So about that new pope and that "interreligious dialogue"...

I realize I'm very late to comment on this, but today is about as good as any day to comment given the new Roman Catholic pope (there's others; you know that, right?) and all that, and the fact that reportedly he's "reaching out" to the rest of the world for more "interreligious dialogue."

Yeah, whatever.

I am more or less a product of some of those institutions and attitudes that weighed so heavily on so many; I was fortunate, I suppose, in that the only abuse I suffered at the hands of these people was verbal and corporal.   But abuse it was nonetheless, and the Catholic Church's response in recent years to the sexual abuse doesn't give me hope for any kind of real possibility that anyone will be made whole in any of the other areas where abuse was pervasive anytime soon.

Nathan calls it patriarchy.  He's not wrong here, but I think it's way more than that.  Patriarchy has the connotation that somehow a few men are running things, and they're in control, have all the power, etc. etc.  I concede I'm oversimplifying here, but the reality is that the former Ratzinger and all the other Ratzingers were enabled by a network of clergy and laity.  The abuse many children in Catholic schools suffered was at the hands of some very distorted (pre-or anti-Vatican II) nuns; it's lampooned in movies like The Blues Brothers but it was taken for granted that you could physically assault children to get them to do what you wanted in those places, and in many places likely still is.  And there is a laity that enabled this, encouraged this, and funded this, and in many places likely still does. 

There is a reason the Catholic Church in East St. Louis is a highly attenuated version of itself, as another article in today's NY Times presents.   And it is precisely because all the crap that the Catholic Church perpetuated and all the "charity" it perpetuated came to nought.  Of course  a "deity" commanded the charity as did the "deity" put in place abusers, so what kind of charity is that if it's stained and sustained by greed and fear?

I became a Buddhist because Buddhism makes better sense of the world and has a more consistent ethic than Christianity.  In Christianity it's sort of verboten for mere mortals to go to hell to save another; in Buddhism you're in hell yourself as long as another is there.  That's why I think the two paths are ultimately incompatible, regardless of how friendly Thich Nhat Hanh gets with the liberal priests (assuming any survived John Paul II/Ratzinger).

And like Nathan, I'm hopeful for collapse; the sooner the better if people are disabused of notions that the charity means you have to support the abuse: they come as a package deal with the Catholic Church; they come as a package deal with humanity in fact.  The Catholic Church maintained that they were above it all.   Some folks in the American Buddhist community thought they were in Christian churches in the sense that they thought Buddhist sanghas were above petty politics, corruption and scandal.

It's a package deal in Buddhism too: the savory and the repulsive permeate each other, and the only hope Buddhism gives you is that there are means by which you can learn to transcend the repulsive as well as that which keeps us stuck or suffering.  It doesn't guarantee that those who prescribe the medicine will not themselves fall ill or aren't in fact already ill.  At least though Buddhism really does recognize this (and it's not to minimize harm when it happens...does every post that touches on this issue have to repeat that?).  And Buddhism has a path that recognizes that its path isn't trod by those who are vicars for deities.

Good luck to Francis; maybe he'll be another John XXIII.   But regardless,  suffering and dukkha are still inescapable, but can be transcended...

Hitchens v. Blair: A Buddhist Perspective

I am not,  as regular readers might know, an apologist for all religion in general.  I do think there are moral differences between religions, and that some claims of some religions are not defensible morally, ethically, logically, or in any other way.

With that in mind, I was intrigued to read of a debate between Christopher Hitchens and Tony Blair in Toronto.

Hitchens,  dying of esophageal cancer,  wrote "God is Not Great:  How Religion Poisons Everything," and Blair  was George W. Bush's lapdog, and a convert to the Roman Catholic Church.   I have not been able to find a transcript of it, but I wish to discuss  the issue of religion as a force for good or evil as brought up in a pre-debate interview with Christopher Hitchens,  and a roughly corresponding part with a pre-debate interview with Tony Blair. 

Hitchens:

Well, should I start [discussing religion and evil by considering the subtitle of his book, especially] ‘poisons everything?’ Perhaps I should. Ok, I’ll ask for trouble if I put on a provocative subtitle, but I mean by it, not of course it poisons Chinese food or tantric sex or Niagara falls or something but it does attack us in our deepest integrity. It says we wouldn’t know right from wrong if it wasn’t for divine permission. It immediately makes us, essentially, slaves. And it has to be opposed for that reason. And such a radical frontal attack on human dignity, it seems to me, that it does leach into everything. And it has the effect of making good people say and do wicked things. For example, a morally normal person when presented with a new baby would not set about its genitals with a sharp stone or a knife. He would have to think God needed that. No, it wouldn’t occur to him otherwise. It make intelligent people say stupid things, commits them to saying stupid things such as they are objects of a divine design. As well as being stupid, very conceited by the way. They claim believers to be so modest. That’s what I mean by the poison. And because of that, I do tend to think it applies in general. My younger daughter goes to a Quaker school in Washington, the same one as the president’s children. ... There was a time when the Quakers ran the most sadistic prisons in North America and were fond of excommunicating people for the smallest things such as supporting the American Revolution, for example. If they’d been more powerful, they might have been worse. ... any surrender of reason in favour of faith contains the same danger it seems to me. Fluctuates over time. Before, I’ve been asked in the 1930s what I thought was the most dangerous religion I almost certainly would have said Roman Catholicism because of its then pretty much undisguised alliance with the Fascist parties in Europe, for which it has not yet succeeded in apologizing enough, in my opinion. But has, least admitted it was true. It was very dangerous then. I now think obviously, or rather self-evidently, Wahabbi fundamentalist Islam and its equivalents in messianic Shiism , the Shia equivalent of that Sunni theory, practice, are as dangerous especially because they could get a hold of weapons, or a weapon of mass destruction. So we would find out, with a little speculation, we used to have after lights out when we were young, what would really happen if a really wicked person got a hold of a nuclear bomb and now we’re going to find out. When the messianic meets the apocalyptic, watch out. 

 And Blair:

I believe [religion can  provide a common value and an ethical foundation]. I mean, first of all, I think the place of faith in the era of globalization is the single biggest issue of the 21st century. I mean, it’s not an issue like climate change is an issue, for example, or the global economy in its present crisis. But in terms of how people live together, how we minimize the prospects of conflict and maximize the prospects of peace, the place of religion in our society today is essential. And basically what is happening, is that in the process of globalization people are being pushed closer together, so are people of different faiths. Canada is a classic example, it’s a melting pot of people of different faiths, and races and nationalities and we’re all pushed together. The question in those circumstances: does religion become a force for bad, pulling people apart because religion is seen as a badge of identity and opposition to others. Or is religion essentially seen as being about certain values that guide your life and what is common to all the major religions is a belief in love of neighbour as yourself and actually in human solidarity and human compassion. So in that sense, I think religion could be, in an era of globalization, a civilizing force.

As a Buddhist, as a Buddhist who considers Buddhism a religion, I feel closer in spirit to Hitchens than to Blair; but on the other hand,  different religious beliefs or lack thereof should not pull people apart. Religious identities are identities if you make the religion the identity and the religion posits itself as distinct from other religions and lack thereof.

Buddhism does make assertions of separateness, at least in the Mahayana variety,  but does this within and by its very denial of logic of separation and inclusion.   In the way then, the Mahayana Buddhism separates itself from other religions, it gleefully makes the assertion of non-separateness, that there is no real "-ism" that separates you from me. 

Thus we Mahayana Buddhists have a "why" we can all get along, as well as a "how" we can all get along.    The problem with Hitchens is the same problem as the problem of Blair: if Hitchens is right, (and I think his point about some religions' attack on reason is from the moral high ground, and one I think Buddhists should support)  then what should be done?   Shouldn't we support the dis-indoctrination of people away from religion? Well, but uh, Buddhism's a religion.  It just doesn't attack reason though.   At least those flavors that don't have people pledging loyalty to a guru and crap like that.   But that quibble aside, I haven't answered the question, really. 

Hitchens says that  common values and an ethical foundation cannot be provided by religion, period:

Religion can’t provide that. Moral values come from innate human solidarity. They’re the values we need, have needed to survive as a species. Knowing we have responsibilities to other people, for example, knowing that certain types of behaviour are worse than antisocial. Religion, to an extent believes that, but it doesn’t always. It takes it from us. No, it couldn't provide it. All it could do is lay claim to it, a claim that I would deny. And because it’s not in the nature of faith to be really universal -- it’s quite extraordinary the number of claims that are made by people of faith to be the holders of the only faith, It’s not enough for them to say they believe in God, or get values from it, they have to say God revealed to us. And the wars of religion alone would be enough to negate this claim. .... also to show what we already know, that religion is manmade. So it’s one of our artefacts, along with, fortunately with, genuine humanistic morality. And I think it’s essential to choose between the two.

I think we need to find a way to dissuade people away from an irrational position based on unreasoned arguments from authority, but we need to do so in harmony with where people are found, and skillfully.   And that skill, I submit, is only found in the cultivation of a discipline that involves dealing with people harmoniously.   And I am afraid that it's absolute bull that "moral values come from innate human solidarity."  Moral values are nascent in people, and can be made to grow and be expressed and realized with skill and training.   But "moral values come from innate human solidarity" is just a slogan.  I guess that which Hitchens would admit is "human solidarity" would include or denote  that which makes humans characteristically human.  And that "that" would therefore have to include not only wisdom, generosity, compassion and mercy, but greed, hatred, ignorance and bloodthirstiness.   While most babies are born, evidently with the capability to develop empathy, yet a small percentage seem to develop into psychopaths, based on what we know about the brain today.   Hopefully that percentage may decline in the future, but as of today, it seems a small number of children do develop into psychopaths.  The rest of us surely can feel empathy and compassion, but we do indeed suffer and do indeed indulge in acts that aren't from anyone's better angels or better Void.  So I think training is necessary in the same way that refinement of ore is necessary in order to get a pure metal.  Both Hitchens  and Blair would say, each for different reasons,  "it's all gold."   But it's not.

I'm sure therefore, from this position all kinds of folks could call me a religion hater or a religious bigot or an ignorant so-and-so.   But I never see my position represented in these debates anyway.

The inevitable "Some Christians are Buddhist" article

USA Today is an idea way past its prime. It's a media outlet for people who are staying in hotel rooms in the US alien to their hometown. So it's not surprising that blandness, superficiality, and lack of detail rule the day.

And it's also not surprising that conservative ideas tend to hold sway; thus their article today about how some Christians hold "Eastern" and "New Age" beliefs...

In a Catholic church? Chances are that one in five members believe in reincarnation in a way never taught in catechism class — that you'll be reborn in this world again and again.

Elements of Eastern faiths and New Age thinking have been widely adopted by 65% of U.S. adults, including many who call themselves Protestants and Catholics, according to a survey by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life released Wednesday...

And, according to the survey's other major finding, devotion to one clear faith is fading.

Of the 72% of Americans who attend religious services at least once a year (excluding holidays, weddings and funerals), 35% say they attend in multiple places, often hop-scotching across denominations.

They are like President Obama, who currently has no home church. He has worshiped at a Baptist church, an Episcopal one, and the non-denominational chapel at Camp David...

Well, they're not all Hindus, Buddhists, and Ramtha-followers, are they?

No...

[Polling outfit] Pew says two in three adults believe in or cite an experience with at least one supernatural phenomenon, including:

•26% find "spiritual energy" in physical things.

•25% believe in astrology.

•24% say people will be reborn in this world again and again.

•23% say yoga is a "spiritual practice."

Mohler calls these "the au courant confusions," attachments to the latest fashionable free-floating beliefs...

"People have always mixed religions, either in ignorance or willfully," says Stephen Prothero, director of the Graduate Division of Religious and Theological Studies at Boston University.

Despite the late Pope John Paul II's warnings to explicitly avoid Buddhist and Hindu practices, Prothero says, "American Catholics are so used to not caring what the official church tells them on birth control, divorce, premarital sex and other points that they don't think they are un-Catholic when they believe and do what they please."

Combating syncretism has troubled popes for centuries, says the Rev. Dan Pattee, chairman of the theology department at Franciscan University in Steubenville, Ohio.

The problem with borrowing spiritual ideas is that "the life-giving truth becomes compromised as we understand it as Catholics," Pattee says

"They don't think they are un-Catholic when they believe and do what they please."" is about the same thing as saying "They're not doing what we tell them to do."

That's the real issue for many of these people: they aren't able to control these people.

Although I'm all for religious tolerance, there simply is no way given my outlook and learning that it's possible for me to be any kind of Christian. Just no way. Christianity's texts themselves make claims to rest upon their historical truth as a foundation for their moral truths, and it just can't be historically (or morally) accurate, especially from a Buddhist standpoint.

Would I welcome a {Christian, Hindu, Muslim...} into a zendo/temple? Of course. It's not really my business to ask questions. On the other hand, if someone makes a claim that "all religions are the same," or makes syncretist appeals in a dialogue, I am not going to pretend agreement. There are aspects to Christian, Jewish and Islamic traditions that contradict Buddhism.

Just as I won't pretend that Buddhism is not a religion, and I won't pretend that Buddhism is the same as other religions, I think it's important to note the differences.