[Buddha-l] Critiques of Buddhism

[Richard P. Hayes]

On Tue, 2005-11-15 at 18:45 -0500, Chan Fu wrote:

> Unitarians are scary - I'm never sure just what they want to unite

As I'm sure you are aware, the original unitarians were so called
because they rejected the doctrine of the trinity. The first unitarians
were scary only to trinitarians. There are still some unitarian
movements that arrive at the same position as the first unitarians that
haunted the north of Italy and the mountains of Transylvania some five
hundred years ago. The Jehovah's Witnesses, for example, are unitarians.
Like the original unitarians, they arrive at their position through
biblical literalism. Their "thinking" (if one can call it that) is that
there is no biblical support for the doctrine of the trinity. Moreover,
the Bible does say that one should not place anyone on an equal footing
with God, from which it follows that seeing Christ as a person of God is
idolatry. So their claim is that the doctrine of the trinity is the work
of the later church, in much the same way Ken Wheeler (along with some
former subscribers to buddha-l) claim that the doctrine that there is no
self is the work of the later Buddhist community. The idea that a
religious community overturns the highest insights of its founders is
nothing new. It seems to be one of the standard positions that somebody
or other eventually takes up in every organized religion. In the 19th
century, quite a number of Presbyterians, Baptists and
Congregationalists were unitarians. While Presbyterians, Baptists and
Congregationalists are all capable of being scary, I'm not sure it's
their adherence to unitarian principles that makes them so.

> I have no problem with someone proposing that I have some
> individual essence that I don't know that I have and that my
> belief in their beliefs will determine whether that unknown
> something will be either barbecued or bored for all eternity
> in a place I don't know exists. 

My main problem with unitarians is that they believe in the complete
unity of just one god, which is one too many gods for my tastes. On the
other hand, if there were a god anything at all like worthy of worship,
she would be one who confers salvation upon absolutely everyone, without
exception. I am quite drawn to some of the doctrines of Hosea Ballou and
other Universalists, who denied that anyone goes to hell or purgatory.
If God has the power to save souls, Ballou argued, and if God extends
grace to anyone at all, then it only stands to reason that a just and
powerful God necessarily extend grace to everyone. Ballou regarded the
doctrine of eternal damnation the most irrational and tragic theological
doctrine ever to be invented by deluded human beings. Unfortunately,
most American Christians were so addicted to the idea that people who
spend sixty years being sinful now and then must spend everlasting time
paying for their handful of sins in hell that they rejected the
Universalists and even persecuted them. Alas, the beleaguered
Universalists were eventually driven to form a union with those of their
former enemies who hated them the least, namely, the Unitarians (most of
whom were also unitarians).  

Unitarian-Universalists often operate under the delusion that they have
a great deal in common with Buddhists. But that is mostly because it
turns out they know almost nothing about Buddhism and so can protect
their warm and fuzzy sense camaraderie under the accommodating  cloak of
ignorance.

-- 
Richard Hayes
Department of Philosophy
University of New Mexico