Thank you for your help. I will get the book and read it. And you are right, some things really are complicated.

You came across as one that has a good heart, no matter how you got it, and that is good enough for me.

Discussing motivation is difficult, as most of it is unconscious. If we are going to attribute motivations to God, we have a problem– how do we explain the motivations of people who do nasty things?

CEF: I would guess, not ever having met you or even talked to you before, that something has led you to where you are now. I would also guess that things have happened to you that you cannot explain. These things have helped shape who and what you are. I would attribute such things to God/something bigger than I am. You would probably attribute these things to mere chance/just the way things are. Both of us cannot be correct. I am willing to entertain the idea that I am wrong.

The nice thing about attributing these things to chance is that it is value-neutral– no one expects chance to be organized, or good, or make sense. If you attribute things to God, you are assuming that a) things make sense, and b) they are done for a good reason, and c) they couldn’t be this way with less suffering. If there is a God, based on the evidence I’d say he is 100% evil and 80% effective.

As far as commandments are concerned: “Love your neighbor” is a great commandment. Too bad most of Christianity is in direct opposition to it. “Love God” is, as far as I am concerned, a pretty bad commandment– personally, I don’t care if you love Vishnu or Zeus or Isaac Newton, as long as you behave like a decent human being.

Given your background, a nice book on Buddhism might be “Living Buddha, Living Christ” by Thich Nhat Hanh. He’s a Vietnamese Zen monk who was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by Martin Luther King (one of my favorite Christians…)

CEF:Christians have done a lot of bad things in the name of God, but they have also done some amazingly good things in the name of God as well.

Yep. Similarly, Muslims have done a lot of amazingly good things and amazingly bad things in the name of Allah. Admiring the works of the Ancient Greeks doesn’t make me want to worship Zeus. though. Although, in the Greek’s defense, being polytheistic they weren’t interested in getting other people to believe in the same deities as them– that problem seems to be uniquely monotheistic.

I would guess, not ever having met you or even talked to you before, that something has led you to where you are now. I would also guess that things have happened to you that you cannot explain. These things have helped shape who and what you are. I would attribute such things to God/something bigger than I am. You would probably attribute these things to mere chance/just the way things are. Both of us cannot be correct. I am willing to entertain the idea that I am wrong.

I would appreciate any suggestion of a book about Buddhism that you would recommend to one like me, not the sharpest tack in the box.

I have no good answer as to why things in the Old Testament are the way they are, but I would stand the two great commandments Christ gave in the New Testament to anything. Love God and love your neighbor.

I just read a book Called “The Hole in the Gospel” by Richard Stearns. It is all about putting the teachings of Christ into action. It is a good book, I would recommend it to anyone.

Christians have done a lot of bad things in the name of God, but they have also done some amazingly good things in the name of God as well.

But does Derrida really focus on novelty? It seems to me that he spends a great deal of time on spacing, i.e., the (impossible) conditions of possibility.

Clark: It turns out that this all ended up fairly close to certain Buddhist traditions as well – especially (IMO) Zen Buddhism.

I agree about “certain Buddhist tradtions”, but I’m not so sure I’d put Zen at the top of the list. But, as you say, this is quite technical.

If you are willing to suspend your disbelief for an hour and actively follow along, I’ve found that Genpo Roshi’s “Big Mind” seminars, (available on YouTube beginning here) can give a nice taste of Zen awareness. It’s not a substitute for meditation practice, mind you, but it can definitely be a profound experience, if you let yourself go with it.

Well, I’m an atheist, and I’d like to think I’m a good person, so I can speak about this with some confidence. First of all, let’s eliminate what’s not the motivation– fear of punishment or desire for heavenly reward. Those are pretty crappy motivators, in my opinion, and if one really believes that people need to be bribed and threatened to behave decently, one has a very poor view of humanity indeed– in fact, I’d be inclined to ignore any Creator who claimed to be responsible for such a sorry creation.

So, what motivates me to do good? In a word: compassion. There’s enough suffering out there without me adding to it, and if I can subtract from it, so much the better.

Since you expressed an interest in Buddhism, I’ll say this: I’d stack the Buddhist “Five Precepts” up against the 10 Commandments any day, if you want an example of an atheist moral code.