Christianity vs. Buddhism: What Brit Hume Teaches Us About Ignorance Today

When I started writing this blog, I intended it to be about sports and politics but I knew that eventually I would end up writing about religion, as I did with my last post. Religion is a topic I've always been fascinated by both for its ability to generate positive emotions in people and for its all-too-often ability to generate hate and intolerance. Now, thanks to Brit Hume at Fox News, I can converge all three topics into one post.

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
http://www.thedailyshow.com/
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Crisis

Thank you for reading my post and watching the clips!

Religion: Necessary, Evil, or Necessary Evil?

A friend of mine recently wrote the following, with the comment that this is how he would explain monotheism to his son when he is old enough:

"Long long time ago, a smart man came up with a work of fiction. He claimed to write it on behalf of a ghost writer and tried to pass it off as non-fiction. The book was a major hit for a small group and thus a cult classic was born. The fans believed themselves to be privileged for only they understood the true message of the book. The book was left open ended with room for a sequel.

Much much later, one of the fan club members took it upon himself to provide a different analysis of the book which was not taken well by the hard core fans. The new writer even went as far as to cite the original ghost writer as a family member. The fan base labeled him a liar and then worked with the powers-that-be to see him off. His death spread word of his interpretation quickly and oddly enough, years after his death his executioners officially released the sequel, somewhat based on his interpretation but mostly with their own. They then took this book and forced it upon the rest of the world they set to conquer.

It wasn’t till long after that the trilogy emerged from a nearby part of the world through another writer, an illiterate one nonetheless, claiming to be a descendant of the original writer and a favorite student of the ghost writer himself. His triquel (?) incorporated elements of the first two books and modernized it for its time. This led to another revolution around the world.

The problem is that all of the fans of all three hate each other because they believe that their lie is more truthful even though they all cite the same fictional ghost writer."

If you look through an objective prism and do not subscribe to any of these three religious ideologies, you can actually see the accuracy of the passage. Unfortunately many people refuse to do that even though as sentient human beings they certainly have the capacity to do so. Therefore, they would see fit to hang someone that believes what my friend above believes even though their faith forbids the killing another human being.

Oddly enough, the day my friend sent me this writeup, I happened to be reading The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Families, where Stephen Covey writes the following:

"...studies have shown that religious involvement is a significant factor in mental and emotional health and stability, particularly when individuals are internally motivated. When they are extrinsically motivated-by public approval or conformity, for example-the religious context is not always benevolent. In fact, it sometimes nurtures a culture that is extremely strict and sets unrealistically high expectations, causing people who are emotionally vulnerable to experience even more emotional problems." (Stephen R. Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Families (New York: Golden Books Publishing Co., Inc., 1997), p. 300)

I'm not going to delve into the religion vs. atheism argument. Frankly, I don't know the answer let alone try to convince someone else that they must believe what I believe or vice versa. Religion is a very personal thing and if it gives people comfort and puts their mind at peace, I'm all for it. However, it becomes a whole other ballgame when one group tries to force its beliefs onto another group or a nation as a whole, such as the abortion debate.

There are moments that make me wonder what people are thinking. For example, a professional athlete accused of making anti-Semitic remarks once said, "I have nothings against Jews. My best friend is Jewish and his name is Jesus Christ." A part of me wants to go back and ask that same athlete today, "What did your best friend get you for your birthday last year because mine got me an iPod." Or the state politician in Arizona that once made a remark in a public hearing that the earth is only 5,000 years old. Ironically, the hearing was to grant a license to a uranium mining company. If you weren't aware, it was through measuring the radioactive decay of uranium that geologists and geophysicists were able to determine the earth to be 4.54 billion years old.

So, is religion necessary, evil, or a necessary evil? The answer is whatever you think it is, so long as you don't waste your time trying to convince anyone else they're wrong and you're right. I hate to seem like I'm copping out on this one after writing such a long post but this is really the clearest answer to the question.

Enough rambling by me. What do you think? Let me know. I'm curious to read about it. Thanks for reading!!

What the BCS Playoffs should look like...

I wrote a post in February that I revisited in October about what the BCS playoff system should look like. Well, based on my suggestions, here is what the 2009-2010 playoffs would look like:

#1 Alabama vs. #8 Georgia Tech (Orange Bowl)
#2 Texas vs. #7 Ohio State (Sugar Bowl)
#3 Cincinnati vs. #6 Oregon (Fiesta Bowl)
#4 TCU vs. #5 Boise State (Rose Bowl)

I realize that one of my alma maters, the Iowa Hawkeyes, would be eliminated from a BCS Bowl game, as would the Florida Gators. However, I said in my original post in February, only conference champs deserve a spot and at-large spots should only be awarded if there are less than 2 non-BCS conference teams in the top 10 in the final BCS standings. There are two again this year as well as two more in the top 25 overall (BYU at #14 and Utah at #23). It's hard to imagine with the number of January bowl games in addition to the BCS games that any of the non-conference champs would not get a prime bowl game. Iowa and Florida both controlled their own destiny and lost (the Hawkeyes' case, twice) so it's not unfair to bump them, especially considering both TCU and Boise State are unbeaten.

Oddly enough, the TCU-Boise State matchup would still take place in my system, albeit in Pasadena, CA rather than Glendale, AZ. In the current BCS system, I don't like those two teams playing each other because it's a slick way for the BCS to eliminate the issue of how mid-major teams stack up against the power conferences by having the two mid-major teams play each other. I would have preferred seeing TCU play Cincinnati and Boise State play Florida in the current system.

Thoughts? Comments? Please let me know. Thanks for reading!

NYT: India's Eternal Crisis

Column from Saturday's New York Times

"India may have been passive after the Mumbai attacks. But India has not launched wars against either abstract nouns or actual countries that it has no hope of winning or even disengaging from."

War against an abstract noun. How true!

Parker: The GOP's suicide pact

Washington Post columnist Kathleen Parker writes about the GOP's so-called "purity test". This is significant because it's usually when party members start calling out their own kind that progress eventually happens. Such was the case of the Democratic Party, which led to the creation of the moderate Democratic Leadership Council in the 1980's, whose most prominent members at the time were Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton and Tennessee Senator Al Gore (and we know they weren't in those two jobs for long after the creation of the DLC.)

I don't often support most Republican positions but that doesn't mean I never would and never will. Remember, this is the party that started as a movement for the abolition of slavery. In any democracy, there need to be many political parties and in our democracy specifically, there need to be two vibrant ones.

Conservatives of today have forgotten, much like the liberals of the 1970's did, that the purpose of a political party is to get its members elected however possible. If you cast a wide net, you may catch some fish that stink but if you like fish, they'll all be delicious when you put them in the pot together and cook them.

Frank: The Persecution of Sarah Palin - WSJ.com

A particularly funny line in Thomas Frank's column:

"The respect she [Palin] shows history, though, is the kind of respect you show the flag when you soak it in kerosene and touch a match to it."

NYT: The Senate’s Health Care Calculations

Is there anything Nate Silver does not analyze? He's quickly developing a reputation for himself as a person of focused objectivity.