Religious Labels and such...

Originally posted by vistesd
Ouch! 🙂

Partly, this whole inquiry comes out of the increasing discomfort I feel at giving someone a label pertaining to myself. It is, perhaps, unavoidable however.

Labels are signposts for others. As Nemesio points out, communication cannot occur if we cannot agree on at least the basic subject/predicate contexts of things. I don't share your discomfort though, I think I'm still in a necessary period of investigation and that period requires labels to explicate what I experience, mayhap this will change at some point.

Time for some "Bad Zen"© Perhaps as one becomes closer to the nature of Buddha, one finds the essence of all things more connected, in such ways labels are meaningless 😉

Originally posted by Starrman
Labels are signposts for others. As Nemesio points out, communication cannot occur if we cannot agree on at least the basic subject/predicate contexts of things. I don't share your discomfort though, I think I'm still in a necessary period of investigation and that period requires labels to explicate what I experience, mayhap this will change at some poin ...[text shortened]... , one finds the essence of all things more connected, in such ways labels are meaningless 😉

Good thing you copyrighted that "Bad Zen" ©—I was going to steal it! I may anyway: everything being ultimately connected, and all...

Originally posted by Nemesio
I want to dive into this thread, but no time.

I will say: Labels exist, I think, primarily because that is how we tend
to think. Things are stored, in no small part, in little boxes -- this
object is a food, this object is a chair, this object is an electronic device,
and so on -- with lots of web-like connections amongst them -- this
object, which ...[text shortened]... two people
don't agree on what constitutes the normative definitions for words.

Nemesio

So true!

Originally posted by vistesd
Kierkegaard said something like, “As soon as you try to label me, you diminish me.”

Someone on here recently asked—once again—who were the Christians in this forum. Well, even the self-defined Christians can’t agree about who the “true Christians” (TM) are.

Someone tells me they are a Christian. What then do I know about them? Very little. I don’t ...[text shortened]... hatever. I am not yet reduced to a list of obituary facts.

How well do you wear your labels?

But don't we use labels to give meaning? And without meaning there is no purpose?

Originally posted by vistesd
Good thing you copyrighted that "Bad Zen" ©—I was going to steal it! I may anyway: everything being ultimately connected, and all...

Feel free, I shall expect royalties though.