Curtis wrote: > But the problem here is that the > most popular leader by the numbers > who was felt to be an actual god on > earth was Mao. > Not sure I'm following you on this one; Mao was a materialist, but by the numbers, the historical Buddha would probably outnumber Mao in the millions in a popularity contest. Mao didn't believe in the 'gods' and Shakya by all accounts was a real historical person, not a 'god'.
[snip] > Most traditions of enlightenment that > I know about > There is only one enlightenment tradition, and according to Mircea Eliade, this is the Yoga tradition of South Asia. Mircea defined Yoga as introverted 'enstasis' and he found no evidence of this system in other cultures that he studied. > including the Jesus cult, > The 'Jesus' cult has nothing to do with the South Asian enlightenment tradition. The Jesus cult espouses the doctrine of atonement and bodily resurection, both of which are foreign to the enlightenmnet tradition. > make the case for the specialness of > their enlightened leader using bad > evidence and unsupported claims of > miraculous goings on outside the ability > to be evaluated carefully. > Maybe so. But the enlightenment tradition has nothing to say about 'specialness' - enlightenment is the normal state, not a 'special state', and it is not concerned with any individual soul-monad. Enlightement consists solely in *dispelling* the illusion that there are individual soul-monads. Enlightenment is beyond mundane knowledge, enlightenment is not a mere knowing of things and events. Work cited: 'Yoga : Immortality and Freedom' by Mircea Eliade Princeton University Press, 1970 Other titles of interst: 'Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy' by Mircea Eliade Princeton University Press; 2004 'The Yoga Tradition: Its History, Literature, Philosophy and Practice' by Georg Feuerstein, Ken Wilbur Hohm Press, 2001
