Buddha was a girl....

[david uk]

I have been listening to a great song lyric today by a Swedish gay singer songwriter I love - Eva Dahlgren... for once she has written in English


If I was to tell you that Buddha was a girl,
and If I was to tell you Jesus never left the Earth,
and If I was to tell you Mohamed sat and cried,
If I was to show you that Heaven is within our minds...

the music is beaitiful and the message is basically that it is natural and human to have doubts if one is religious, and that those who never have any doubts are the ones to fear.

just wanted to share a lyric that moved me...

David

ps I am religious myself

pps I just realised that without the music this lyric may fall flat lol

[GodSistah]

pps I just realised that without the music this lyric may fall flat lol

No, no...that was deep, David, even just in the written form! :)

~Andrea~

[DaveM]

It's a wonderful lyric....my personal belief is that nothing resembling faith can remain strong without the occasional "what if....?" It is in finding a personal answer to that question that we find ourselves.

[Dee]

'Heaven Is a Place Where You Are Happy'
Barbara Walters explains what heaven means in different religions, whether she'll go to heaven or not, and what happens there.

Interview by Rebecca Phillips

Television journalist Barbara Walters admits she had no religious training and doesn't practice any religion. But after a year spent working on the ABC News special on heaven, Walters found herself fascinated by the afterlife. "I've done years and years of specials," she told Beliefnet, "but I care more about this one than anything I've ever done." For the two-hour program, "Heaven: Where is it? How do we get there?," ... Walters traveled the world, interviewing dozens of religious leaders, as well as scientists and atheists. The result is an intriguing look at what heaven means in many different religious traditions, what people who claim to have had near-death experiences believe about the afterlife, and why heaven has such a powerful hold on the popular imagination. Walters recently spoke with Beliefnet about what she learned about heaven and her own views of the afterlife.

Why were you interested in covering the topic of heaven?

I found it interesting that as people become more technically oriented all over the world, at the same time people are becoming increasingly spiritual. The success of the Da Vinci code--even though it was a great yawn--also showed people's interest in religion.

I also found that for myself, since I've had no religious education, it was so interesting to see the different versions of heaven and what life on earth means. To Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, the purpose of life is to go to heaven. To Rabbi Neil Gillman, there is a heaven, but it's more important to lead a good life. To the Tibetan Buddhists, it is a road to nirvana, and the purpose of life is to be happy. To the atheists, the purpose of life is the purpose of life. To someone who has been close to death, and felt that they had reached heaven in a near-death experience, that's as close as we come to hearing someone's vision of heaven. All of these different aspects--even the scientific view, that some people are born with a gene that makes them more spiritual than others--the more we got into it, the more interesting it became.

What did the religions that you covered have in common when it comes to teachings about heaven?

First of all, the Jewish religion has a great deal in common with the Christian religion because, as Rabbi Gillman points out in the show, Christianity is based on Judaism. Christ was Jewish. There are religions that are very restrictive or judgmental, perhaps, that say, if you do not believe in our faith, you don't go to heaven. This is very compelling, but it's restrictive. We asked the cardinal if there was sex in heaven, and he said that was one of the questions asked of the Lord. [Catholics] believe that they don't need to have sex in heaven, because there is the joy of the Lord. But for Muslims, everything that they don't have on earth is what they get in heaven. They can drink, they can have sex. All of the forbidden pleasures on earth, you can have in paradise.

All of the religions--with the exception of Tibetan Buddhism, which doesn't believe in a heaven--teach that heaven is a better place. At the end of the program, I say that heaven is a place where you are happy. All of the religions have that in common.

(more) http://www.beliefnet.com/story/181/story_18118_1.html