but more tailor toward the chinese people. However, what makes confucius a superior religion to judaism is that confucius himself doesnt not preach and "eye for an eye". Confucius does not have a history of a capricious god who demands sacrifices and randomly kills whomever he pleases.

6. Judaism: While I do not consider this to be a very advance religion, i understand why it exist during it's time. Face it, this religion exist during the time where humanity morality were extremely low. During this time, most people felt it's ok to murder whomever they pleases, including their own parents. The 10 commandments at least helps these barbaric people have some semblance of morality. I understand the uses of fear from god's wrath to get these barbaric people under control. Face it, telling the roman legionaries who are used to enslave people to go become a vegetarian and meditate 10 hours a day isnt going to cut it. Or telling them they should get crucified and forgive their enemies is pretty much impossible.

7. Islam: Ok, I tried to be open minded about islam and actually read the Quran, but frankly, the more i read, the more irritated at the level of this spirituality.

Here's a direct quote from the Quran:
[2:192] And kill them wherever you meet them and drive them out from where they have driven you out; for persecution is worse than killing. And fight them not in, and near, the Sacred Mosque until they fight you therein. But if they fight you, then fight them: such is the requital for the disbelievers.

Basically, you're welcome to kill people if they try to persecute you. This is so far below the level of Buddhism or Christianity for that matter it's not even funny. Still, at least the book directly tell you NOT to go out randomly attack people.

For the most part, the level of spirituality comes at a different levels:

1. Buddhism: realizing that all humanity are interconnected, realizing the law of karma are at work and that if you suffer, your'e simply paying for your karma. Self sacrifice(see also christianity).
2. Islam: Dont attack other people, but kill all those who attack you.
3. Savages: Kill anyone and take everything of value from them.

So yes, islam is one level above that of a complete savage, but it's still pretty low.

Now on the plus side, it does have basic 10 commandment basic type of morality it teaches it people. Such as dont accumulate wealth through falsehood etc. It tried it best to teach people at least a small semblance of VERY basic morality, similiar to that of judaism or confucius, but it still have things in it cartering to people who's spiritual development still needs quite a bit of work.

A perfect example would be, cut off the hands of all thieves. With the separation of church and law, we're able to improve the law and realize how certain law is too barbaric with the given time. However, in the muslim culture, who among the muslim is willing to go against the word of Allah and change the barbaric law in the Quran? I personally think, there should be a revolution among the muslim and definitely should separate it's law from church so that they could improve the quality of life for the people who live there.

Quote:With this in mind, I shall list the highest quality of spiritual teaching from highest level to lowest. This post isnt meant to be politically correct. Sometime, the truth isnt meant to be politically correct.

No wonder your posts piss people off. This sounds arrogant.


On topic: I like advaita.

"Ranking" spiritualities is not very uhh... spiritual.

@Philip: Sometimes frequently pissing people off is indicative of a low social/emotional intelligence. Other times you just need to be brutaly honest to help people becoming more self-aware and, above all, in order to express your own needs which is important for your own peace of mind. For example, in Germany where I am from (saito is not my real name) people usually are extremly politically correct and this absurd tolerance goes so far that one politician who therefore wrote a book called "Germany abolishes itself" [translation] was noticed to leave his job and is criticized by pretty much everyone; sometimes they even throw him out of restaurants etc. How tolerant is that?! Not at all. It's a dictatorship of tolerance.

On topic: the islam has various different stand points of views. Dangerous extremists, even atheists and very very tolerant practioners etc.. You can't put all those people into one category such as "low" or "savage."

Same thing with Buddhism. The Buddhism we get in the West barely resembles the historic Buddhism of the East. It was largely filtered through a handful of particular monks who traveled to the US and the beatnik followers they initially attracted. Buddhism also has a history of oppression and intolerance and slaughter like any other religion. Hinduism is the same. Taoism as well.

Every religion has the potential for serious spiritual growth, it also has potential to be oppressive and intolerant. What a person gets out of each one is going to depend on the person, not the religion. Some of the world's most beautiful luminaries and thinkers were Muslim. Look up Rumi or Sufism. The Quran and Bible and Torah say a lot of fucked up and violent stuff. They also say a lot of eloquent things and express beautiful ideas.

Also, FYI, a recent study found Muslims to be, on a person-to-person basis, far less violent than any other religion... by a long shot as well. Muslims are also known for their amazing hospitality... famous for it, really. I actually find Islam to be the most beautiful world religion. Their customs are pretty awe-inspiring and most serious Muslims I've met carry themselves with a great deal of humility. Read Malcolm X's account on his conversion to Islam and his pilgrimage to Mecca. It's really, really amazing. It completely changed his life.

But in my opinion, the whole idea of "ranking" religion is moronic. You may as well rank pizza toppings.

The reason most people find your post offensive Brian is because: 1) religion/spirituality is incredibly personal to many people, myself included, and to have someone rank them like they're baseball players comes across as very insensitive, especially when 2) your tone is very condescending and arrogant, and 3) it's clear you don't actually know a whole lot about half the religions you're talking about. How many Buddhist temples or Ashrams have you practiced in? Ever been to India? Are you aware of the Gnostics or the Qabbalah as higher forms of Western spirituality? What's the difference between Reform and Orthodox Jews? Or how about the differences between Shia and Sunnis? What about Mormons and Methodists? What do you think of Calvinism? Shintoism? Sufism? Sikhism? These are all major and important sub-groups of world religions and comparing them is apples to oranges. Everything you write just comes across as very reductionist and therefore ignorant.

You asked if any of us were into this stuff. I spent most of my time between ages 15 and 22 reading about nothing but philosophy and spirituality and was very active in a Zen practice during that time. I took a number of courses on Islam in college. I went to a private Christian school growing up and attended chapel every day for years. I know Philip has spent many years studying this stuff as well.

If you're really interested in stuff relating to religion/spirituality and how it relates to human evolution of consciousness as well as society, I highly, highly recommend starting with Ken Wilbur. I'd start with "A Brief History of Everything" or "Up From Eden." Also, Huston Smith's "The World's Religions" gets at what you're trying to talk about here, although in a much more fair and, ahem, well-researched way. His book "Forgotten Truth" was very influential as well. And if you really want to tickle your hierarchy bone and rank a bunch of stuff that doesn't necessarily ever need to be ranked, check out "Spiral Dynamics" by Don Beck.

But a word of social dynamics advice: when you decide to blast out your opinions about a particularly sensitive subject matter, tread more carefully. Make sure you know what you're talking about. And have a little humility. It'll go over much better.

Not so much offensive as poorly written. Not only is the idea of ranking religions absurd in the extreme, you provide little except for caricatures of these religions in your descriptions. It's as if you skimmed through the primary text without giving any thought to hermeneutics, history, or cultural context. It would seriously behoove you to crack a few books.

I knew immediately this post would generate this level of hatred given the fact very few people really know the direction of their own spiritual path. For most people, spirituality is given as much thought as "something that is beautiful" like an art, instead of something that would actually help them growth.

People are so offended by the "ranking" system that they completely forgot that I said "the teaching" and not the people in it. I have said above that there are different levels of spirituality on the people and it's independent of religion. Although on "average" the level of spirituality on the higher level religion are definitely higher than the lower one. A good case would be 90 percent of hinduism are vegetarian while in the past the judasim actually condone animal sacrifice and i heard there are small instances that they still do it now.

But given how most people lacking of spiritual depth, i wasnt surprise about the anger in these posts.

(08-16-2011 08:16 PM)saito Wrote:  @Philip: Sometimes frequently pissing people off is indicative of a low social/emotional intelligence. Other times you just need to be brutaly honest to help people becoming more self-aware and, above all, in order to express your own needs which is important for your own peace of mind. For example, in Germany where I am from (saito is not my real name) people usually are extremly politically correct and this absurd tolerance goes so far that one politician who therefore wrote a book called "Germany abolishes itself" [translation] was noticed to leave his job and is criticized by pretty much everyone; sometimes they even throw him out of restaurants etc. How tolerant is that?! Not at all. It's a dictatorship of tolerance.

On topic: the islam has various different stand points of views. Dangerous extremists, even atheists and very very tolerant practioners etc.. You can't put all those people into one category such as "low" or "savage."

Read my post more carefully. I put the people who "take everything of value and attack people to steal people's value" as savages. I did state that islam do have basic morality and that it tries to teach it's people to rise above that, which unfortunately the dangerious extremist do not even read the quran. However, it's morality is still low in comparison to other religion. As was stated, cutting off peoples hand from stealing is inferior to self sacrifice of christianity(which most christian do not do) or understanding the law of karma of buddhism.

Brian, the problem with your post is not that it is controversial, it is that you showed a total ignorance of world religions. Then when people attack you, you use the technique of "the fact that people think I am wrong shows that I'm just so right" when actually your problem is you are totally ignorant on the facts.

For instance, while some Hindu sects are vegetarian, sacrifice was widespread during the Vedic period in india, and is actually mentioned in Hindu holy texts including the Rig Veda and the Kalika Purana. In fact in Tamil Nadu animal sacrifice is still practiced among hindu populations, and a normal part of the practice.

By contrast, in Judaism, animal sacrifice ended with the destruction of the Second Temple. Since the temple is the only place where Korban (the hebrew word for sacrifice) was allowed to happen, there has not been any animal sacrifice since that time.

Ok, I stand correct by this because I do not know of this.

When I compare religion, i meant the literal meaning of the actual teaching itself in comparison to others. Since most of you barely ever read the teaching and cares more about the "arts and history" of it, it's pointless to even discuss it with you.

Well, then you should have been more specific and said, "primary texts of religions" not "religions." Comparing the Bible to the Quran is quite different from comparing Christianity to Islam.