[Buddha-l] Dangerous religious literature?

[curt]

Back in the day, the British Authorities suspected that Sri Aurobindo's 
writings on "karma yoga" were intended to encourage people to join the 
independence movement and fight (with arms) against the British colonial 
administration. They (the Brits) were probably right, as a matter of fact.
Curt Steinmetz

Richard Hayes wrote:
> Dear denizens,
>
> Another interesting article in the New York Times that caught my eye recently 
> was about a policy to clear US prison libraries of potentially dangerous 
> religious literature. Apparently this whole thing got started shortly after 
> the 2001 celebration of my daughter's birthday on September 11. Something 
> happened that day that alarmed American prison authorities into thinking that 
> Muslims might become dangerous radicals if allowed to read some Muslim 
> writings while in prison.
>
> Not wanting to appear as if they were singling out Muslims for special 
> censorship, the prison authorities decided to set up lists of up to 150 books 
> from each of 20 religious traditions that prisoners are allowed to read. (The 
> Napoleonic Code comes to America at last! Everything that is not expressly 
> declared to be legal is illegal.) All books NOT on the allowed list must be 
> removed from prison libraries.
>
> The NY Times article reports that many authorities feel the selection of 
> allowed books in their particular religious tradition is strangely skewed. 
> The 150 Christian books, for example, include no writings by church fathers 
> or traditional Catholic theologians, many Calvinist books and even more 
> non-denominational evangelical Protestant books; it sounds as though 
> Lutherans, Baptists, Methodists and Anglicans need not apply. Perhaps The 
> Rapture is regarded as the only "get out of jail free" card.
>
> I am not sure which books Buddhists are allowed to read. If anyone feels like 
> doing a bit of Googling (or Ask-ing or AstaVista-ing or HotBot-ing), it would 
> be fun to get collectively alarmed and outraged about the selection of 
> Buddhist books that US prisoners are allowed to read. (Lots of Lama Surya Das 
> and Bhagwan Rajneesh? Or maybe the prison authorities watched Jack Nicholson 
> in "The Last Detail" and have chosen lots of Soka Gakkai literature.)
>
> Question for extra credit. Is it actually required, or simply very helpful, to 
> be uncommonly stupid before being allowed to make policies for prison 
> libraries?
>
> Still on the outside looking in,
> Richard Hayes
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