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

[Dan Lusthaus]

Joy,

> In his booklet Candide, Voltaire alludes to this anecdote, but has a Dutch
sailor walk over a crucifix.
[...]
> If that is the case, then this "rule" seems to want to filter out all
Christians, Catholics and Protestants undistinguishedly.

Voltaire has it right. As I mentioned, this "test" separated the Protestant
Dutch from the Catholics. Catholics refused to do it, the Dutch were
interested in commerce, not religious propogation, so they would gladly step
on a portrait of Mary or a crucifix in order to do business. They were
"secular" when it came to trade. They were also forbidden to proselytize -- 
which is still the case in most of the Islamic world, these days in India
(in some contorted forms), and elsewhere.

Christians generally extol the right to proselytize, but as anyone familiar
with the American Biblebelt can tell you, not only would someone going
door-to-door trying to get converts to Shiism be greeted with tremendous
hostility, in many places even trying to set up a Taijiquan school can run
afoul of neighborhoods who will employ zoning laws, etc., to drive them out
(I was involved in a court case in Florida along these lines). In Tennessee
a few years ago there was a big legal fight over whether a gift from Japan,
a big temple bell, should be prevented from being on display in a public
park, as a violation of the separation of Church and State -- Tennessee
being a state that would embrace school prayer, Ten Commandment displays in
the courthouse, and the site of the famous Scopes Monkey Trial where a
school teacher was convicted for teaching evolution back in 1925.

Dan Lusthaus