[candymoan]

Originally Posted by Glice

I'm fully on board with delicate use of offensive words. I deplore the 'I can use such and such a word, my best friend is [insert 'minority']' line, it just strikes me as cowardly and rubbish.

Laila, I'm astounded you haven't heard of Sufism, in whatever language. Every Muslim I know, even the most nominal of muslim (ie, drinks/ smokes, sex before marraige etc) knows about Sufism. It's related to a lot of the Persian (farci?) poetry that you really should read if you read that language. I don't, but the English translations are wonderful. I'm tempted to learn Persian because the poetry is quite lovely.

Atari, I think you should be careful saying that Sufism is the 'true' Islam. While I concur in that it is my preferred strand of Islam, one must be very careful making grand statements like that.

I'm also hesistant about your taking on Taoism - while you're correct in a lot of ways, being somewhat of a cultural relativist I often worry that the non-Taoist must be very careful talking about a metaphysical paradigm that is without of your own - ie, my assumption is that the metaphysical paradigm for your part of the world (America) is probably that of Christianity... better, the understanding of religion (which is what I mean by metaphysical paradigm) is usually defined by the dominant one of your culture. As a Catholic, I feel ill equipped to talk about other religions without making it very clear that my understanding of religion is always relative to the 'dogma' of my own.

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Glice again.