Atheist Turned Believer

      I promised to write nothing more unless I had a major epiphany or received comments.  Well, I got a couple of comments the other day, one of which seems to need addressing.  The commentator mentioned the difficulty concentrating while praying.  This is quite common; we've all been there.  I've discussed my own problems in this regard at some length in various posts, as well as my ongoing effort to learn better.     What I've discovered is to combine lessons learned from both the Buddha and the Christ.  What I mean by this is that Buddhism concentrates almost all of its effort toward meditation with little to no mention of prayer.  This is natural, of course: Buddhism doesn't advocate anything or anyone to pray to.  On the other hand, in Western Christianity, much emphasis is placed on prayer with almost no mention of meditation.  I find both of these approaches to be insufficient.  Meditation without p...

       This is where I'm writing down various ideas as they come to me so that I don't forget them.  It will be added to periodically as memorable thoughts occur to me.  It is for my own remembrance, so please feel free to ignore it.     People always complaining about God being cruel and allowing us to suffer remind me of the old joke about the man who goes to the doctor and, violently shaking his wrist, says, "Doc, it hurts when I do this," to which the doctor replies, "well, don't do that."  I'm just now thinking about what happens after the punchline.  In all likelihood, the man goes home and complains to his wife that the doctor is a quack, having done nothing about the pain "when I do this."  Since suffering is an attitude in which we engage by choice, I feel like, when we pray to God to end our suffering, God's response is almost certainly, "Well, don't do that."        I was going down a rabbit hole ...