[Buddha-l] Moralistic Therapeutic Buddhism?

[Michael LaTorra]

Benito Carral <bcarral at kungzhi.org> wrote:
> So if one wants to take some Buddhist techniques out
> of  context  and use them for making easier his life in
> Samsara,  that's  OK for me, but it's not fair nor wise
> to call it "Buddhism." Buddhism is not a kind of Prozac
> for making easier our samsaric existence.


Benito's statement reminds me of the issue now roiling the American Christian 
community. A recent study found that most adolescent Christians (and probably 
many of their parents) neither know nor care about the particular doctrines of 
their Christian denomination or of Christianity in general. Rather, they 
believe -- or want to believe -- in something less stringent and, dare I say, 
less filled with highly implausible dogmas.

Below is the opening couple of paragraphs from one article on this topic, 
along with the URL/link to the entire piece.


"Moralistic Therapeutic Deism--the New American Religion 
http://tinyurl.com/cy9yt
Monday, Apr. 18, 2005

"When Christian Smith and his fellow researchers with the National Study of 
Youth and Religion at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill took a 
close look at the religious beliefs held by American teenagers, they found 
that the faith held and described by most adolescents came down to something 
the researchers identified as "Moralistic Therapeutic Deism." 

"As described by Smith and his team, Moralistic Therapeutic Deism consists of 
beliefs like these: 1. "A god exists who created and ordered the world and 
watches over human life on earth." 2. "God wants people to be good, nice, and 
fair to each other, as taught in the Bible and by most world religions." 
3. "The central goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about oneself." 
4. "God does not need to be particularly involved in one's life except when 
God is needed to resolve a problem." 5. "Good people go to heaven when they 
die."

"That, in sum, is the creed to which much adolescent faith can be reduced. 
After conducting more than 3,000 interviews with American adolescents, the 
researchers reported that, when it came to the most crucial questions of faith 
and beliefs, many adolescents responded with a shrug and "whatever." ....
 




Regards,

Michael LaTorra

mlatorra at nmsu.edu

Department of English
New Mexico State University
MSC 3E
PO Box 30001
Las Cruces, NM 88003