[Buddha-l] Re: buddha-l Digest, Vol 18, Issue 41

[Malcolm Dean]

Vicente Gonzalez <vicen.bcn at gmail.com> responds:
> MD> See this volume on sale for $10:
> MD> SS CULTURE – VOLUME THREE: SS FAITH
> MD> http://www.third-reich-books.com/x-547c-ss-culture-volume-three.htm
>
> yes... I know.  Although that literature is not serious to talk about
> the existence of a Religion. Even it was not serious in those times.
> It was developed to indoctrinate the masses around political goals.
> Much more an excuse to create a new belief for the masses under
> political control.

I think such charges have been laid against almost every religion by
its opponents, so they are useless as a test of the "validity" or
"stature" of any of them.

> As you knows, that pseudo.religion was a mixture
> of disparate things; Paganism, Christianism, Buddhism, Hinduism or
> whatever. It was a little part of a bigger intention to create a
> collective sense of "having a mission" in the History.
> In this sense, my point in the last message was that such mission
> finally was political, tribal or racist. But not directly religious.
> Not a crusade for religious goals. That pseudo.religion was an excuse
> or another additive.

I believe you conflate a number of interesting questions here. Every
religion is a mixture of its (Bayesian) priors: that is how culture
and cognition work. Same goes for personal or tribal "missions", being
"noble", and "the chosen." You speak of the "directly religious" and
"religious goals" as if there is some *essential* difference between
some religions and others - even those you believe to be
pseudo-religions or downright frauds.

A Buddhist approach, I would suggest, denies essentialism and
recognizes the acts and mental states related together as
characteristics of various religions and schools of thought - and sees
that these relationships or characteristics appear and re-appear in
new configurations throughout human history. We can then consider
their achievements and results.

Therefore, if you want to understand human religion, the evidence of a
Neolithic grave must stand along with the political religious
fantasies of Heinrich Himmler, the theology of Amun-Ra must stand
along with the Sci-Fi cosmology of L. Ron Hubbard. They are all
evidence of acts and mental states arising from a past and resulting
in a future. We can lump them as "religious", or select only a few as
"valid", but in all cases they are human activity connected by common
themes.

As de Chardin put it: "...we cannot possibly do or understand anything
without apprehending ourselves." [Human Energy, p.114, 1969]

> MD> Buddhism continues despite the revulsion some feel toward
> MD> self-immolation, which has a long Buddhist history. I believe the
> MD> unrealistic definitions of religion which are common to European and
> MD> Christian cultures are a source of the general confusion they suffer
> MD> when attempting to understand Islam and the Middle East.
>
> Can you explain a little more this point?. Where is that confusion?

I think we see the confusion in rather desperate attempts to
distinguish and divorce a  "mainline" Islam from a "jihadi" Islam,
while forgetting the bloody history of European religion and its many
crusades and internal jihads. Either we recognize the whole phenomenon
of religion, or we choose an essentialist (in my view, illusory)
rendition of religious history by artificially deleting what we view
as "pseudo," "political," or "tribal."

Malcolm Dean
Los Angeles

Recent Lectures/Publications:
"Outline of Cognitive Thermodynamics," SCTPLS, August 5, 2005
"Cognitive Thermodynamics in Culture & Religion," SSSR, Oct 22, 2004
"General Theory of Cognitive Systems," UCLA CAG, May 13, 2004
http://www.com.washington.edu/rccs/bookinfo.asp?ReviewID=288&BookID=232