Two days ago, religious fanatics killed twelve people at the offices of the French magazine Charlie Hebdo.
Fuck religion.
I’m a fair-to-middling cartoonist myself. During my late teens and well into my twenties I very seriously worked at trying to become a professional comic artist. But I never really developed the necessary drive to become genuinely good at it.
I also became very deeply involved in religious matters around the same time. Had I ended up becoming a cartoonist for a living, I can easily imagine I’d have produced some of the same kinds of material that got eight cartoonists and four others who worked with them killed in France. Hell, it’s not inconceivable I’m on some fundamentalist whack-job’s hit list already. So this event both really pisses me off and scares the bejesus out of me.
The best commentary I’ve come across so far about this issue is an appearance by Ayaan Hirsi Ali with Anderson Cooper on CNN. She is an extraordinarily brave person saying things that really need to be said and quite literally risking her life by doing so.
This is why I never became a professional cartoonist. I drew all of these. Impressed? I didn’t think so…
I do not believe that religion is the motivation for every bad thing that has ever happened in the world. That’s Richard Dawkins. Nationalism, racism, imperialism, capitalism, sexism and a host of other factors can motivate people to do bad things. But religion is clearly and inarguably the main motivation for this attack and for numerous others like it.
The matters addressed by religion – the deeper meaning of life, the nature of God, and so on – are personally important to me. I can’t say much about nationalism or colonialism or any of those others because they’re not my area of study. But I have spent a lot of the past four decades trying to comprehend why the same institutions who claim to be all about promoting peace and looking for the answers to life’s biggest questions always seem to end up being used to promote violence and hatred.
If you are going to storm into the office of a humor magazine, point a gun at a guy who draws cartoons for a living and shoot him dead, you have to believe that this is a good thing to do. These folks acted as a group, and that is also highly significant. If one lone nut-job does something like this, we can take it as an example of individual madness, as was the case with the man who shot two police officers in New York City last month.
On the other hand, here we have at least three people sharing a common madness. And although the French police are looking for just three gunmen, it is reasonable to assume that they were part of a larger group who supported them and encouraged them. I have seen at least one article questioning whether the attackers really were Islamists, but I think we need to get in contact with Planet Earth on that point and admit that there is no sensible reason to believe they were not.
Why would someone imagine it is a good thing to murder people who drew cartoons that offended them? This, to me, is one of the hardest parts to comprehend. My friends John and Tyler mistakenly believe that Captain Picard is better than Captain Kirk. Yet is an undeniable fact that Captain Kirk could kick Captain Picard’s scrawny ass halfway to the Klingon Homeworld. As wrong as they are, I don’t have any urge to kill my friends for their utterly erroneous belief.
What is it about religion that causes so many of us to think that offending someone’s ideas about fictional – or at least highly fictionalized – characters matters enough for anyone to really care very much about? How does someone get so wrapped up in a fantasy world that they are willing to do grievous bodily harm to those who do not share that fantasy world?
It’s all well and good to talk about how Muslims are a repressed minority in Europe and this leads to radicalization. It’s also true that the history of Western colonialism plays into all of this. And yet there is something specific and significant about religion that makes things very different. If only Muslims did stuff like this, we could say – as many do – that this is a problem with Islam. But I don’t think it is.
Shoko Asahara was able to turn a hodgepodge of Buddhism, Hinduism and New Age hookum into a motivation for a number of people to attempt a mass killing on the Tokyo transit system in 1995 (which I rode to work that very day). If you can get people to kill for a bunch of Deepak Chopra level faux-mystical candy floss, it shows that you don’t really even need the much-talked-about violent passages in the Koran to turn seekers of the Truth into vicious killers.
I think about this a lot because I do not see myself as being all that different from the guys who did this attack. I’m sure that, just like me, they rejected mainstream society and saw through its clearly empty promises. I am certain they left that world behind to seek something truer and better.
Like me, these men committed themselves to a higher truth, one that transcended what ordinary people define as morality and normality. They saw the hypocrisy at the heart of what the vast majority of people think of as “normal.” Like me, they turned to the ancient words of great people who also sought a higher calling.
I feel very much like I understand the men who slaughtered these cartoonists better than I understand most so-called “ordinary people” I encounter, the masses who completely buy into contemporary capitalist bullshit.
Where does it all go so very wrong? How can we work to change that?
These are vital questions. They are essential questions if we want to survive as a species and progress to become the best we can be. I know that sounds pretty grandiose, but I honestly believe it.
Something specific about religion allows people to get so deeply into shared fantasies that they act in ways they themselves know to be wrong, and yet are somehow able to convince themselves are good. The honest and real desire to do the right thing and discover the essential truth of life itself is corrupted into something ugly and dangerous. What is the connection?
After all these years of looking into it, I really don’t know the answer. Perhaps the answer is as difficult as the question.
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As I always say at the end of these pieces, I appreciate your kind donations. It’s what makes my work possible and I could not do it without you.
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I’m back in Los Angeles, so if you want to find me, I am at almost every event hosted by Dogen Sangha Los Angeles. Unless you’re a religious fanatic offended by this article, in which case I’m… uh… somewhere else.
I think a lot of the problem comes because people think they are right, that they have the right answer, that they know the way things should be, instead of having the humility to question the world. Many – most? – religions tell you that their word is the only word, and you have to believe it or else you are accused of apostasy. That’s a pretty good way to quash any kind of questioning or speculation.
“What is it about religion that causes so many of us to think that offending someone’s ideas about fictional – or at least highly fictionalized – characters matters enough for anyone to really care very much about? How does someone get so wrapped up in a fantasy world that they are willing to do grievous bodily harm to those who do not share that fantasy world?”
Are you saying here that the content of religion is fiction? Does that include
Buddhism too?
Quite a bit of Buddhism could be categorized as fiction. The Lotus Sutra, for example, which Dogen adored, claims to contain the words of Buddha and events of his life although it was composed hundreds of years after the historical Buddha died and takes place in worlds other than Planet Earth. The Heart Sutra also supposedly records a conversation between Buddha, his disciple Shariputra and the Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara. But Buddha and Shariputra were long dead when it was written and Avalokiteshvara never really existed in a historical sense. Most Buddhists acknowledge and are comfortable with this.
I think there is an element of fiction and fictionalization in Buddhist lore. Why not?
“Something specific about religion allows people to get so deeply into shared fantasies that they act in ways they themselves know to be wrong, and yet are somehow able to convince themselves are good.”
I understand what you are trying to say in general but this particular statement just doesn’t work.
Nazism wasn’t a religion, but it certainly was a shared fantasy that pushed a lot of people into doing some pretty wretched things. Capitalism is a another non-religion that convinces people to act in ways that aren’t very nice but serve the greater good of profit.
I propose that it’s more of a problem of confusing the map with the territory. We make up these stories in our head and then act towards the outside world as if they are true. This disjoint can result in anything from comedy to tragedy.
On the issue of killing people because of cartoons I sometimes wonder what would happen if every media outlet, paper, web or video that cared about this issue was to simultaneously issue a whole series of mocking satires, cartoons and videos. Maybe the damaged people who get so crazy about this issue would just melt down and give up with so many targets to get angry at.
I’m also pretty sure that this particular story is better off just staying in my head.
Cheers.
I get what you’re saying. Although I think Naziism was so very close to being a religion that it qualifies as one in almost every sense. They deliberately modeled themselves upon religions. I mean, if Scientology is a religion…
I also wonder if your proposed strategy might work. I think it could. Though they’d probably kill a few people anyway.
I think Scientology is well on its way to becoming an actual religion in the traditional sense. If it survives the death or retirement of David Miscavige, I think it will grow into something unexpected. I’ve often thought they are very close to disovering Zen. Some of the Scientology “tech” is very close to the practices done by many Buddhists today. But I’m not looking to join at this time. Daily zazen and weekly kong-an interviews are good enough.
“I sometimes wonder what would happen if every media outlet, paper, web or video that cared about this issue was to simultaneously issue a whole series of mocking satires, cartoons and videos. Maybe the damaged people who get so crazy about this issue would just melt down and give up with so many targets to get angry at.
I’m also pretty sure that this particular story is better off just staying in my head.”
No, I had the same thoughts myself. I don’t know what would happen, I doubt it would have a happy ending, but it would show that free speech will not be silenced by the gun.
“Where does it all go so very wrong?
Why do these thin-skinned little child fundamentalists get so offended when someone criticizes them or make fun of their insane beliefs? Because they really, down deep, know that it’s CRAZY.. They bought into the whole lie at a very young age and they’re angry about it. But not to the point where they can reject it, because that is way too frightening. That would be freeing themselves from the fantasy of who they think they are and that is literally unthinkable. Religion in some forms makes a little sense if I’m forced to consider it. But it’s believing in shit that couldn’t possibly be true and then have that fantasy become the center of your life that’s twisted. It’s OK to speculate about things that are bigger than you are, just don’t pretend for a moment that you know what you are talking about. I think that is why I wince every time you use the G word. Because vocalizing it implies knowledge where none exists.
Je Suis Charlie
Je Suis Charlie
Monotheism is inherently violent unlike Panentheism.
Acceptance of panentheistic and/or non-dualistic variations of religions produces significantly less violent behavior in its adherents than those who ascribe to monotheistic interpretations. From studying history of religion, I feel like this is undeniable.
Panentheism is the view your true nature is an expression of God and one & the same. You and I are inseparable. God extends infinitely in all directions, interpenetrating all, and is also timeless, beyond it all.
Panentheistic interpretations of religion is partly why you don’t see many Iranian citizens engaging in terrorist acts. Many of them, except the power-hungry mullahs, are familiar with the poetry of Saadi, Hafiz, Attar, Rumi, Mansur Al-Hallaj, Shaams-i Tabrizi, Sanai, and so forth and can recite it from memory. Such poetry puts emphasis on the universality of mankind.
Read about how Mansur al-Hallaj died (wiki it)
Similar persecution occurred to Meister Eckhart, a panentheistic Christian (wiki it).
Panentheistic Christians include Meister Eckhart, Johannes Tauler, Nicholas of Cusa, Jakob Boehme, Angelus Silesius, and Franz Xaver von Baader, and more. The Gospel of Thomas is also an example of panentheistic text.
Panentheism generally leads to perennial conclusions that puts emphasis more on people’s inner divinity irregardless of their denominational background. Therefore, they are less likely to engage in sectarian conflict. Buddha-nature is also an example of a panentheistic tenet in Buddhism:
It is far superior to monotheism for coexistence with others. Monotheism should be treated as an archaic and violent form of belief system in educational and political institutions, and panentheistic interpretations should be encouraged.
Everyone’s divinity is considered the same in panentheistic systems. The level of apprehension may differ but this does not affect the panentheist’s view of the omnipresent divinity in people. Panentheism is egalitarian in terms of how it views people’s self-worth. There are no greater or lesser people, hence why panentheism is better for union than monotheistic systems.
If you read the links I gave and Google some of the figures I reference, then you’d understand how they reject the hierarchy of self-worth in individuals. Everything is imbued with God or Buddha-nature and is an expression of the divine, yet the divine still transcends it in timelessness when experienced through selfless acts of compassion or meditative practices.
Mansur al-Hallaj accepted being killed without condemning his executors. He did not view himself as superior to them. Panentheistic practices can make people that compassionate even towards acts of injustice. If there is one of problem in panentheism, it is in how it can make people vulnerable because they tend to empathize with others too strongly, since they view an inseparability between subject and object.
Much of the mental instability in monotheists comes from viewing doctrinal understanding as more important than practice (e.g., acts of charity, meditation, or etc.) They tend to want answers interpreted for them rather than figured out through their own experiences and actions. They cling to doctrine and words because it gives the illusion of more self-worth. That is, monotheists look for authority to give answers and not within themselves.
Panentheists place more importance of personal experience, selfless compassion, and finding God through action (i.e., whether traditional practice like meditation or painting or writing poetry). Frequent solitude in natural scenery is also held as important in most panentheistic belief systems.
What makes panentheism special is how it encourages not to cling to one’s conceptual interpretations for a sense of security and impose them onto others as if they are valid for everyone. Monotheism should be taught to children as being fundamentally flawed and violent.
Also, Ayaan Hirsi Ali is downright insane:
“she has, for example, argued that the Bush administration should have attacked Iraq and Iran after 9/11–her larger framework is clearly intended to support this march towards a new war.”
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She is a crazy right wing nut.
But yeah, I’m interested in people’s thoughts on my comparison between panentheistic and monotheistic belief systems. Panentheism generally encourages less violent tendencies.
” Religion in some forms makes a little sense if I’m forced to consider it. But it’s believing in shit that couldn’t possibly be true and then have that fantasy become the center of your life that’s twisted. It’s OK to speculate about things that are bigger than you are, just don’t pretend for a moment that you know what you are talking about. I think that is why I wince every time you use the G word. Because vocalizing it implies knowledge where none exists.”
Brad used the G word, God, to refer to an “underlying ground” that he had experienced or had knowledge of, probably through sitting.
So Harlan, are you saying that the insight coming through meditation is bullshit?
And Brad, what you experienced on a bridge over a river in Japan, is that fiction?
It’s fiction once you reflect upon it and reify it. That would be Brad’s response.
It’s best not to dwell upon one’s past experiences, since retrieval of memory always distorts little by little, and continue to practice every day without viewing this session as the “be all and end all”. In other words, it’s important to be fluid while maintaining discipline with one’s practice, since there’s no point in life where one can have all the answers and be complacent.
The unfathomable cannot be held in memory…
Actually it can.
Only when you don’t dwell, trying to find a core in a banana tree.
Thanks, Brad. Brave and sincere.
But I think in a way you’re asking and discussing the wrong questions. Sure, religion (and politics, money, sexism…, …, …) can provide a pretext for violence, but ideas and fantasies are harmless on their own. It takes suffering flesh to pull the trigger.
I grew up in a hard neighbourhood. Teenagers stabbed and shot other teenagers to get a reputation for being scary – the reputation made them feel less scared themselves. Men beat their wives, women beat and tormented their kids, to feel less powerless. Boys formed gangs for self-protection, the price was they had to take part in whatever violence the gang inflicted. None of that was based on ideology of any kind: people only nominally had a religion, if at all. It was partly based on poverty: and mostly on fear, depression and despair. That’s not a sob story – I’m doing fine now, thanks. Point is, it taught me beyond doubt that ideas are not the cause of violence.
As an adult, I visited Northern Ireland, where there was supposedly an actual “religious war” going on. I met well-off people from loving families who held extremely bigoted opinions, but lived peacefully and would never dream of breaking the law. I also met people from deprived areas (like mine at home) who did all the same violence I’d seen growing up, and basically for the exact same emotional reasons: the only difference was they had a religious/political rationalisation for it. People who have a basic sense that they are physically safe and accepted in their society don’t go on killing sprees. Period.
As for the fuckwits who killed those people in France, they may or may not be devoutly religious – and even if they are religious, they may not deeply believe that their actions are justified by the religion: it’s not the point. You can be absolutely sure that they have low self-esteem. They may think they’re somehow defending their family or community, but underlying that is a sense of never having been fully safe or accepted anywhere. They’ve reached the level of fear where murdering strangers seems like the safest option.
If anything, what ideas CAN do is to perpetuate a violent culture, after the immediate danger that produced it is gone, and pass it down the generations. I can see some of the criticisms of traditional Islamic culture – if parents feel religiously obliged to kill their child when the kid does something dishonourable, the natural parent-child bond is compromised from the start… and it becomes life-threatening from the child’s perspective to question the religion, or anything it’s told. Add the ‘death to infidels’ stuff to that psychology, and you’ve got problems
But Hardcore Islam is no different from any of the other warlike cultures of the world: they all make sure that the kids get fucked up early. The kyosaku-wielding, ‘this life is a worthless mirage’ attitudes fostered by Zen Buddhism are implicated in the horrific behaviour of the tempetai in WWII: Unit 731 etc. The disciplinarian ‘spare the rod and spoil the child’ of Judeo-Christian Europe built a lot off toughened callous imperial administrators, and created the mindset that led to Auschwitz, and less publicised holocausts around the globe. America… where to begin?
Now, here’s my main point. Man is NOT a rational animal, Aristotle was talking shite from his perspective as a pampered bourgeois. Ideas are just a smear of intellectual oil on top of the ocean of instinct and feeling. People act out aggressively only when they feel threatened, extreme violence comes out of extreme fear. (Buddha knew this, and got people meditating, so they could let go of the fear and anger they’d built up over a lifetime). And the more frightened someone is, the more they’ll clutch at the hocus-pocus of extreme religious views for security.
Free Speech is great. Charlie Hebdo have a right to publish what they want. But publishing cartoons that insult the things that a lot of scared, alienated and radicalised people hold sacred was stupid. Brave, well-intentioned, but stupid. Of course ignorant medieval attitudes should be challenged, but challenging them with insults is stupid.
Thanks for that.
Barbra O’Brien (http://rethinkingreligion-book.info/rethinking-religion-blog/) has a thesis that violence connected to religion usually comes only when some grievance is also involved.
OBrien:
“And this takes us to fundamentalism. The scholar Karen Armstrong defines fundamentalism as a “militant religiosity” that is a “reaction against and a rejection of modern Western society.” I would turn that around a bit and say that religious fundamentalism is a kind of social pathology that expresses itself as religion”
Or social pathology that manifests itself through a religion.
You make some excellent points, Shinchan. I’m sure all of that comes into play here. Maybe these guys don’t really even care about religion.
Yet in the case of Shoko Asahara, his murderers were not drawn from any disaffected underclass and they emerged in a culture where violence is not normalized as it is in many parts of the world. Which doesn’t invalidate what you’ve said. But it does argue for it not being purely a class or economic matter.
I really appreciate what you wrote. It’s a perspective I had not considered very deeply.
I don’t know much about Asahara’s followers, but in a lot of the big cults, like Jones town and Waco many of the followers were people who were somehow brutalised or psychologically compromised already.
I’m not suggesting that all violence is economic/class based. But I do think it always has a basis in emotional suffering – caused by some earlier cruelty or neglect. My sense is than Buddhism has always known that, and that things like zazen can help to break the chain of anger.
Thanks for your response.
There is another part to the actions that radicals make:
Hard choices can be mesmerizing, internally to ‘know’ that they are capable of handling the ‘hard choices’ gives them a type of self-esteem? (not the correct word, but close I think).
Shinchan,
Thanks for writing all that–saves me the trouble of thinking it through properly and composing a comment, which I don’t have time for (plus you said it far better than I could have). That’s exactly it, and yeah, I come from a pretty rough scene myself.
“But I do think it always has a basis in emotional suffering — caused by some earlier cruelty or neglect. My sense is than Buddhism has always known that, and that things like zazen can help to break the chain of anger. ”
Yes. Absolutely. This is how I see things too.
Yes. People who aren’t suffering don’t go round killing people.
Pretty spot on, Shinchan. I’ve come to very much the same conclusions in regards to the ideological justifications for human behavior.
I don’t mean to criticize Brad or anyone else here who has expressed their opinion, but when this kind of question comes up, I always say:
You don’t know what motivates your own actions. So how can you possibly know what motivates the actions of anyone else? Trying to guess the motivations of others is a fool’s gane.
All I know is that violence tends to lead to more violence and love to more love. Not always, of course, but the tendency is there.
I agree we can’t fully understand the motives of self and other, but don’t we have to try to understand?
I agree that love and violence can both be self-perpetuating… but without strenuous effort to understand and be aware of ourselves, how can we know whether we’re acting from fear or from love?
Hi Jinzang,
I hope I’m understanding you correctly.
“You don’t know what motivates your own actions. ”
In general, I do. When I’m angry, for example (hurt and suffering under that), I try to make others suffer. I punish them in place of the offender. Plain and simple.
As an example (and when I first realized this in myself very clearly), I have flipped out on drivers who cut me off or are rude or careless in some way. They don’t know it–it’s private cursing in my car or flipping a finger and telling them what an asshole I think they are, but it only happened when I was already upset with someone or something else. Other times, I was more lenient. I use the past tense because I’m pretty much over it–I control it because I’m mindful of that tendency, and I feel better with a more positive or compassionate response. It passes. And the more I practice this, the more at peace I’ve become while driving. Or riding my bike, which is what I do now. I had to make some adjustments though 🙂
Better example: when I was married, my ex-husband hurt me horribly. He said mean things or ignored me, nothing could be resolved or repaired, and I was frustrated. At these times, when I took my dogs for a walk, I would get impatient with them in ways I wouldn’t normally, jerking hard on their leashes when they dared to disobey. One of my dogs was sick with cancer, and I’d feel so bad, but I did it suddenly so I could hardly control it (I wasn’t very mean, just not positive and rougher with them than normal). But I was always rougher than I wanted to be when my ex had hurt me in some way (emotionally, I mean)
I could make other examples, but that’s the basic thing. I saw it in my parents, I’ve seen it in everyone I know. When people are suffering, they lash out on others in ways they wouldn’t normally.
“So how can you possibly know what motivates the actions of anyone else?”
People are people. We’re all pretty much the same. People who are at peace with themselves and their world–not suffering too much, happy in general–don’t have a need to make others suffer. They’re more able to be compassionate and have empathy. I’m drawing on personal experience here, but people far more expert than I am (no expert here at all) have written extensively on it.
“All I know is that violence tends to lead to more violence and love to more love. Not always, of course, but the tendency is there.”
Totally agree. Exactly.
“You don’t know what motivates your own actions.”
Jinzang, if you were doing mindfulness 24/7, would you not see it all arising
before the action was occurring.
But yes, its best not to speculate if you haven’t lived it.
Je Suis Fred
As for monotheism fostering violence more than panentheism (or polytheism, for that matter), I don’t know now if I got that notion on my own or heard it from elsewhere, but it was rolling around my brain by the time I noted it being proffered by the polytheistic mainstream of society in the scifi series Caprica as a criticism of the violent underground monotheistic rebels. It was the first time I had ever seen monotheism depicted in the little or big screen as other than the most refined expression of religion in human history. Usually by monotheists, or atheists with a monotheistic background, of course.
And I killed YHVH and Allah with zeal, Minkfoot.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YL4cFzbrb9M
YHVH/Allah (same thing to Muslims)
I killed Him.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YL4cFzbrb9M
Now, ISIS is going to come after me, but I will summon Ahura Mazda to destroy them.
shoulda hardened the cockpit doors way before.
shoulda barred the cartoon offices’ doors way before.
I got 20-20 hindsight!
Not sure what you do to slow down somebody like Shoko Asahara, but I do think this country should keep track of a few things, like purchases (and thefts) of large quantities of chemicals, fertilizers, and fireworks (f!#ckin’ pressure cooker bombs, from fireworks!). How long did it take them to get ephedrine at least behind the counter?
Don’t even get me started about guns.
Ok, ok, I know that especially when the person doing the act is chemically unbalanced and willing to die, sh#t is going to happen. I realize that mental health care is extremely expensive and there’s not much that can be done to improve it, for many people.
It is a reality check. In the excitement, there, I kinda lost track of exactly where the place and things really is- ya gotta ask yourself, are ya free to go now?- well, are ya?…
Muslims are not a repressed minority in France. They have the same civil & religious rights as everyone else. The problem is that for a not insignificant part of the devout among them, this isn’t enough. Too many of them believe they are entitled to legal exceptions and privileges that would allow them to live the full fundamentalist lifestyle (which extends beyond the individual…), protected by blasphemy laws of the type common in muslim majority countries where any criticism of Islam is banned & punished. In a profoundly secular country with a long tradition of strict separation of state & religion and a culture of debate where basically anything is up for free & frank discussion, such people feel under attack almost all the time. Hence all the whining about “being oppressed” that is so common among them.
I have read all the comments yet. I just got here. But I gotta say this…
I was thinking today, if there was a Christian sect out there, with a slightly different bible, that advised a man to kill non-believers of that sect, and to beat their women if they did not submit, it would annihilated. Like, it would cease to exist here.
And if a rock star makes an album voicing explicit lyrics, claiming freedom of speech, then it has a disclaimer put on it and an age limit to purchase.
Movies are rated due to content, and minors are not allow to view them due to the content.
You have to be a certain age to buy porn.
You have to be a certain age, and have id ready to drink alcohol…
So, I think the same should be true of hateful religious paraphernalia that encourages people to mass murder, and rape.
Or, if the Quran is be of public domain, it should be edited.
In Indonesia, where it’s a Muslim government, any Buddhist scripture, either historic or modern, has to meet criteria that it a)Talks about Heaven(in the after life sense), and b) Talks about God. I think here in the west, Muslims have to conform as well.
Like, it’s an issue of human rights. The Quran goes against human rights. It insights people to violate human rights, in regards to mass murder and abuse of women.
At the very least, it should be kept out the hands of children until it has been edited to a PG level of acceptance, until such time as that person of not such an influential age as to not able to think for themselves.
Like, if I had minors in my house, and I was read passages to the child about beating a wife if she refuses to have sex with you, or about S&M, or the glory of killing people..I’d probity be in some deep kaka…
It shouldn’t be an different for Muslims then it is for anyone else. It should be a two-tiered system of tolerance.
And if those Muslim elders, or leaders truly say they want the Muslim religion to be practiced as merciful, peace loving religion, with tolerance and respect blah blah blah…As they have said many times before, to no avail. Then they should put their words into action, and make the Quran a peace promoting thing.
Like, the argument that only crazy people will be inspired by explicit lyrics, and that you can’t stop crazy people…The Quran is the same. Sure, there probity are lots of decent Muslims out there who are peace loving people, and have a different version of the Quran etc etc etc…And there are the crazies that mass murder people. Or kill people over a cartoon.
If the Quran is going to be public domain, it must be publicly acceptable.
Like that burqa chick in The Taqwacores, ripping pages out of the Quran “because she didn’t need them anymore” 🙂
If more muslims were like Michael Muhammad Knight, they’d be more popular. Well, maybe not, but it would make for a better & more interesting religion.
I have read all the comments yet. I just got here. But I gotta say this…
I was thinking today, if there was a Christian sect out there, with a slightly different bible, that advised a man to kill non-believers of that sect, and to beat their women if they did not submit, it would annihilated. Like, it would cease to exist here.
And if a rock star makes an album voicing explicit lyrics, claiming freedom of speech, then it has a disclaimer put on it and an age limit to purchase.
Movies are rated due to content, and minors are not allow to view them due to the content.
You have to be a certain age to buy porn.
You have to be a certain age, and have id ready to drink alcohol…
So, I think the same should be true of hateful religious paraphernalia that encourages people to mass murder, and rape.
Or, if the Quran is be of public domain, it should be edited.
In Indonesia, where it’s a Muslim government, any Buddhist scripture, either historic or modern, has to meet criteria that it a)Talks about Heaven(in the after life sense), and b) Talks about God. I think here in the west, Muslims have to conform as well.
Like, it’s an issue of human rights. The Quran goes against human rights. It insights people to violate human rights, in regards to mass murder and abuse of women.
At the very least, it should be kept out the hands of children until it has been edited to a PG level of acceptance, until such time as that person of not such an influential age as to not able to think for themselves.
Like, if I had minors in my house, and I was read passages to the child about beating a wife if she refuses to have sex with you, or about S&M, or the glory of killing people..I’d probity be in some deep kaka…
It shouldn’t be an different for Muslims then it is for anyone else. It should be a two-tiered system of tolerance.
And if those Muslim elders, or leaders truly say they want the Muslim religion to be practiced as merciful, peace loving religion, with tolerance and respect blah blah blah…As they have said many times before, to no avail. Then they should put their words into action, and make the Quran a peace promoting thing.
Like, the argument that only crazy people will be inspired by explicit lyrics, and that you can’t stop crazy people…The Quran is the same. Sure, there probity are lots of decent Muslims out there who are peace loving people, and have a different version of the Quran etc etc etc…And there are the crazies that mass murder people. Or kill people over a cartoon.
If the Quran is going to be public domain, it must be publicly acceptable.
I haven’t read all the comments yet. I just got here. But I gotta say this…
I was thinking today, if there was a Christian sect out there, with a slightly different bible, that advised a man to kill non-believers of that sect, and to beat their women if they did not submit, it would annihilated. Like, it would cease to exist here.
And if a rock star makes an album voicing explicit lyrics, claiming freedom of speech, then it has a disclaimer put on it and an age limit to purchase.
Movies are rated due to content, and minors are not allow to view them due to the content.
You have to be a certain age to buy porn.
You have to be a certain age, and have id ready to drink alcohol…
So, I think the same should be true of hateful religious paraphernalia that encourages people to mass murder, and rape.
Or, if the Quran is to be of public domain, it should be edited and made KOSHER.
In Indonesia, where it’s a Muslim government, any Buddhist scripture, either historic or modern, has to meet criteria in that it a)Talks about Heaven(in the after life sense), and b) Talks about God. I think here in the west, Muslims have to conform as well.
Like, it’s an issue of human rights. The Quran goes against human rights. It insights people to violate human rights in regards to mass murder and abuse of women.
At the very least, it should be kept out the hands of children until it has been edited to a PG level of acceptance. Until such time, for persons who are at an extremely influential age, and not able to make proper judgements, it should be treated the same as any other potentially harmful influences for minors.
Like, if I had minors in my house, and I was read passages to the child about beating a wife if she refuses to have sex with you, or about S&M, or the glory of killing people..I’d probity be in some deep kaka…
It shouldn’t be an different for Muslims then it is for anyone else. It shouldn’t be a two-tiered system of tolerance.
And if those Muslim elders/leaders truly say they want the Muslim religion to be practiced as merciful, peace loving religion, with tolerance and respect blah blah blah…As they have said many times before, to no avail….Then they should put their words into action, and make the Quran a peace promoting thing.
Like, the argument that only crazy people will be inspired by explicit lyrics to slay other people, and that you can’t stop crazy people…The Quran is the same. Sure, there probity are lots of decent Muslims out there who are peace loving people, and have a different versions of understanding the Quran etc etc etc…And then there are the crazies that mass murder people. Or kill people over a cartoon.
If the Quran is going to be public domain, it must be publicly acceptable. It must submit. It must be made kosher.
SamsaricHelicoid: quite interesting post that has helped me to understand how Jelaleddin Rumi could make out something as humane as Sufism out of Islam.
ShinshanOhara: thanks for your insights. I quite agree onthat “fear” aspect.
Gav: thank you for stating these to people outside of France.
France has had to fight for centuries against the overwhelming weight of the Catholic Church, especially after the Religion Wars which tore up the country in the 16th and early 17th centuries. The 18th century saw the “enlightened” thinkers fight the “Infamous” until the American and French Revolutions. Here, two different evolutions. The American Fathers tried to oust religion out of politics, but failed on the long term, as can be seen today. The French Revolution war more adamant, and one of the first things, abolished the law against blasphemy. For us, this is an important conquest.
But the French Revolution was followed by the excesses of the Terror and then the Great Military Dictatorship, followed by the return of the Kings, and all this until the second Dictatorship of 1851. Only in 1879 would start what was called “the Republican Moment” which saw the laws on laicity, public instruction, workers rights and right of association be voted. In 1905, a law was voted of separation of the Church and the State, which confined religions to the private sphere. But the reactionary forces led by the Catholic Church fought hard, and thought they had their revenge with the Nazi Occupation in 1940. The backlash of the Liberation in 1945 held them at bay for a long time. Now, the Muslims (as mentioned Gav are fighting hard against that law of laicity, and are at times helped by the Christian Fundies. This is exactly an episode of that war.
Fundies of all religions are a threat to all. And humour is probably the weapon they fear the most.
Sorry: I mistyped “war” instead of “was” with “more adamant”…
Ah! Samsaric Helicoid: please sit comfortably with your legs under the korsi and eat some ta-dig in my honour… 🙂
I wonder if part of the motivation for violence is that violence makes it real.
There’s a trick that salespeople use, where they ask the target for a favor — not something big but something just right, significant but doable (say, would you help fixing my car, or, do you know how to work this smartphone?). The salesperson asks this to exploit a weakness in human psychology, which makes the target decide that they’re friendly. I mean, people help their friends, and I’ve just helped this guy, so he must have been cool the whole time.
Perhaps in the same way, if I beat or kill the infidels/gays/gypsies/etc., well, violence is definitely undeniably real, so there’s a real war going on, and this retroactively proves my struggle up until now to have been real, and therefore my shared fantasy is valid.
And of course deep down they must know that killing is wrong, that repressing other people is wrong, but it’s precisely because it’s wrong that it becomes significant. I’ve done something terrible, cruel, merciless; but I’m a good person, so something really terrible must be going on, a great struggle, the forces of the Devil walking the Earth et cetera, and *therefore* my shared fantasy is valid — therefore it must have valid all along. Think of how attracted we are to violent action movies: the violence says, “this is real, this is important, this matters”; think of the popularity of anti-heroes like Wolverine or Walter White; if these characters just lived peacefully and happily, we wouldn’t even be interested in their stories.
But the more you do bad things to prove your fantasy is valid, the more you’ll become anxious that perhaps it’s all fake after all, and your bad things aren’t actually justified; and then you’d do even worser things to prove to yourself that it’s real, escalating the repression until it explodes into violence.
I don’t know…
http://www.juancole.com/2015/01/sharpening-contradictions-satirists.html
What I find extremely disappointing about reactions like these, is that they are immediately shifting back into business-as-usual mode, with liberals emphasizing that “the vast majority of muslims” has “absolutely nothing” in common with the violent jihadists. While I don’t claim or believe the opposite is true, to deny any link between jihadism and quite a few of the more popular & orthodox versions of Islam strikes me as profoundly dishonest. Just as dishonest as Saudi Arabia’s official condemnation of the attacks, when the only thing that bothers them about the killing of blasphemers is that is not carried out by the proper authorities.
This is not about the potential persecution of muslims but about their persecution of unbelievers. Liberal commentators should realize that and focus their attention now on the defense of free speech and non-violence, instead of posting knee-jerk pieces defending a cherished group that is not even under attack today.
Professor Cole is well worth reading, as this is his area of expertise and he speaks Arabic and Farsi. Most of the jerking knees I see are on the other foot.
Is it? I agree Cole is often worth reading, but not today. Today, the professor is just pursuing his US-based liberal political agenda (as he does on quite a few other occasions, Cole is not an expert aiming for objectivity but an activist-academic). He doesn’t know shit about France and whether or not he reads Farsi doesn’t matter. This is *not* a Middle East issue.
I don’t see any contradiction between what prof Cole writes and what Gav states.
Sorry…
It is obvious to me since the very beginning that all that, and the islamic veil thing as well, are in the vein described by Prof Cole. The general reaction of the French, and also of the German against the PEGIDA demonstrations is also proof of that.
Yet it remains that it is more difficult for a Muslim to contradict those extremists than it would be for a Xtian, essentially because of the nature of their respective literatures.
“Sorry…” Nono, that’s ok 🙂 I hope we’re all having these conversations to advance our understanding, and not to win an argument…
I mean, proof of the fact that Islamists have a big problem.
By the way, on the cartoon, Muhammad is saying: “100 lashes of a whip if you’re not dead with laughter.”
A few days before his death, Charb published a cartoon of a djihadist saying “Still no “Still no terrorist attack in France: wait, we’ve got till the end of January for the presentation of greetings”
http://s1.lemde.fr/image/2015/01/08/534×0/4552131_6_bd70_le-dernier-dessin-de-charb-paru-dans-charlie_7872aa02afa68f986e88c06c205aa055.jpg
“While Great Master SeppÅ Shinkaku and Meditation Master
SanshÅ Enen were traveling together, they saw a group of snow monkeys, whereupon SeppÅ said, “Each of these monkeys is carrying
the Ancient Mirror upon its back.” -Dogen, Kokyo
When I hear discussions about human violence, I’m reminded of the zoologist Robert Sapolsky’s work: it reads a bit like a fable or a koan.
Sapolsky goes to Africa every year, and studies the behaviour of a troop of baboons. The thing about baboons is that they’re the meanest muvvaf**kas in the primate order – they have to fight lions and hyenas, so it makes sense. Baboon society is mean – when a high ranking baboon gets irritated, he takes it out on the next baboon in the hierarchy. Aggression is constantly getting passed down the chain, until they’re biting each other’s babies.
Anyway, after Sapolsky’s been watching them for about 15 years, things change. A tourist lodge has been throwing tuberculous meat into a heavy-lidded dumpster ™. Only the biggest, most vicious baboons can get to the meat: those baboons all die of TB. Sapolsky thinks his research is ruined.
When he comes back the next year, he’s amazed. His troop of baboons has turned into a hippie commune. They spend their time stroking and grooming each other. When adolescent male baboons turn up and try to join this troop, they do the usual fightey-bitey stuff, but the hippie baboons just look at them like they’re mad, and stroke them. After a few months the new monkeys on the block give up on the aggro, and chillax into the free love groove. The troop has stayed like that for many years now – it’s a revolution in baboon biology.
Aawww!
Now, peoples ain’t baboons, it’s dangerous to infer too much about human life from what other animals do. But I think we can learn something from the story. No matter how technologically advanced we become, our actions are always grounded in the biology we inherited from savannah-dwelling ground apes. Although most western people would agree to that, we don’t integrate it in political and social discussions.
The ideas of the European ‘Enlightenment’ that gave us Free Speech, Human Rights, Civil Liberties, Secularism, and the French and American Republics, are based on Rationalism and the Cartesian Mind-Body Dualism. A basic premise is that the citizen is a rational actor, who will rationally abide by the community’s agreed rules at all times. A lot of current biology and brain science says something different: it says that when a citizen is distressed enough (for example, by the impossibility of being both accepted by his family, and also accepted by society), his/her ‘rational’ desire to fit into social norms will be overtaken by more primal defensive behaviour.
All humans are always acting from a mixture of abstract ideas and instinctive urges. I guess that a young Frenchman from as strict Muslim background can be in the same emotional archetype as an adolescent baboon that’s ejected from his own troop, and has to find and fight his way into a new one, avoiding lions and leopards on the way. His body is getting pumped full of lion-wrestling hormones, and he’s vigilantly looking for enemies everywhere. Liberté, Egalité and Fraternité are meaningless to someone in that dharma-configuration.
What to do about it? I don’t know… but somehow it must involve secularists and muslims both finding a way to transcend their opinions, and meet on the common ground of living, breathing, vulnerable sentient beings. The only activity I know of that helps with that is meditation in whatever form.
Can the French State introduce zazen in schools? Is zazen (or McMindfulness, even) an acceptable practice for sunni muslims? Or is there some islamic equivalent practice that can be adopted?
There already is a common ground available: that of the human rights based secular society. It’s perfectly possible to live personally as a devout muslim in France (or the rest of western Europe for that matter). What is not possible is to impose your religious values on others. Most muslims can live with this, or at least they are learning to do so. Just like the christians learned over the past hundred years or so. My personal expectation, based on living in a city with a very large minority of muslims of non-European origins, is that Islam might even decline in the same way catholicism did.
With those who can’t accept the secular framework, no compromise is possible as the only form it could take would be the “gated community” model of society, where people are born into partly self-governing castes, with different laws depending on your background. A man might be allowed to beat his wife if they are salafist muslims, but not if they were atheists. The catch being that the wife couldn’t walk out and give up Islam to escape since that too would be against the laws of their subcommunity. This type of fragmentation would make the concept of a shared, humane & diverse society meaningless.
As for zazen, I doubt it would be acceptable to orthodox sunni. And given their aversion to anything resembling innovation in religious matters, they’re unlikely to develop a variant of their own. Many even regard sufism as unacceptable.
(some time ago the BBC did a double feature on yoga & Islam that might be of interest: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01jns1v )
It seems like Brad Warner might be leaning towards Nihilism. He has even recorded a video endorsing Nietzsche.
French secularism is based on the experience of the Religion Wars on yore. The defining criterium is the Nation. Religions are private and are not to invade or pollute the national and political debate.
The problem of communautarism and of community Islam is that they try and tend to overthrow that precious neutrality because they won’t admit it, and this is a general threat because it is also an invitation to the other religions to come back into the portrait and overthrow an hitherto precarious balance.
“I guess that a young Frenchman from as strict Muslim background can be in the same emotional archetype as an adolescent baboon that’s ejected from his own troop, and has to find and fight his way into a new one, avoiding lions and leopards on the way”
Very good, but he lost his troop early in life, and was radicalized by the Iraq
invasion. The same conditions arise in Syria right now, children losing their
families and growing up in brutal conditions.
“Orphaned at a young age and raised at a foster care facility in Rennes, France, the younger brother worked as a fishmonger and delivery man when he wasn’t attending jihadist meetings”
It’s easy and in certain circles rather popular to see big politics, such as the war in Iraq, the failed uprising in Syria, Palestine etc., all which are then habitually blamed on “The West” or America, that most evil of countries (as if things are so simple), as the main cause of radicalization. Usually good old economic deprivation is also thrown in the mix, as no proper liberal explanation could not attach importance to it.
I’m not so sure explanations which turn jihadi extremists into victims of society (always western of course) and misguided rebels against real injustice often hit the mark. One thing that strikes me about quite a few of the returned jihadi’s whose own stories have been published is how fundamentalist Islam often provides an environment in which they can live a colorful and adventurous life free from the drudgery of normal society with its stupid jobs and small time rules where you are nothing special and have to take others into account all the time. Jihad turns every man into a conquering hero, a master of life & death who doesn’t need to hold back, pretty much does as he pleases and is rewarded on earth and in heaven for acting out his aggressive fantasies. For certain personalities that is a very attractive proposition. Joining the jihad can be about ambitions and personal desire too.
So why did some of the jihadis who left Europe for Syria return disappointed? Apparently because the fantasy was better than the reality.
There’s more than one factor Gav. Are you a Buddhist, or just some
one trolling here?
I’m not trolling, just disagreeing with what you say.
Mustapha Ourrad, one of the Charlie collaborators murdered, was also an orphan, with a unprivileged migrant background. yet he turned out great. I bet he wasn’t pleased with the wars in Iraq & Syria either. And still, such a contrast with his killer…
Hi Gav,
I think a lot of the points you made are valid. Secular democracy is compromised if certain interests groups can outmanoeuvre the laws of society within a “gated community”. My local police run an unofficial version of this. When young men from the Pakistani community get caught stealing, joyriding or whatever, the cops just hand them over to their tribal elder (wtf, this is in 21st century Europe), but don’t arrest them. The cops like this set-up, because the elder will exact a worse punishment than the law would. The authorities here turn a blind eye to sharia law within the muslim community: punishment beatings and whippings; even cases when people ‘disappear’ over family honour. It’s not a sustainable situation.
I also agree that raw excitement (and glory, and sexual conquest), will be a motivation for young jihadists (same as it is for young soldiers in regular armies). Again, though, an excessive craving for excitement is highly correlated with long-term stress, and emotional neglect in childhood. The dopamine/adrenaline rush from dangerous activities masks their underlying depression and trauma: it can become an addiction in itself. Doctor Gabor Maté has written a lot about this.
However, nobody here (as far as I can see) has classed the maniacs who attacked Charlie Hebdo as “victims of society”. Like all of us, they’re a result of circumstances, plus their own decisions: they’re fully responsible for their own decisions and crimes.
But that’s not to say we can’t look to understand them as people. Salafism and Secularism are diametrically opposed ideologies – when they clash head on (either as a war of ideas, or bullets) it can only come down to ‘last man standing wins’. Luckily secularists and salafists are also real people – with something in common that’s deeper and older than any belief system.
Yeah, causes and conditions can be ancient and twisted.
“Extremism thrives on other people’s extremism, and is inexorably defeated by tolerance.”- prof Cole
But- what about destiny!?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3dKHBmxMT0
Awesome headline, Brad 🙂
Brad, while we are on the subject of Buddhist fiction, do you think that Buddha
actually said this:
” Haven’t I in many ways advocated abandoning sensual pleasures, comprehending sensual perceptions, subduing sensual thirst, destroying sensual thoughts, calming sensual fevers? Worthless man, it would be better that your penis be stuck into the mouth of a poisonous snake than into a woman’s vagina. It would be better that your penis be stuck into the mouth of a black viper than into a woman’s vagina. It would be better that your penis be stuck into a pit of burning embers, blazing and glowing, than into a woman’s vagina”
… nah, Buddha never said that. It was his cousin Bdsmha.
You should have pointed out the context, Fred. Buddha was remonstrating with a monk who fucked his former wife at the behest of his mother, to provide an heir for his parents. This was before the Vinaya was formulated, in fact it was the first rule and used to illustrate the way the Pratimoksha rules were instituted, but there must have been a general understanding that monastics were supposed to be celibate. The monk Sudinna, the “worthless man,” felt remorse after taking his former spouse to the woods and impregnating her. After he confessed, the Buddha came out with the quote above. Sudinna was not expelled since the formal rule did not exist till then. Buddha did not use such language for lay followers – I mean, if the Buddhist laity died out, who would support the monastics, to say nothing of where monastics would come from.
Then there was the time Buddha showed his manhood to a bunch of shady ladies . . .
I tend to hold that, right after the Buddha’s death, brahmins started to contrive things that suited their distaste for sharing the sangha with scum.
Along the Buddha’s life, as his order became ever more popular, it attracted people from the higher reaches of Indian society. These could not not be disturbed by the sangha shared by women (women!!!???) lower caste people, like Chanda, the Buddhas horse squire and so on. So, right after his death, they started adding things to the sutras, like the Buddha, dying, from a terrible belly ache, but who nevertheless goes on a long winded speech about what to do after his death, among which kick Chanda out of the sangha (whithout reason), plus miracles (the Buddha teleports the whole of his suite across a river and other idiocies. Therefore, I do suspect such texts…
Then which texts should be chosen as valid? The ones that don’t clash with our
viewpoints that we hold in our existences in the relative world?
There’s nothing wrong with righteous indignation per se, but it seems to come from the same impulses that drive the extreme behavours that caused it in the first place.
Phenomena arises, phenomena passes away. Where did it come from, where does it go?
That the self advances and confirms the ten thousand things
is called delusion;
That the ten thousand things advance and confirm the self
is called enlightenment.
– Dogen
‘Having readied the posture, make one complete exhalation, and sway left and right. Sitting in balance in the mountain-still state, “Think the concrete state of not thinking.” “How can the state of not thinking be thought?” “It is different from thinking.” This is the secret of sitting-Zen.’
Brad: “Quite a bit of Buddhism could be categorized as fiction. … Most Buddhists acknowledge and are comfortable with this.”
Fred: “while we are on the subject of Buddhist fiction, do you think that Buddha actually said this”
That’s one of the things that most appeals to me about Buddhism (or at least the forms that descend from Mahayana): you don’t need to see the Buddhadharma as a completely static thing, written on tablets of stone. Improving on what has been said before might even be called a necessary feature of how the teachings are transmitted.
According to the scholars, some of the most important ideas that Eastern Buddhism got from the Lotus Sutra weren’t in the original Sanskrit text, but were added by Kumarajiva, who translated it into Chinese. These additions include phrases that appear a lot in Dogen’s Shobogenzo, like “Only Buddhas, together with Buddhas”, and “total exertion”. ( https://icabs.repo.nii.ac.jp/index.php?action=pages_view_main&active_action=repository_action_common_download&item_id=33&item_no=1&attribute_id=22&file_no=1&page_id=13&block_id=17 )
Similarly, the Heart Sutra was composed in Chinese, and later back-translated to sanskrit to give it an air of authority (link below). Dogen later tweaked the words of the Heart Sutra to suit his purposes.
This sort of thing used to bug me. It made me think I’d have to learn Pali, and Sanskrit, and Chinese and study for decades in order to know for sure that Zen was in keeping with “true buddhism”. Now, I’m OK with the idea that the tradition is alive and “true”, and always evolving – and that the main figures of the tradition all knew that the teaching must always change and develop.
http://jayarava.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/a-new-sanskrit-heart-sutra.html
“Now, I’m OK with the idea that the tradition is alive and “true”, and always evolving — and that the main figures of the tradition all knew that the teaching must always change and develop.”
And the twists and turns of an evolving whatever could occur in a war zone to
suit whomever’s purposes.
Or that having sex with Joshu Sasaki would help students attain new levels of “non-attachment”
“For the main figures of the tradition all knew that the teaching must always change”, and who would know more about how it should change than a wise,
holy man.
To ask Brad again:
When you were standing on that autumn day on that bridge over the Sengawa River, Japan, was what happened a fiction?
Yes, it doesn’t make it simple. The whole sangha of fallible people becomes collectively responsible for checking whether innovation is worth adding, or if some of the old stuff has to be reinterpreted. That’s a living tradition for you.
If you don’t like that approach, there are some popular religions out there, where you can just take the words of some sunstruck bronze age goatherd as the final revelation of the almighty sky fairy, and follow them to the letter. Take your pick: Moshe, Mo or JC.
In Christianity, scholars contort to explain inconsistencies in scripture and doctrine.
In Zen Buddhism, it’s not a bug.
A little late for me to weighing in on this, but anyway…
If a man murders another man on the basis of some religious doctrine (or his own batshit interpretation of some religious doctrine) many people will want to “blame” that particular doctrine for his crime, and some will want to castigate religion as a whole (usually without bothering to clarify what they mean by “religion”.)
But if a man beats his wife in a fit of sexual jealousy because he sees her talking to another man, no one “blames” sex. No one suggests that sex should be subject to legal restrictions in order to prevent such a tragedy from happening again.
If a man kills his wife in order to collect the insurance money, very few people will blame the insurance industry. Almost no one will suggest that the insurance industry should be outlawed – still less the practice of printing money.
I assume I don’t have to explain my point.
“I assume I don’t have to explain my point.”
Oh, you probably do.
Someone might say, that if its a tenet of the religion that the non-believers must
be put to the sword, then…………..
shade,
You point is taken but I’d add an observation.
We (fairly or unfairly) expect religion to make people behave better. When they don’t, some people blame the religion.
I’d agree that in some cases blaming the religion is unfair.
However, as far as I can tell, neither insurance or sex* fall into the category of spiritual self-improvement.
Cheers.
* A case could be made for sex, but insurance, no.
Shade, your analogy for sex missed a little– the villain in the instance you cite would be jealousy, not sex. Now, if a man beats his wife because she won’t make love with him when he wants her to, then you could say it was sex, right?
I sat on a jury in a spousal-abuse case where the prosecution felt compelled to bring in a psychologist to explain why a woman might remain in an abusive relationship. The psychologist’s explanation was, “the sex is good”. It was their sex life, that compelled her actions in remaining with him- sort of a bondage thing, there, for so many. Maybe the Islam is really good for these fellas, and we need to find a Benperidol-like drug for them to help with the temptation.
On the subject of who said what, I still accept A.K. Warder’s conclusion in “Buddhist India”, which is that the first four Nikayas are the best historical record of what Gautama the Shakyan actually said. And indeed, the passage you cite is in there, Fred, along with another where he talks about how a woman will, even on her deathbed, attempt to ensnare a man.
Gautama spoke of a repulsion for the body, as useful to the religious life.
I always recall to mind what the instructor said in my left-brain/right-brain class at UC Extension in S.F., back in the ‘seventies: there are polynesians in the South Pacific who can successfully navigate between islands that are over the horizon from each other at night under a heavy cloud cover, but if you ask them how they do it, what you get is a garbage explanation. In other words, it’s possible to know how to do something with the right brain without having a factual explanation in the left brain.
Gautama was misogynistic, I am guessing more so in the early days.
Gautama tried to live on pieces of shit the size of peas, for a while there. When he discovered he was in the river and nearly didn’t have the strength to get out (bless the branch that he hauled himself out on), he changed his mind about asceticism as the path to enlightenment.
Nevertheless, he advocated the meditation on the unlovely (aspects of the body) to his followers, in one instance resulting in the suicides of scores of monks daily for a period of weeks.
I don’t see him as perfect. I see him as a teacher who had some things right, and other things, particularly things related to the social order, wrong. I’m moved by the account of Ananda asking Gautama about the status of a man who left the order because he was a drinking alcoholic, after the man died; Gautama said the man was a non-returner, in spite of the prohibition against intoxicants in the rules of the order, and the presumed relationship between observing the precepts and the fruit of the spiritual life.
Gautama expected his order to last 500 years. That was approximately how long the teaching was handed down orally, before being written down in Ceylon in the language it had arrived in, which was not the language Gautama spoke but Pali.
It was China, to my mind, that kept the genius of the teaching alive.
Michel, I’m not aware of any miracles attributed to Gautama in the first four Sutta volumes of the Pali Canon, apart from the pyschic eye that enabled him to see past lives and spirits. I believe Gautama said that the only miracle he would perform would be the teaching of the Dhamma, which he regarded as superior to all the rest.
There’s a sermon about a monk who could make it rain, but the working of such miracles was apparently frowned upon, and he left the order. In contrast, when Gautama asks Mogallana to do something about the monks’ complacency, and Mogallana stirs the ground with his big toe and causes an earthquake, nobody expects him to leave. He was, of course, one of Gautama’s two principal disciples.
blah-blah, blah…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-jSWME37As
Thank you Mark, I never listened to the words before.
Thank you nothingness
Thank you clarity
Thank you thank you silence
Alanis Morissette and Ken Wilber talking about spiritual/psychological stuff.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpmd4uwHcD4
Ken Wilbur has theoretical friends?
Alanis Morrisette the hippy! Who knew! Thanks, GC!
yer welcome, Fred– I love that video. If I go to karioke tonight, I am thinking to sing the song.
Last time at karioke I put down “Anyway you want me” by Elvis as the song I wanted to sing, and improvised for three minutes when the song came on because I’d never heard it; no idea what the melody was, and I couldn’t sing the words on the screen. “Baby what you want me to do” was the song I actually wanted to sing, but I think they didn’t have that.
Ken has now bored me beyond my capacity to endure, even though I’m interested in what Alanis has to say… oh well. ADHD, on the spectrum, hungry spectrals, growling intestals, interstitial soupcons…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFle2YoQwWg
Atta girl, Gillian. That’s from the same cd, Time (The Revelator) with “Elvis Presley Blues” on it…
But you should do this one tonight, Mark:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ecBgUo52AY
Okay I guess I do sort of have to explain my point. Jeez, and I thought I was making a simple analogy…
My point is not that fucked up religious doctrines don’t exist (Or that people put their own extremely twisted interpretations on ambiguous doctrines). Nor that fucked up religious doctrines aren’t one of the most effective ways of compelling people to do fucked up things. It does not follow, however, that religion is inherently evil or destructive or like the moral equivalent of plutonium. Just as one should not demonize sex and sexuality as a whole just because some people have fucked up attitudes about sex.
But actually, Mark, what you say about certain people “getting off” on Islam is pretty shrewd (obviously the same can be said of any and all other religious creeds). Certainly something to cogitate on.
Anyway, as far as insurance and money goes, that wasn’t such a good analogy, because I, for one, do think both those things are inherently evil (or “bad” for those who bridle at the word evil). But I’m very much in the minority. Greed has played at least as much a part as religious belief in the history of violence, so to speak. Why is it then that fear and hatred of religion is so much more prevalent than fear of economics? (Partly I think because these days many people have an easier time imagining a world without churches and temples and “holy books” than a world without money. Man alive, I don’t participate in religious practices of any kind, but I still find that depressing)
What’s wrong with insurance? Or even with money per se?
I can see what might be wrong with unbridled capitalism, or with greed in general, or with the profit seeking behaviour of big insurance corporations. But I can’t see the inherent problem with having a unit of value for exchanging goods, or with people paying part of their wealth into a collective fund, so they’re insured against disaster. Even in some anarchist utopia those things would be useful?
Not saying I disagree with you, just don’t understand. Can you explain?
Money and other symbols of material value (gold, diamonds, etc.) lend themselves as the ultimate examples of reification. Well, penultimate, after the reification of the self. Sometimes, they get muddled together, like Gollum and his Precious.
I heard that, after the massacre of Custer’s men, the Indians found their pockets full of greenbacks because they had just been paid. Having no use for them, the adults let the children play with the money, folding, tearing, burning it. A survivor saw this from the ridge, and it upset him so much he offed himself right there.
Checking with the Pope, it appears that idolizing money is the root of all evil.
http://d1oi7t5trwfj5d.cloudfront.net/61/84/464798054c3584ac89efc5c83ea5/crumb-hebdo-680.jpg
hello
Money, as aptly pointed out Alan Watts, is just like inches or centimetres: it is a device for measuring. Insurance is a mutual protection device, in that quite typical of humanity.
The driftings from those premises cannot, I think, be ascribed to the devices themselves.
As for miracles, you just get the Parinirvana Sutta
“33. But when the Blessed One came to the river Ganges, it was full to the brim, so that crows could drink from it. And some people went in search of a boat or float, while others tied up a raft, because they desired to get across. But the Blessed One, as quickly as a strong man might stretch out his bent arm or draw in his outstretched arm, vanished from this side of the river Ganges, and came to stand on the yonder side.”
(http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/dn/dn.16.1-6.vaji.html)
minkfoot… I didn’t even know what the word reification meant. Had to look it up. But yeah, that’s pretty much the long and short of it.
My problem with money and all economic systems that make use of it is that it’s delusional and thus destructive, both materially and spiritually. We treat these little circular bits of metal and scraps of paper with funny pictures on them not only as if they had some sort of inherent value, but supreme value. As in, the value to shape all social relations so profoundly that we can hardly conceive of anything “getting done” without them. You know that proverb about the fish that everyone trots out when they talk about Zen? The one where the punchline is “what’s water”? Okay here’s my clever analogy for the day: living in a civilization with a money based economic system is like being a fish in a pond full of strychnine.
re. the Pope’s comment about the “idolization” of money that Mark alludes to (cheers) I find that very curious, because I don’t see how one could fail to idolize money (though I suppose it’s more of a fetish than an idol, per se). Without the idolatry it’s just metal and paper. That’s where the delusion comes in, and that’s what poisons the well. (apologies again for turning the conversation to something so wildly off-topic. Maybe now that I’ve had my say I can shut up about it. *Right.*)
This will explain everything:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXeVgEs4sOo
What, if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: “This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh and everything unutterably small or great in your life will have to return to you, all in the same succession and sequence — even this spider and this moonlight between the trees, and even this moment and I myself. The eternal hourglass of existence is turned upside down again and again, and you with it, speck of dust!” Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: “You are a god and never have I heard anything more divine”? If this thought gained possession of you, it would change you as you are, or perhaps crush you. -Fredrich Nietszche (GS 341)