Talk:Taoism

Tao and Taoism
I oppose any suggested merger of the Tao and Taoism articles, because though there is currently much overlap in them, they ARE distinct enough subjects to permit significant differentiation. As some might realize Tao is used in VERY broad ways, not all of them so much mystical as simply moral or ethical, and often defined in significantly diverse ways, similar to the term "Way" is in English, or Dharma is in Hinduism and Buddhism — or any notions of the God beyond all names is in any number of nameable spiritual or religious beliefs. Taoism, while still quite diverse in traditions, is usually a term restricted to those emphasizing mystical aspects of the word and often beliefs in various traditions of ceremonial magic believed to be in harmony with the Tao. ~ ♞☤☮♌Kalki·†·⚓⊙☳☶⚡ 15:21, 3 April 2013 (UTC) P.S. : Despite the similarity of the articles thus far, the proposal seems to me to be almost as inappropriate as one to merge the pages for God Goddess, and Deity simply into Theism, or the pages for Brahman, and Tao into The All or all these into Unity because they all can basically mean similar things. ~ ♞☤☮♌Kalki·†·⚓⊙☳☶⚡ 15:31, 3 April 2013 (UTC) + tweaks
 * I suggested merging them because at present they are rather short articles and, as noted, there is considerable overlap. I would certainly endorse forking distinct topics (defined in a way to avoid overlap) if the amount of material grew substantially larger. ~ Ningauble (talk) 15:45, 3 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I have just added a quote that was partly quoted in the Wikipedia article, specifically about Taoism and its growth as a tradition, and not about the Tao, as such. I will probably seek out more of these over the next week or so, but I eventually expect the article of the Tao to be capable of most expansion, because that much more central and foundational concept is one that has been commented upon in far more diverse ways. I might work on this more within the next few days, but probably won't have time to do much right now. I definitely do plan to extend both articles considerably because MANY notions of the Tao, as well as Brahman and the All, were VERY impressive to me even as VERY young child, and no amount of the relatively simplistic doctrinal notions of God, Goddess, Deity or atheistic materialism which I often encountered could sway me from my extremely agnostic gnosticism which even as early as the age of 5 or 6 had been inspired by MANY mystic, scientific, ethical and religious philosophers, and explorers and innovators in MANY diverse traditions or fields, such as Akhenaton, Abraham, Moses, Laozi, Zhuangzi, Heraclitus, Pythagoras, Buddha, Socrates, Plato, Zeno of Citium, Parmenides, Zeno of Elea, Jesus, Muhammad, Rumi, Joan of Arc, Issac Newton, George Washington,Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, Novalis, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Herman Melville, Victor Hugo, Edgar Allen Poe, Charles Darwin, Charles Dickens, Thomas Henry Huxley, Abraham Lincoln, Walt Whitman, Lewis Carroll, W. B. Yeats, Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, William James, Edwin Abbott Abbott, Charles Sanders Peirce, Mark Twain, James Branch Cabell, Helen Keller, Mahatma Gandhi, Albert Schweitzer, Albert Einstein, G. K. Chesterton, Wilhelm Reich, H. G. Wells, Lin Yutang, Bertrand Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein, E. E. Cummings, Julian Huxley, Aldous Huxley, Robert A. Heinlein, Walt Disney, Dr. Seuss, Woody Guthrie, eden ahbez, Jack Kerouac, John Lennon — and Albert Camus and his profound genius as evident in MANY writings which have given rise to the evolving modern conceptions of Absurdism. No matter how much I could sincerely respect and admire MANY reasonable and beautiful aspects of MANY diverse traditions, my far more extensive and expansive conceptions of the All, and the One beyond all mortal names and notions, kept me from becoming trapped in what I have always perceived to be doctrinal snares of ignorance, confusion and delusion, sometimes innocently and sometimes maliciously contrived. I have worked here almost a decade now and only recently have begun to speak openly of my Absurdist philosophical stances and Anarchistic ethos and their origins in my own experiences and those of others — because it is QUITE evident to me that often people have very little idea, or very poor ideas of what I am talking about — and I have begun to do what I can to remedy that. Blessings to you and to all. ~ ♞☤☮♌Kalki·†·⚓⊙☳☶⚡ 16:44, 3 April 2013 (UTC) + tweaks