[Buddha-l] What's wrong with a little Dharma?

[Dan Lusthaus]

> > The Christians who would attack other religions only discredit
themselves,
> > as surveys show that even their own congregations don't support "extra
> > ecclesiam nulla salus." I think we're seeing the high water mark of
> > evangelical outspokeness and the tide will recede soon.
> ================
> This is my sense of it today as well. [...] The government connections
that Dan cited are mainly a
> product of Republican administrations of the Bush family genre, and like
> neo-conism, the war-fever stimulated by both Bushes, plus the wars, are on
> their way out.

Sadly, that's wishful thinking. As the oft-quoted line from Mark Twain goes:
Rumors of their death are greatly exaggerated. (people have been predicting
that decline since the 80s and the fall of Jim&Tammy and Swaggart. Ain't
happened yet. On the contrary...)

In the South, and increasingly throughout the Red States, "those" people are
becoming everybody. In the South, when you go to a new bank to open an
account, they don't ask you how much you'd like to deposit, or what sort of
account you want. They ask you what church you go to, and then invite you to
their upcoming Sunday picnic.

>From today's New York Times:

 "Teaching of Creationism is Endorsed in New Survey"

" In a finding that is likely to intensify the debate over what to teach
students about the origins of life, a poll released yesterday found that
nearly two-thirds of Americans say that creationism should be taught
alongside evolution in public schools.

" The poll found that 42 percent of respondents held strict creationist
views, agreeing that "living things have existed in their present form since
the beginning of time"."

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/31/national/31religion.html

This is not blowing over any time soon.

In Tallahassee the five year old son of our downstairs neighbor told us
proudly and loudly what he wanted to be when he grew up: A missionary to
convert all the heathens in China. His parents were beaming.

On the other hand, Chinese and Buddhists, etc. are largely irrelevant to the
big eschaton the evangelicals feel is imminent, but Jews are not. Jews have
to return to the Holy Land, then convert to Christianity -- only then will
Jesus make a return appearance. The notion that Jews are not interested in
converting to Christianity is incomprehensible to them (blurry notions of
Biblical prophesy, not empirical facts, provide truth) -- Jewish resistance
to conversion (the antisemitic euphemism is "stubbornness") is an idea
treated with hostility, shock and cognitive dissonance.

And of course while they're preparing for the eschaton, preventing gay
marriage, abortions, and humanistic thoughts of all kinds, their leaders are
taking them straight to third world status.

Also in today's NY Times:

"U.S. Poverty Rate was Up last Year"

" WASHINGTON, Aug. 30 - Even as the economy grew, incomes stagnated last
year and the poverty rate rose, the Census Bureau reported Tuesday. It was
the first time on record that household incomes failed to increase for five
straight years....

" The main theme of the census report seemed to be the lingering weakness in
compensation and benefits, even as the ranks of the unemployed have
dwindled. Fewer people are getting health insurance from their employers or
from policies of family members, while raises have generally trailed
inflation...

" "It looks like the gains from the recovery haven't really filtered down,"
said Phillip L. Swagel, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise
Institute, a conservative research group in Washington. "The gains have gone
to owners of capital and not to workers."

[more at]

http://nytimes.com/2005/08/31/national/31census.html?hp&ex=1125547200&en=12d149a1123bc5cc&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Well, at least they have Jesus.

[those two articles are NOT unrelated matters]

Last year a student in the Religion Dept here at Boston University received
a PhD for a diss. that argued that the Civil War was not about slavery, it
was about state's rights, and that, legally, morally, and religiously, the
South's position was the correct one. The committee that awarded the PhD
were impressed with his dissertation, saying they thought he was probably
right. That his argument was part of a well choreographed movement sweeping
the South for the last few years under the issue of federalism -- 
translation: keep the damn federal govt. and federal court jurisdiction out
of our racist business -- completely escaped their attention. These folks
are now sophisticated, deeply researched, prepared, organized on multiple
fronts, and the non-Bible belters haven't got a clue, are unprepared,
continually underestimate the opposition, and have frankly run out of clever
ideas.

Since I was a Civil War buff as a kid, I knew that on the legal and
constitutional matters, the South did indeed have a very good case. An
important compromise that was necessary to get all parties to ratify the
constitution (cf. with what's going on today in Iraq) was an escape clause:
The union is constituted by the consent of the States, who can withdraw that
consent when they wish. The subsequent legal status of the union shifted
during the first half of the 18th c., becoming more centralized, federalist,
etc. When the South seceded, it actually had every legal right to do so
(which was why the Europeans, especially France and England, supported the
Confederacy during the early years of the War). But the legal status of
secession was considered uncertain in some quarters, since it had never been
tested until then. Generally the outcome of the Civil War has been taken by
scholars and historians as settling the question decisively. Henceforth the
U.S. is to follow Lincoln's dictum: A house divided cannot stand. The South
is obviously revisiting that decision, and winning (in the Courts and in
public opinion) because their opposition (i.e., most of you!) is
historically clueless. Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation not to
effectively free actual slaves (obviously he had no power of fiat over
confederate states at that time), but to signal to the European powers
supporting the South that the war was about slavery, not states' rights, an
argument that did help to shut off European support (Brits especially were
frothingly anti-slavery at that point). Anyone who has spent time in the
South knows the Civil War is far from over there. It is more real and
current than anything on CNN.

If history is any guide, as economic and social conditions decline,
apocalyptic and ethnically intolerant social movements increase in power and
demographics (e.g., Weimar Germany).

Don't underestimate this movement. It is driven, smart, organized,
multi-faceted, well financed (they bought the White House), advancing on
multiple fronts, and on a mission. Oh, and they are relentless. They are not
going away anytime soon.

Dan Lusthaus