[Buddha-l] Bangladesh Muslim lovefest

[Richard Hayes]

On Oct 1, 2012, at 12:21 , Gad Horowitz <horowitz at CHASS.UTORONTO.CA> wrote:

> Very enlightening, Dr. Hayes.

Thank you, Gad. As I'm sure you realize, Quakers do not use titles such as Mister, Doctor or Professor. Plain Richard will do nicely.

> How do you square it with your relentless critiques of right wing follies of all kinds?

It seems to me that there is no harm in pointing out folly, so long as one does not personalize it by referring to those who manifest it as fools. That's the sort of thing Republicans do.

> Btw, we members of what a number of you humanists, Quakers, Unitarian-Universalists etc. you like to deride as "the chosen people" do not enjoy witticisms like "Mosaic Buddhism"

First of all, I have never derided anyone as "the chosen people," nor would I. Moreover, having spent a good deal of my time around Quakers and Unitarian-Universalists in Canada and the United States, I have never heard any of them making such a derision. Perhaps your experiences have been different. Secondly, I was not trying to be witty. I was trying to find a term that describes a particular manifestation of confusion, namely, that of conflating aspects of Mosaic law with the teachings of the Buddha. What name would you suggest for that particular form of confusion? I am open to suggestions.

Richard
P.S. For the benefit of those of you who have lost your sense of humor, there has been a running joke on buddha-l for the past twenty years that takes the form of decrying the practice of disdaining anyone and then in the next breath pretending to disdain Republicans. The joke has been running for so long that it is very tired. That notwithstanding, it seems a shame to abandon that sophomoric irony for a more sophisticated form of ironic discourse of the sort that one might find on, say, Facebook.