[Buddha-l] it's not about belief

[curt]

Richard P. Hayes wrote:

> On Fri, 2006-01-06 at 12:00 -0500, Curt Steinmetz wrote:
>
>  
>
>> Also I take strong exception to any comparison of anything to I have
>> said to Nazism, neo or otherwise.
>>   
>
>
> If that is the case, then it would be wise to stop spouting the same
> sort of careless and essentially negative rhetoric that made the Nazis
> famous.
>

Maybe a little historical background would be helpful. Richard is 
referring to the fact there was once an intellectual movement known as 
"Romanticism". These folks tended to think very highly of both classical 
civilization and eastern religions. But the movement also harbored a 
darker reactionary side - that was largely in response to what were seen 
as the excesses of the French Revolution. Richard's logic seems to go 
something like this - anything that reminds him of what little he knows 
about "Romanticism" he automatically associates with those politically 
reactionary movements that eventually spawned the Nazi party. But that 
would be like me saying that everyone named Richard reminds me of 
Richard Wagner, whom Hitler greatly admired and therefore Richard Hayes 
reminds me of a Nazi -and he should change his name so that reminding 
people of a Nazi.

Seriously, Richard, do you honestly expect anyone to believe that you 
are so brain addled that you are incapable of telling the difference 
between someone who simply admires the accomplishments of Classical 
civilization and Eastern Religions, on the one hand, and someone who 
admires Adolf Hitler, on the other hand?

As far as my personal "ideology" goes, I think that the excesses of the 
French Revolution were among its greatest achievements. There's nothing 
like a little regicide to shake things up. Death to Tyrants, and all 
that. Liberty, Equality, Fraternity! The other night I was watching 
Renoir's "Grand Illusion" - what a great film! There is this wonderful 
scene where all the French prisoners taunt the Germans by singing the 
Marseillaise. I prefer the "Internationale" personally - but the 
Marseillaise is great, too.

>
> I think I disagree only with (1). But your position (1) is irrelevant to
> the point that was made at the outset of this discussion, which is that
> in every human culture there is a strong, even dominant, tendency to
> enshrine beliefs that do not have the support of evidence.

Wrong. My original point was that prior to Christianity, "Divinity" was 
assumed to be "self-evident" by all other Religions. The point doesn't 
rest on whether or not this assumption is true - only that this 
assumption was in effect in pre-Christian Religions. In Julian's words 
"It is not by teaching, but by nature, that humanity possesses its 
knowledge of the Divine, as can be shown by the common yearning for the 
divine that exists in everyone, everywhere - individuals, communities 
and nations. Without having it taught us, all of us have come to believe 
in some sort of divinity...." Again - the most important thing, for this 
discussion, isn't whether Julian is right or wrong - but simply the fact 
that he is evincing a completely different approach to Religion from 
that of the Christians. This approach is based on the assumption that 
Religion is "natural" to humans beings. According to that view, this 
natural tendency can be improved by "teaching" - but its essence exists 
prior to any "teaching". Christians believe that we are born without 
"grace" and that this is only attainable from .... well, exactly how 
this grace comes to us gets very fuzzy very fast - but they agree that 
we don't have it "by nature".

> That is for
> me the more interesting issue. Intolerance is merely one of the many
> ways that dogmatic faith can manifest itself. (Indeed, as you have tried
> to argue in previous discussions, dogmatic faith can almost manifest
> itself as pacifism and tolerance.) Clearly dogmatic belief is not as
> interesting to you as intolerance is, as one can see by the fact that
> you changed the name of the thread to "it's not about belief." (On this
> we disagree on our focal point. To me, most of avoidable and unnecessary
> human misery IS about belief.)
>  
>
As far as what I think is more important or less important goes - I 
think it is very important how many people have actually been tortured 
to death by a given Religion. On the other hand, I think that only 
literalists need to get overly worked up about violent imagery that 
appears in Mythological stories (whether they are in Hebrew or Greek or 
Sanskrit or whatever). And what one person scoffingly dismisses as 
"dogmatic beliefs" is, to someone else (me, for example), possibly a 
mixture of interesting speculations that one is free to make of what one 
pleases. Reading about, or hearing about, other people's crazy ideas 
about Life, the Universe and Everything can be very entertaining and 
also quite liberating.

- Curt