Hi Mike,
Actually I wanted to forget this thread as I feel there was a lot of misunderstanding involved...
You can look for and list as many parallels as you like - I never said there are no parallels to be found.
But well, I could even tell you parallels between satanism a la La Vey and Zen. You can *always* find parallels.
There is a decisive difference though that cannot be explained away:
To use the concept of God: In Catholicism god is something external, separate from you and the universe. In Zen God is you and in fact everything there is... (one could argue though whether it makes sense to use this word in the first place, but I guess you know what I mean.)
I can't remember I have said that Zen does not involve some kind of belief or trust, so actually I could consider this as a strawman argument and leave it as that.
I prefer to keep my answer on a general level (there are things I am only willing to talk about with my teachers):
It is not about believing for everyone. And everyone has at least a chance to find out.
But forget about Kensho/Satori/Enlightenment/etc. This practice is not about these things.
Perhaps for Rinzai practitioners.
Maybe you might check out the stuff from Kodo Sawaki...
Gassho,
Timo