Perhaps I don’t understand a Newsweek article advocating Americans have more in common with Hinduism than Christianity?
First, the numbers of Americans who agree with the sentiments are 65%, 30%, and 24% respectively for each argument. We’d use numbers as strong as 30% and 24% to illustrate people are opposed to something. Of course, we’d use “only” to precede the terribly small number.
Second, the one decent argument, that Americans are accepting there are many paths to God can be found in many of the world’s religions. The Baha’i Faith takes it a step further. God started each of the major religions to bring all of humanity together in moral maturity. Yes, there are differences. However, distilling the teachings down to what they teach about morality, there is far more in common than distinct.
Hinduism is more than respect for people choosing their own path to God, being spiritual, or cremation. Americans are much more complex than these ideas as well.
Germane
September 8, 2007 in Personal / Relationships by Ezra S F | No comments
Maybe its intrinsic to human nature to seek our relevance. To our family. To our friends. To the world. We label those who fail to care about the impact of the behaviors on others as sociopaths. That is a bad thing in case you didn’t know.
I’ve heard people are happiest in jobs where what they do has meaning to the organization. These employees must feel germane to the organization to have satisfaction. Languishing in a job with no idea how what one is doing helps anyone engenders a feeling of uselessness. Maybe even paranoia about termination could arise. By contrast, knowing the organization completely depends upon every decision made by an individual dispels fear. So many people want to work for Google because Google makes software millions of people use. We provide facilities for thousands of students to conduct their higher education at my work. Its no Google, but I am content.
Mythology, cosmogony, cosmology, and especially religion help define for us where we are in the world and especially what we can do to improve the world around us. We can even find pertinence on the Internet. The popularity of blogs, I think, lies in two things: 1) hoping others find the posts useful in some way and 2) the pertinent comments others leave in feedback.
I think for me, personally, I have not done such a good job understanding my relevance to individuals in my life. Nor have I considered the relevance of other individuals to me. Has anyone systematically done this?