[Buddha-l] Check out The Right's Stupidity Spreads

[Richard Hayes]

On Feb 18, 2012, at 10:54 , sjziobro at cs.com wrote:

> Sure, look at the State under Mussolini, Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, etc.  The last I knew millions upon millions died under their respective enlightened and benevolent policies.

And how is that an answer to my observation that there is no guarantee that religious institutions will be enlightened and benevolent?

It seems to me that we can pretty safely conclude that when human beings are involved in setting up institutions, whether they be governments or religious institutions, there is not much reason to believe that the results are sure to be enlightened and benevolent. It really makes very little difference what people say they believe or why they say they believe it. If they are human beings, expect greed, hatred and delusion to be the norm. And if they are human beings claiming to be acting on the authority of a higher power, expect greed, hatred and delusion to be the norm, and to be deemed acceptable.

Yours in misanthropic secular humanism,
Richard Hayes