Status Updates From Essays on World Religion

Now for the ecumenical stuff. (btw, my prev status said "*Smith* says that Nietzsche..." but it should've been "Smith quotes Arendt who says that Nietzsche...")

Smith says that Nietzsche's "GOD is dead" meant that we (Westerners, scientismists) killed the True World, by which he meant that we killed the possibility of considering the True World valid and worthy of being thought about: and we (Westerners, scientismists) are now left with nothing but the quotidian. As Shaky said it (best), "There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in [our] philosophy."

Thanks, Huston, i'm going to listen to Tuvan throat singing again because of your essay on the 2-tone chanting of Tibetan lamas. Enough of that mystical shit, though: Onward to the West!

Hindus, Indus - am i the only one who failed to see the obvious connection until now? Shameful.

Smith's had a couple more shots to convince me of Confucianism's religiosity but it still ain't gettin through my thick Western ideological shell.

Done with the 2nd (theme-and-variation of the 1st) and 3rd essays. #3 states 3 great truth propositions about Truth. I love having my paradigms shifted, though i really had to concentrate and reread and trod slowly through #3 to grok large sections.

Smith's foreword really had me anticipating greatness but editor Bryant's intro dulled that expectation. Smith's 1st essay didn't overwhelm me, but it did provide some interesting observations that i'd failed to make on my own and that enhance my self- and cultural awareness.