Yuyutsu,

Just imagine for a moment that a human child appears out of the blue. He is kept alive but sealed away from his environment and his fellow humans.

What would his spiritual quality amount to under those circumstances? After all, he is still human. In your opinion his earthly physicality is no more than a vessel containing his spirit.
You appear to believe his spirit exists as an independent entity, one that isn't touched and enlivened by interaction with environment and fellow beings.

I don't agree.

A world religion that is based upon laws and punishments of the state is not a religion but a secular law. A religion must have freedom of belief or denial. A religion that is enforced by the State will breed contempt for the rule of the State. This then is not a democratic State.

'I just cannot see how possibly the Earth, a physical thing which sustains our physical bodies, can also sustain our spirit, which is non-physical.'Yuyutsu...

I can explain...and refer to first page of article extract of 'Universal Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth'...

Its actually very sound expansion from basic of facts...and quite enlightened...

Its 'energy' and Earth runs on energy in an extremely complex interaction form between all that live and exists within it, without which all comes to dead still...

best example to see bigger picture is a self_sustaining fish tank...all life within it survives living off each other, the biggest of fish to smallest of microbes, each as important as other...no human intervention.Thnk about it. At its fundamental is energy 'use' and 'transfer'...so energy of algae(plant) eaten by catfish becomes 'useable' by the fish to swim looking for more algae...now expand this to every level within tank...so see the energy 'cycle'...now put the tank in a deep freeze...see...but energy remains which never dies...now apply to earth...

And to 'spirit' by Yuyutsu...arises from question we all must ask...at moment of death is it;
1. All black forever like gone to sleep and never awaken...
2. Or awareness continues its journey into the afterlife...
No other reasonable options Im afraid...and we ALL are going to be at the death moment, which absolute certainty...

so 'spirit' are those whom select 2...so are actually saying 'intelligent pure energy' exists within them right now that never 'dies'...but energy nonetheless...which also called 'soul' and where all religions of earth evolved to address, and to me dismally failed todate...

And people selecting 1&2 have to accept the reason they 'exist' is 'energy'...but UN taking this up sends alarm bell clanking...there is undercurrent that links this to some form of 'law' that enables more 'monitoring and control' of population, divided into 'controller(ruler) and controlled(enslaved)'...so watch out...

sam

With all due respect Yuyutsu, the example you offer is not of compassion, but rather of ill advised and unwarranted action.
An example of compassion would be a person seeing the old lady and thinking to themselves: "look at that poor old lady. I would very much like to help her. I wonder what she needs?"
Compassion is a feeling, nothing more. In this, it is like the gun that doesn't kill people, but the person who pulls the trigger.
I consider your attitude to allegedly 'loving' your enemies even as you pull the trigger to be equally ill considered. Defence is not retribution. The thrust of Jesus' argument was to stop the cycle of violence by 'forgiving those who trespass against us'. Witness the state of the 'Godfearing' USA, on heightened alert against reprisals by Al Qaeda, for the reprisal against Bin Laden, for reprisals against Arab nations and Muslims...
As to your final comment about coming closer to God, this obviously involves 2 assumptions.
1, God exists, whether anyone believes in It or not;
2, Despite being (presumably) infinitely greater than yourself, you understand It and It's motives and desires perfectly.
How remarkably clever of you.

>> I'll give you an example of compassion that is uninformed, Grim:

You see an old lady standing at the edge of the footpath next to a road with heavy traffic, so you take her arm, stop the cars and lead her safely to other side... only to find out that she was heading towards the pharmacy on the original side of the road.<<

Not so much "uninformed" Yuyutsu, so much as ignorant. When I see someone I think may need help I ask how I can help first..... this saves dragging a protesting little old lady across a road she doesn't want to cross.

Now can you provide a clearer hypothetical, rather than a bit of fantasy devised to support your argument?

I think you have been watching too much of the USA 'Dumb and Dumber' movies and thinking they were about real life.

And what Grim said as well. I think you are trying to suggest that non religious people cannot either be wise or compassionate. That is very contemptuous of your fellow humans.

Grim,

Perhaps you're right - after 9/11, if the US had passed on the message to bin Laden that, as Christians, they wouldn't pursue him or any al Qaida operatives, no matter what they did, since after all they believed in forgiveness, it's pretty obvious really that bin Laden would have immediately ceased any further actions against them. Yeah, that's what they should have done, it would have saved so many lives. The fact that they didn't shows that the US is a bloody-thirsty, war-mongering, revenge-seeking, hyphenated evil power.

Bin Laden might have been responsible - because of the US - for a million lives, mainly in Iraq and Afghanistan, and he and al Qaida and the US might have taken it for granted that they were all at war, but the Yanks shouldn't have sent in soldiers to execute him for those crimes, they should have sent in lawyers and social workers and nurses, to persuade him to attend an ICC court in The Hague or somewhere. American b@stards !

Yeah, right :)

God, I love bullsh!t arguments, they brighten my day ! Thanks, Grim.

Joe