[Buddha-l] Buddhism and blasphemy

[Richard P. Hayes]

On Wed, 2006-02-08 at 09:22 -0700, Jim Peavler wrote:

> On Feb 8, 2006, at 8:25 AM, Benito Carral wrote:
> >
> >    It  all  depends  on  the kind of joke. But when the
> > laugh   is   always   at   the   expense  of  the  same
> > underrepresented  group,  I  don't  tend  to  join  the
> > chorus.
> 
> Underrepresented? You are talking about the most powerful political  
> organization (or any other kind of organization) in the world, fer  
> crissake!!

According to the most recent statistics I have seen, Republicans make up
52% of the adult population of the USA, and Buddhists make up about
0.5%. That means there are approximately 104 Republicans for every
Buddhist in the USA. And I'd guess, offhand, that if power could be
quantified, the Republicans would have about 10008 times as much
political and economic clout as the Buddhists. In just about every
society in the world, people who are relatively powerless resort to
humor and ridicule to express their dissatisfaction with the status quo,
since to express discontent in any other way would be fatal.

Given all that, I would say that Buddhists certainly have a moral right,
and arguably even a moral obligation, to make fun of Republicans at
every possible opportunity. The laughs ought to be at the expense of the
overly powerful. So as moderator of buddha-l, I encourage all
contributors (especially Buddhists, to make jokes about Republicans as
expensive as possible. 

In the past I have been very patient. I have allowed several messages go
through that did not even mention the Republicans, let alone take a
cheap shot at them, or skillfully
point out that their immorality is exceeded only by their bumbling
stupidity. My patience is wearing thin, however, and it could well be
that in the future I will not all any messages to be posted that do not
make an explicit link between being a sincere practicing Buddhist and
not being a Republican. 

Lest I be accused of partisanship, please note that I do not have
anything against the Republicans in particular. On the contrary, I am
ready to ridicule ANY incompetent fool who makes the mistake of becoming
the most powerful political force in the human universe.

Thanks to Joy who has pointed out that blasphemy is reviling God. Being
an atheist, I have never been guilty of reviling God. But I do have a
small doubt. If someone were to think that he was God, would it be
blasphemy to revile him. I just wanted to clear this up, just in case
someone starts showing any of the symptoms. 

-- 
Richard