[Buddha-l] NYTimes.com: Let Us Pray for Wealth

[Richard Hayes]

On Wednesday 07 November 2007 01:34, Dan Lusthaus wrote:

> And this is where we differ. There are too many dots, in too great a
> density, at the periphery of the green areas -- and within them -- to
> reasonably attribute this all to "coincidence."

I'm afraid you're going to have to spell out your conclusion for me. What I 
see when I look at the two maps is that there tends to be quite a bit of 
overlap between politically troubled regions of the earth and places that 
have been designated as areas that should be dominated by the United States 
on the Project for a New American Century website. So if your conclusion is 
that it is no coincidence that there is trouble wherever people who describe 
themselves as American imperialists are trying to increase their influence, 
then we agree. If you are trying to suggest some other conclusions, then we 
may not agree. So please let us know how you would describe the patterns as 
you see them.
 
> How many 9/11s in the last ten years can you name that were
> perpetrated by Buddhists?

How many 9/11s in the last ten years have there been. One. From a single 
instance, one cannot draw any general conclusions.

There was quite a good program on the CBC radio program Ideas in which a 
scholar who has spent the past decade or so studying websites promoting 
violence. He has also studied a large number of other al-Qa'eda literature. 
The main pattern he has detected is that people drawn to fantasies and plans 
of violent attacks in Western countries are young adults with professional 
educations who have very little interest in religious practice and who are 
second or third generation descendants of immigrants from the Middle East. 
These people, he reports, tend to be driven not by either religious or 
political fanaticism but by a perception that they are living in societies in 
which they are not fully accepted. 

> But let's put aside the (very real) threat that Islam today poses to the
> nonMuslim world.

No, let's not put that aside. Your principal delusion is that it is Islam that 
poses the threat. The biggest threat facing the world today is environmental 
degradation being caused by human beings consuming far more than the planet 
can provide. A close second is an apparently unstoppable willingness of 
countries to use military actions, and threats of military actions, to 
further their own selfish ends. The biggest single threat to world peace and 
stability today, and the biggest single contributor to environmental 
degradation, is the United States of America. That the United States of 
America has chosen to do most of its unconscionable meddling in areas of the 
world that happen to be populated by Muslims makes it very easy for American 
imperialists to blame Islam for being the main problem. To fall into the trap 
of demonizing Islam as the source of the danger is to manifest one's folly. 
These days folly does not come cheap. It destroys planets. It will soon be 
destroying a planet near you.

-- 
Richard Hayes
Department of Philosophy
University of New Mexico