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I kinda hate to say it, because of all the power and prestige wielded by sects and cults, and glamor to be gleaned from tradition and traditions through the centuries, but it seems to me that the best religions are to some degree lonely hearts clubs.  The best place to meet your soul mate is often a temple, lodge, church, holy festival, place of ( Read more... )

When you get some years or learning, you sometimes want to start "saving pain" in the younger generation.  The best way I have yet found to fail at this is to pollute your enthusiasm with immodesty.  Such people end up causing more pain than they prevent.  The folks who trust their god to protect them from toxic boredom, and have the patience to ( Read more... )

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Our comedy is so often someone else's tragedy. Nagging is unwise and ungodly counsel that absolutely cannot be taken at face value by one who wishes to manifest original or creative thought. A marm, deputy, or imam who will slap you when you are not at the potter's wheel will slap you when you are at the potter's wheel. In _Manners From Heaven_ ( Read more... )

The other day, I saw a conversation about what makes something sacred. I didn't read too much of it, because it immediately seemed doubtless to me that everything held holy by some group started off as something very well loved, so that those who loved it wanted it to be well respected. Failing in that, they embarked upon a campaign to make the ( Read more... )

Djinn Bey, why do most of your religious observances involve a picnic?

Ian Hotep, what does that symbol on your necklace mean?

Life.

In life, there are three ways to make a big mess: to succeed, to fail, and to die. The only way to justify this is with a big party.

But, I always hear that real life is no picnic.

When I went to school, we ( Read more... )

If we follow the numbering of lines used by Devaud and Zaba, the Papyrus Prisse has 646 lines for the Maxims Of PtahHotep. A lot of these lines are almost independent epigrams of Egyptian Wisdom, but the author has evidently collected those he found most pertinent and set them like gems into a larger explanation that furnishes clarifying context.

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The other day, I saw what I thought a rather misguided statement. Maat was imagined in a very unscientific way. There were only two temples to Maat that we know of. The other gods lived by maat. The individual comes to the support of Maat. The great gods come to the support of Maat. Maat doesn't come running after anyone who doesn't pursue Her with ( Read more... )