Interesting thread!
Here's my dilemma, maybe you all can help me deal with it.
I am not a Christian, I am a Buddhist and have been practicing Buddhism for over 20 years. I am not a buddhist priest, I am a member of the laiety. I do not prosyletize, preach or otherwise spread Buddha's message, because frankly, it's not my responsibility to preach. A seeker will find their way to the Dharma, or they won't. It's that simple.
My problem is this. I work with some VERY religious folks. People who wallpaper their workspace with religious iconography. people who attach things like " may the Lord Jesus Christ protect and keep you" to their internal - INTERNAL - emails. People who generally force their beliefs down your throat at every available opportunity.
We have a strict policy here - which we call "the Wedge" and basically if you make a pie of all topics of conversation only sex, religion and politics are "In the Wedge" and off-limits. So, when presented with these OBVIOUSLY outside guideline religious proselytizations what is one to do. Well for several years I did nothing. Recently however, due to "current events" there have been some complaints from Muslims that their being "persecuted" by the christians and now HR is coming down hard on the Christian Prosyletizers.
Of course, the loudest criers of "FOUL" and "Discrimination" are??????
The Christians.
This is mind-boggling. But it's part and parcel to the original post. Right now in this country the "With us or the enemy" mentality has fully dissemenated itself into our society and anyone with the slightestly (is that a word? - I don't think it is....) different viewpoint or belief structure is so clearly THEM - you know the THEM that are going to destroy the American Way of Life.... That's it's OK to attack them:
Verbally today, physically tomorrow. Mark my words.
If we cannot escape from the tide of Christian Fundamentalism we are well and truly doomed.
All of the above is factual as to events which took place in my sight/purview and the rest is my own opinion and not designed to offend anyone....
Thank you (edited for spellnik - ooops)
Edited by Gefiltefishmon, 23 July 2005 - 01:48 AM.
"To know that you do not know is the best. To act from the pretense that you know when you do not know is a disease" - Lao Tzu
"From All, One; and From One, All" - Heraclitus
"Let me be clear: however the world's goblet turns there will always be those drunk on the wine of the Self" - Ghalib
"A 'politically savvy challenge to evolution' is as self-evidently ridiculous as an agriculturally savvy challenge to euclidean geometry would be." - Charles Pierce