For those that didn't see Brit Hume's comment on Fox News Sunday, here it is:
Now I can understand Brit Hume's ignorance about Buddhism. Many people vilify Islam for being intolerant and then turn around and often say the same intolerant things except referring to Jesus instead of Allah. Frankly I could never understand Christianity's and Islam's obsession with religious conversions. They often seem like teenagers playing video games trying to score as many points as possible against each other when they should just turn the game off and go do their homework instead.
As far as the Christianity vs. Buddhism argument goes, the striking part is the similarity between the two faiths. As a result, there are many theories about how Jesus visited India and stayed in a Buddhist Monastery in Kashmir during his "missing years" from ages 12 to 29. Some believe Jesus did not travel to India but was influenced by Buddhist missionaries in the Middle East and ancient Greece that came west along the Silk Road. It is recorded that Alexander the Great encountered Buddhist monks and Hindu yoga masters, or Yogis, when he reached India. (The Greeks even had a name for the Yogis, "Gymnosophs", which means "Naked Philosopher" in Ancient Greek.) Emperor Ashoka of the Maurya Dynasty in northern India in the 3rd century BCE sent Buddhist missionaries across the then known world upon his conversion to Buddhism. The bottom line is Buddhist teachers had been in the Middle East and ancient Greece teaching meditation and spirituality for over 200 years before the birth of Christ. Some even theorize that Christianity was really a Middle Eastern adaptation of Buddhism but the message got lost along the way and offer the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas as its proof. On the flip side, if you ask most Buddhists about Jesus, they consider him to be an enlightened being, or a Buddha himself.
Regardless of whether or not you subscribe to any of these theories (remember, just like religion itself, these are just theories that cannot be proven or unproven) the point remains that Brit Hume, like most political commentators on the left and right, spoke from a position of ignorance about the topic on which he was speaking. That is the lesson that we all have to learn from this. You may not like someone else's religion or political ideology or sports team (I'm looking at you Yankee fans; I'm excited about the Mets signing Jason Bay!), but you cannot consider yourself an expert on your position unless you've heard the other positions and given them the consideration they deserve as you would expect them to give to you in hearing your point of view. Brit Hume was not debating someone in the discussion. He was simply giving his point of view based on his own biases and lack of understanding. We can jump off the deep end and criticize him but that misses the point and just leads to more misunderstanding.
My favorite quote (and last point) on this topic comes from Roy Sano, a Buddhist by birth that become a Methodist bishop later in life. "When I converted to Christianity I wondered how I could still be a Buddhist. As time goes by I now wonder how I can be a Christian and not be a Buddhist!" (Jim Willis, The Religion Book: The Encyclopedia of Places, Prophets, Saints, and Seers (Detroit: Visible Ink Press, 2004), p. 82)
On a lighter note, Asif Mandvi captured the Brit Hume incident nicely in this clip from last night's Daily Show:
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| The Temple of Hume | ||||
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Thank you for reading my post and watching the clips!
