[Buddha-l] Unpopular Buddhism

[Curt Steinmetz]

  Batchelor first began to reveal his New Dispensation in a talk he gave 
in 1997 at a conference in Boston, which he has published on his website 
under the title "Deep Agnosticism":
http://www.stephenbatchelor.org/deepagnosticism.htm

Wherein he claims that a westerner who attempts to believe in Buddhism 
is involved in "a denial of one's roots" & a "denial of one's cultural 
upbringing", which, according to Batchelor, "is not actually possible to 
sustain".

This is because westerners are deeply rational and, therefore, incapable 
of the kind of self-deception that comes naturally to the superstitious 
Asiatic mind, and which is necessary to believe in stuff like 
reincarnation and karma.

Batchelor continued to reveal his pseudo-Nietzschean Eurocentric 
bio-cultural determinism in his best-seller "Buddhism Without Beliefs" 
in 1998, followed up this year by his "Confessions of a Buddhist Atheist."

Curt

On 9/23/10 2:08 PM, JKirkpatrick wrote:
> ......a century before Stephen Batchelor announced that it was
> impossible for
> Westerners to "believe in" Buddhism.
>
> Where&  when did he do that? speech, book, article?
>
> JK
>
> ____________________
>
> We have to remember that the West lost her Buddhist virginity
> long
> before the 60's. Edwin Arnold's "Light of Asia" was a best-seller
> over a
> century before Stephen Batchelor announced that it was impossible
> for
> Westerners to "believe in" Buddhism.
>
> Curt
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> buddha-l mailing list
> buddha-l at mailman.swcp.com
> http://mailman.swcp.com/mailman/listinfo/buddha-l