Been hearing lots on the news and talk shows recently about Syria, and whether the UK could supply arms to the rebels/liberators/terrorists (pick which you prefer). Does anyone really expect a good outcome from this venture? The Dalai Lama posted a short text on violence, read it here
There's also a report by the BBC here that does not make happy reading. I am somewhat disturbed by the reference to "enlightened self interest", enlightenment cannot be achieved through selfishness, rather selflessness should be practiced.
I have been reading about Islam over the last few days, and some of the similarities (to me, anyway) between the beliefs of a practising Muslim and the teachings of Buddhism made me want to know more. For example, "wasat", means the middle way between two extremes…or moderation and consensus in arriving at decisions; the "ummah" is the society or community of Muslims forming a self-helping, self-regulating and self-levelling society; and Muslims believe in tolerance with a complete lack of racial prejudice. I decided to do a quick search for "secular Islam" and "secular Muslim" but other than finding individual's sites and blogs about being secular and brought up in a Muslim society, I couldn’t find anything that used the teachings of the Qur'an within a secular context. Of course, as Muslims accept the Qur'an to be direct divine revelation and the "laws of God", any rewriting of the Qur'an could be viewed as blasphemous so maybe that's why? I did come across this site http://freethoughtnation.com/index.php and although the site suggests it’s for free thinkers, agnostics and secularists I'm not sure about it yet, some of the articles seemed to take an anti-religious stance rather presenting a reasoned argument. You may find it interesting, though.
