[Buddha-l] it's not about belief

[Richard P. Hayes]

On Wed, 2006-01-04 at 08:11 -0500, Stanley J. Ziobro II wrote:

> The Gospels are immediately placed under a hermeneutic of suspicion
> because they are accepted by a faith community

The "hermeneutics of suspicion" of Paul Ricoeur was meant to liberate
communities from the self-deception involved in editing and interpreting
texts in a way that serves the powerful at the expense of the weak. It
is not so much that the gospels themselves are immediately placed under
a hermeneutics of suspicion, but that one should be suspicious of
interpretations of the gospels that serve the interests of power
structures (such as, oh, the Catholic Church and various Eastern
Orthodox churches). Used properly, the hermeneutics of suspicion can,
among other things, help recover the teachings of a Jesus who emphasized
service to the poor, the weak and the disenfranchised.

It goes without saying that a hermeneutics of suspicion could (and
should) also be applied to interpretations of Buddhist texts that favor
the interests of imperialistic states, big business, corporate
capitalism, economic globalization, the military and so forth.

> By these standards one could doubt the existence of Socrates, Hui
> Neng, and other luminaries.

Yes, one could doubt their existence. One could also reasonably doubt
the existence of the Buddha. And no harm would come of it at all,
because the emphasis on the study of the Buddha is the message
attributed to him, not the messenger himself. It is the message that
stands or falls on its own merits; the source makes no difference
whatsoever. As Nagasena pointed out to Milinda, who asked for proof that
the Buddha existed, the four noble truths and the precepts and rules of
the monastic order all undeniably exist. They are not eternal, so
somebody must have created them. Whoever it was who articulated the
Dharma (whether one person or a committee of editors) can conventionally
be called by a name, say, the Buddha Gotama. 

Exactly the same could be said of Socrates. Did he really exist, or was
he a fictitious character invented by Plato? Doesn't matter; what
matters is the method of dialogical inquiry exemplified in the dialogues
in which Socrates was a character. The same sort of thing could be said
of Huineng.

The same COULD be said of Jesus, were it not for the fact that so many
generations of Christians have neglected the man's message and placed
emphasis instead on the historicity of his death. If the Qur'an, or any
number of gnostic teachings, were correct in saying that Jesus did not
die on the cross but that someone who resembled him died and was
mistakenly identified as Jesus, then all Nicene-based Christianity is in
deep trouble. Christianity without a dead and resurrected Christ is just
another one of the many philosophical guilds based on the reported words
of a real or fictitious man who said quite a few pretty good things. 

To insist on the historicity of the Christ myth as invented by the
demented Paul is to invite perfectly reasonable criticisms and inquiry.
And when that inquiry takes place, as it has done repeatedly throughout
history, the results of impartial inquiry may not please the leaders of
powerful institutions based on the shaky foundations of pseudo-
historical narratives. 

-- 
Richard Hayes
Department of Philosophy
University of New Mexico