Welcome to COOL!

This forum is the home of COOL, the Community of One Love. Please read the threads in the Main COOL forum for more info about this.

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Thanks!

 

The concept of One Love acknowledges a conscious supreme being, the creator, yes. How you define that being is up to you.

Personally, I believe in a supreme being, but I in no way apply any anthropomorphic characteristics to it. In fact I just accept that it is completely beyond my comprehension, and any attempt to define it, limits it, separating it from me.

The Buddhist in me does have a problem with a deity as portrayed by most other religions. To me the key is to recognize its unfathomability, and accept its metaphysical reality - its omnipresence in everything.

Atheists would probably be uncomfortable with some definitions of God, but perhaps only ones that seek to add a personality or agenda to it.

 

Any attempt to claim to have access to the truth or Truth, to deny or affirm any God or gods, to "know" etc. is to establish a dogma, in my view.

Even atheists must be included as they are part of the human condition....or does one need to believe in some sort of supreme being or they are Un-cool?

 

Meagain, I think you need to clear out your preconceptions.

Truth is a relative thing. Your truth and mine are not the same. Yet we all seek it. Thus saying to seek truth is dogma makes no sense. Dogma, the way you see it is what you force people to believe. I don't think the intent is to force anything on anybody.

Dogma is merely a belief. It has come to mean something negative because of all the b.s. religious dogma we have to deal with in our lives.

If we can agree on some basic fundamental principles (like all religions and organizations do), we can proceed from there.

I think you're referring to old style religions that claim to be the ONLY true religions and the only paths to God. That is the ultimate dogmatic and exclusive position to take. I think we've already rejected that assumption for COOL, no?

As I just said above:

It's up to each individual. COOL will be what it will be. It won't include or exclude any individual based on their own beliefs. They decide whether to join or not. Nobody "must" be included.

 

Skip,
Excuse me for playing devil's advocate but I was trying to point out some pitfalls that may be encountered.
I did not say that to seek truth was to establish dogma, I attempted to convey that any claim to know "the Truth" is to establish dogma. Please excuse my poor use of words.
Now, I realize that you are not going to present this endeavor as the ultimate solution or truth intentionally. I was trying to illustrate the point that oldwolf is making. (Excuse me oldwolf if I am wrong).
Anytime a group is formed, by definition, it excludes someone.

You made a statement:

Again, forgive me, but in my limited way I may have misunderstood that remark. Language has its problems.

"A dog barks; the Caravan passes." Arabic Proverb

 

I think we're just arguing semantics here. I believe the points made by Megain and Old Wolf are irrelevant to what we're doing.

Again, dogma simply means belief. Nothing more. I suggest everyone familiarize themselves with such religious terms definitions before attributing negative or positive qualities to what is essentially a neutral term.

Perhaps they're referring to the paradox of people having their own truth, vs. a groups' perception of the truth. In any case this debate has no place in this thread, and should be taken up in its own thread.

 

By definition, a definition is a limiting description. So God defies definition (although the term:infinite comes close, which basically means undefinable). Why waste our time in a fruitless task?

I would say the thing about God is to experience it within yourself, and learn to find it within others. Little else matters in the scheme of things...

God = Love

Can we agree on that?

 

I still don't see your point oldwolf. If people want to "exclude" themselves, they can. If they want to join they can. It's always their choice.

"Hinduism is not a codified religion" - M.K. Gandhi

See it's really not a problem.

You seem to be looking so far down the road, anticipating the worst scenario based upon your own experience. While that's a fine intellectual exercise for you, it profits us not at this point.

COOL isn't for everybody. I have no illusions about that.

"how can any religion go beyond what it means to be a religion ?"

I really think you're just asking rhetorical questions here, and I'm not going to project potential scenarios of the negative kind, cause that's not what it's about. It's about POSITIVE VIBRATIONS.

So if you want to play devil's advocate that's fine, just start another thread, thanks.